My ancestors fought alongside Andrew Jackson before he became president. They didn’t know that Jackson & his business partner Gen. John Coffee had been illegally engaged in secretive Native land speculation since the 1790s. When Jackson was an attorney in TN, he ...

2/ Jackson regularly accepted land titles in place of attorney fees. In 1805 he speculated Chickasaw land in the Duck River area where my ancestors lived & operated a ferry. Jackson would buy up vast amounts of Indian land (illegally) & sell it for a profit to settlers back East

3/ along w/ his brothers in law Hugh White & John Overton, Jackson also engaged in the “Huntsville Scheme” of 1810-11, using his political connections & insider information to vastly increase his own wealth.

4/ Jackson would regularly buy up Indian land while he was a general on tour and at war. He used his insider knowledge to buy up land & later would negotiate that land to end up in USA territory to his advantage.

5/ Jackson had his associate John Coffee conduct (illegal and inaccurate) land surveys of Native territory so that they could use this information against tribes in negotiations. They did this to set the southeastern tribes against one another. Divide and conquer.

6/ When Jackson met with my ancestors in 1816 to negotiate a new treaty, he threatened Chickasaw nation with military force & violent removal. He refused to pay treaty-based annuities agreed to by Chickasaw nation & the USA to strong arm the new negotiations.

7/ In 1816, Jackson was buying up Creek lands in Alabama for himself and his plantation owning friends & Chickasaw lands in TN & KY. He justified this to President Monroe to “assure the safety of commerce on the Ohio & Mississippi” Thousands of settlers had already moved in.

8/ Many folks don’t know that Jackson was a merchant & competitor of Doublehead, the Cherokee leader. Chickasaw, Mvskogee, & Cherokee hunters/ tradesmen didn’t prefer Jackson’s stores & this undoubtedly affected his politics.

9/ In 1814, Gen. Jackson orchestrated the treaty w/ Creek nation at Ft. Jackson. He forced them to surrender 22 mil acres of land & intentionally left the north & western boundaries unspecified. He used this to his own advantage & surveyed & speculated lands w/o permission.

10/ when my ancestors found out that Coffee & Jackson we’re illegally speculating their land, Jackson threatened the total destruction of Chickasaw nation if they interfered w/ his plans. (Letter from Jackson to George Colbert Feb 13, 1816)

11/ in 1818, Jackson again tried to force Chickasaw nation to sell more land, but my ancestors refused. In response, Jackson wrote, “these are high-toned sentiments for an Indian, & they must be taught to know they do not possess sovereignty, with the right of domain”

12/ Jackson also adopted at least two Native children that he orphaned during the Red Sticks War. He enslaved hundreds of African descendants & censored abolitionist publications across the South.

13/ He had a direct financial interest in all of the lands from which he forced Natives. His Indian Removal Act barely passed the House, it was overwhelming supported by pro-enslavement senators & representatives.

14/ During forced removal, thousands of Southeastern Indians died en route to Indian Territory (later Oklahoma). Natives froze, starved, drowned in steam boat accidents. During this time Jackson frequently intervened to make things more difficult for Natives.

15/ During the Seminole War, Jackson ordered his men to engage in scorched earth tactics, burning crops, raping Native women, taking children hostage, and using war dogs to attack Indians. He bragged to his wife about the diseased & starving Indians he left to die.

16/ During the same war, he ordered a ship to open fire on what he called “Negro Fort” & killed 270 men, women, and children seeking refuge there in the process, many of whom were escaped enslaved people.

17/ when the SCOTUS ruled in Worcester v. Georgia that the state had illegally seized Cherokee lands, Pres. Jackson famously ignored the ruling and mocked Chief Justice John Marshall staring, “let him enforce [the ruling]”.

All of which to say, this monster absolutely deserves no statues or dollar bills in his honor. The “history” Americans are taught, couple w/ his statues & prominent place on the $20, only indicates what this country was truly founded upon.