Jacksonland: A Great American Land Grab (37 page)

boots and a jacket . . . broad-brimmed, flat-crowned planter’s hat
Woodward,
The Cherokees,
p. 157.

purchasing remote tracts in hopes
Moulton,
John Ross, Cherokee Chief,
pp. 21–22, 202.

“My grandfather, father and Auntie were bought by John Ross”
Miles,
Ties That Bind,
p. 85.

Ross wasn’t a true Indian, they charged
The state of Georgia study investigated Ross’s ancestry in 1831 and made this allegation. Moulton, John Ross, Cherokee Chief, pp. 46–47.

Ross himself was granted 640 acres
The treaty of 1819 ceded substantial land to the federal government, but allowed some Cherokee residents to keep their home plots, and also recognized properties claimed by various leading Cherokees, including “John Ross, six hundred and forty acres, to be laid off so as to include the Big Island in Tennessee river, being the first below Tellico.” Charles J. Kappler, ed., “
Treaty with the Cherokees, 1819,
”
in Kappler,
Indian Affairs: Laws and Treaties
, vol. 2,
Treaties, 1778–1883
, p. 178
.

Chapter
Six: I Am Fond of Hearing That There Is a Peace

had been driven by some calamity into the mountains
Woodward,
The Cherokees,
pp. 18–19.

“persons, customs, &c. are not singular”
Adair,
History of the American Indians,
p. 11.

population . . . may have been cut in half
Ibid., p. 232.

In 1711 the colonists of Charles Towne supplied guns to the Cherokees
Woodward,
The Cherokees,
p. 57.

“The Cherokees are of a middle stature”
King,
Memoirs of Lt. Henry Timberlake,
p. 24.

town house for public meetings
Woodward, The Cherokees, pp. 43–46.

“mixed aristocracy and democracy . . . ancient bards did in Britain”
King
, Memoirs of Lt. Henry Timberlake
,
p. 36.

T
he chief encountered four strange men of an unknown tribe
The story is reported in the
Cherokee Phoenix
, November 26, 1828, pp. 3–4.

“Their alliance with the French seems equal”
King,
Memoirs of Lt. Henry Timberlake,
p. 37.

only other Indians could defeat them. He urged Virginia
Ellis,
His Excellency,
p. 25.

“We shall push our trading houses”
Jefferson to William Henry Harrison, February 27, 1803, Prucha,
Documents of United States Indian Policy,
p. 22.

“the wisdom of exchanging what they can spare”
Thomas Jefferson’s message on Indian trade, January 18, 1803, ibid., p. 21.

“incorporate with us as citizens of the United States”
Jefferson to William Henry Harrison, February 27, 1803, ibid., p. 22.

“conjure men”
Author interview with Freeman Owle, Cherokee, NC, June 21, 2014.

he joined a church in 1829
Moulton,
John Ross, Cherokee Chief,
p. 7

Charles Hicks was providing Ross with tutorials on tribal history
Ibid., p. 31.

“warwomen . . . as famous in war, as powerful in the council”
King,
Memoirs of Lt. Henry Timberlake.
p. 36.

“I am fond of hearing that there is a Peace”
Gazette of the United States
, July 25, 1789, p. 1.

“beloved woman”
Mooney,
Myths of the Cherokee,
p. 204.

program altered the status of some women, and certainly the elites
Scholars debate how widely these cultural changes spread beyond the elites. Perdue,
Cherokee Women
, p. 10.

customs of inheritance . . . seemed problematic
McLoughlin,
Cherokee Renascence in the New Republic,
pp. 294–95.

“white or striped homespun”
Duncan,
Cherokee Clothing in the 1700’s,
chap. 12.

“I can only say that their domestic cloths are preferred by us”
Ibid.

“The Good Woman,” who according to a modern scholar were men
Names from transcript of Cherokee Muster Roll, Horseshoe Bend National Military Park. The modern scholar is Dr. Susan Abram, author of a forthcoming book on the Creek War. Sue Abram, in correspondence, December 1, 2014.

