Andrew Jackson

Andrew Jackson was an American soldier and statesman. He served as the seventh president of the United States from 1829 to 1837. Before being elected to the presidency, Jackson gained fame as a general in the U.S. Army. His presidency marked the beginning of the ascendancy of the party “spoils system” in American politics.

About Andrew Jackson in brief

Summary Andrew JacksonAndrew Jackson was an American soldier and statesman. He served as the seventh president of the United States from 1829 to 1837. Before being elected to the presidency, Jackson gained fame as a general in the U.S. Army. His presidency marked the beginning of the ascendancy of the party “spoils system” in American politics. Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act, which forcibly relocated most members of the Native American tribes in the South to Indian Territory. In 1835, Jackson became the only president to completely pay off the national debt, fulfilling a longtime goal. His reputation has suffered since the 1970s, largely due to his role in Native American removal. His parents were Scots-Irish colonists from Antrim, North Carolina, and his wife Elizabeth Hutchinson, who had emigrated from Ulster, Ireland, two years earlier. The family lived in the Waxhaws region of the Carolinas before moving to the Appalachian Mountains in 1738. The Jackson’s parents brought two children from Ireland, Hugh and Robert, to North America in 1765, when they immigrated to Waxhawes, South Carolina. The parents probably traveled overland through the Appalachian Mountain Mountains to the South, before straddling the border between North Carolina and Antrim County. The couple had two children, Hugh Hugh Jackson and Robert Robert Jackson, who were born in 1767 and died in 1838, respectively. The father and mother were Presbyterians, from Carrick, North Carolinas, and the mother was a Scotch-Irish woman.

The children were raised by their father in the village of Boney, near the North Carolina-South Carolina border, until the age of five, when the family moved to North Carolina to live with their mother in the town of WaxhAWS. Jackson was a member of the Tennessee Supreme Court from 1798 until 1804, and served as a colonel in the Tennessee militia. He was elected its commander the following year. He led troops during the Creek War of 1813–1814, winning the Battle of Horseshoe Bend. The subsequent Treaty of Fort Jackson required the Creek surrender of vast lands in present-day Alabama and Georgia. Jackson then led U. S. forces in the First Seminole War, which led to the annexation of Florida from Spain. Jackson briefly served as Florida’s first territorial governor before returning to the Senate. He ran for president in 1824, winning a plurality of the popular and electoral vote. Jackson ran again in 1828, defeating Adams in a landslide. He opposed the abolitionist movement, which grew stronger in his second term. In foreign affairs, Jackson’s administration concluded a treaty with Great Britain, settled claims of damages against France from the Napoleonic Wars, and recognized the Republic of Texas. In his retirement, Jackson remained active in Democratic Party politics, supporting the presidencies of Martin Van Buren and James K. Polk, though fearful of its effects on the slavery debate, Jackson advocated the annexationof Texas shortly before his death.