Chapter Seven: Every Thing That Was Dear to Me

Many were poor, proud, and seeking to make a slightly better living
They sought “material betterment,” and in some cases “famine and starvation” were among their motivations for leaving. Fischer,
Albion’s Seed,
p. 611.

“hoosiers,” or rough backwoodsmen
This definition may surprise those who know “Hoosier” as a name for people from Indiana. David Hackett Fischer reports that “hoosier,” like “cracker” and “redneck,” was a widely used term for the “backcountry underclass,” and that it originated in northern Britain, from where the backwoodsmen’s ancestors came.
Albion’s Seed,
pp. 756–58. Today “hoosier” is still sometimes used in St. Louis as a term for a low-class or disreputable person, but Indiana people took ownership of the word, turning it into a term of pride so long ago that very few in the state today can explain the word’s meaning or origin.

68 “The features and shape of [the] head of General Jackson”
Parton,
Life of Andrew Jackson
, vol. 1
,
pp. 47–48.

“tough, vehement, good-hearted race . . . natural element of some of them”
Ibid.
,
p. 33.

“I was born for a storm,” Jackson once said, “and calm does not suit me.”
Meacham,
American Lion,
p. ix.

she essentially became the housekeeper
Parton,
Life of Andrew Jackson
, vol. 1,
p. 58.

declared that he was a prisoner of war
Eaton and Reid,
Life of Andrew Jackson,
pp. 16–17.

“The sword point reached my head . . . durable as the scull”
Jackson to Amos Kendall, undated, Owsley et al.,
Papers of Andrew Jackson
,
vol. 1,
p. 9.

“the struggle for our liberties, in which I lost every thing that was dear to me”
Remini,
Andrew Jackson and the Course of American Empire
, vol. 1,
p. 173.

smashing their glasses and the furniture of the tavern
Parton,
Life of Andrew Jackon,
vol. 1, p. 108.

“Andrew Jackson Esquire” took possession of “a Negro Woman named Nancy”
Washington County Court, November 17, 1788, Remini,
Andrew Jackson and the Course of American Empire
,
vol. 1, p. 15.

“When a man’s feelings and charector are injured”
To Waightstill Avery, August 12, 1788,
ibid.,
p. 12.

both men firing in the air
Ibid., p. 39.

he lived with Rachel in a two-story log house
The house, later cut down to a single floor, remains today on the Hermitage grounds behind the mansion the Jacksons built after 1819.

dry goods store and riverside boatyard . . . tavern and a racetrack
Remini,
Andrew Jackson and the Course of American Empire
,
vol. 1,
p. 132.

Jackson let the other man shoot first
A detailed account of the duel is in Parton, Life of Andrew Jackson, vol. 1, pp. 289–306.

together with Rachel for years before she completed her divorce
Remini,
Andrew Jackson and the Course of American Empire
,
vol. 1, pp. 61–66.

husband and wife
from 1790 or 1791 onward
Though Andrew maintained that he married Rachel in 1791, not realizing her divorce was incomplete, biographer Robert Remini finds evidence that they were together from 1790 onward, and finds no proof they married at that time. Ibid.
,
pp. 63–67.

They had to be remarried in 1794 to clear up doubts
A bond affirming the legitimacy of the second marriage is in Owsley et al.,
Papers of Andrew Jackson
, vol. 1,
p. 428.

Jackson’s slave trading
Remini,
Andrew Jackson and the Course of American Empire
,
reports Jackson trading and transporting slaves between Nashville and Natchez, vol. 1, pp. 50, 133. Parton,
Life of Andrew Jackson,
recounts one of Jackson’s quarrels,
which broke out on the Natchez Trace while Jackson was “deputed to take a number of negroes to the lower country for sale,” vol. 1, pp. 354.

to support his personal land speculation
Remini,
Andrew Jackson and the Course of American Empire
, vol. 1,
p. 51.

the two men talked for days and Jackson sold boats
Parton, Life of Andrew Jackson, vol. 1, pp. 316–17.

Part Three: Old Hickory, 1815–1818
Chapter Eight: Address Their Fears and Indulge Their Avarice

291 redcoats killed
All Battle of New Orleans numbers according to the U.S. Army Center for Military History.

“some pretext or color of fraud about you”
Coffee to Jackson, December 27, 1815, Jackson, Andrew Jackson Papers, 1775–1874, reel 20.

“It is evidence of such wanton wickedness . . . such a man”
Jackson to Coffee, February 2, 1816, Owsley et al., Papers of Andrew Jackson, vol. 4, p. 7.

Each . . . blamed the other”
Coffee to Jackson, December 27, 1815, Jackson, Andrew Jackson Papers, 1775–1874, reel 20.

“receiver of Publick money”
Jackson to Coffee, February 2, 1816, Owsley et al., Papers of Andrew Jackson, vol. 4, p. 7.

“
We have succeeded
 . . . establishment for your old age”
Arthur Peronneau Hayne to Jackson, August 5, 1817, Owsley et al.,
Papers of Andrew Jackson
, vol. 4,
pp. 130–31.

shallows known as Muscle Shoals, forty miles that were perilous
Today submerged beneath a reservoir, the nineteenth-century shoals are so described in Dupre, “Ambivalent Capitalists on the Cotton Frontier.”

“The water being high made a terrible roaring . . . . in danger of striking”
From Donelson’s journal, reprinted “entire” in Ramsey,
Annals of Tennessee to the Eighteenth Century,
p. 200.

“ever kind of rapine & murder on our women & children”
Jackson to John Coffee, February 13, 1816, Owsley et al.,
Papers of Andrew Jackson
, vol. 4,
p. 11.

Tennessee militiamen moved south and burned the village
Haywood,
Civil and Political History of the State of Tennessee,
pp. 231–33.

Local lore held that Melton was a river pirate
This story is related in Royall,
Letters from Alabama,
p. 59.

In 1783 a North Carolina land company
Moore,
History of Alabama,
p. 103; Chappell, “Some Patterns of Land Speculation in the Old Southwest,” p. 463.

A second effort to capture land around Muscle Shoals
A map of the Tennessee Company’s target real estate can be found in Treat,
National Land System, 1785–1820,
p. 348.

From 1789 onward Jackson traveled this road to and from Natchez
The important Spanish-controlled city on the Mississippi River above New Orleans. Remini,
Andrew Jackson and the Course of American Empire,
p. 55.

“three thousand dollars in valuable merchandise”
Charles J. Kappler, ed., “Treaty with the Cherokee, October 25, 1805,” in
Indian Affairs: Laws and Treaties
, vol. 2,
Treaties, 1778–1883,
pp. 82–83
.

Doublehead . . . was renting that land to farmers
Wilkins,
Cherokee Tragedy,
pp. 35–36.

murdered him in 1807
Ibid.
,
pp. 36–38.

Jackson was involved in a deal for eighty-five thousand acres that fell apart
Remini,
Andrew Jackson and the Course of American Empire
, vol. 1,
pp. 129–30.

“Do you progress with the line”
Jackson to Coffee, February 13, 1816, Owsley et al.,
Papers of Andrew Jackson
,
vol. 4,
p. 11.

“25 mounted gunmen as a guard . . . in the Creek country”
Jackson to Coffee, February 13, 1816, ibid. Also Coffee, journal entry, February 16, 1816, Dyas Collection—John Coffee Papers.

“immediate punishment”
Jackson to George Colbert, February 13, 1816, Owsley et al.,
Papers of Andrew Jackson
, vol. 4,
p. 11.

“I would be glad to be informed”
Coffee to Jackson, December 27, 1815,
Andrew Jackson Papers, 1775–1874,
reel 20.

Chapter Nine: Men of Cultivated Understandings

“the Burnt Buildings . . . red morocko pocket Book”
William Riley of Washington County, MD, scrawled language for an ad in the
National Intelligencer
on December 23, 1814. Gales and Seaton Papers.

signed his name instead of making a mark
One such letter is that of the Cherokee delegation to George Graham of the War Department on March 4, 1816; Ross signed his name, while the document shows the Cherokee leaders George Lowrey, John Walker, the Ridge, and Cheucunsenee made a mark. Moulton,
Papers of Chief John Ross
, vol. 1,
pp. 24–25.