Jacksonland: A Great American Land Grab (38 page)

“These Indians are men of cultivated understandings”
From
National Intelligencer,
reprinted in
Niles’ Weekly Register
, March 2, 1816, vol. 10, p. 16.

“Brother . . . we hope you will no longer delay”
Ross to William H. Crawford, March 12, 1816, Moulton,
Papers of Chief John Ross
, vol. 1,
p. 27.

“During the late war”
Ibid.

“Beginning at a point where Vann’s old Store”
Cherokee delegation to George Graham,
ibid.,
p. 24.

Crawford and President James Madison approved a treaty
Wilkins,
Cherokee Tragedy,
pp. 91–92.

home with silver-plated rifles
Apparently of the three rifles, one was intended for the Whale, who first swam the Tallapoosa, but the rifle never reached him. He was awarded a replica, decades later, that included “a plate-likeness of General Jackson.” “Restoration of a Rifle to a Cherokee Warrior,”
Harrisburg Democratic Union
, September 6, 1843, p. 1.

“The idea of resisting the authority of the government”
Crawford to Jackson, July 1, 1816, Owsley et al.,
Papers of Andrew Jackson
, vol. 4,
pp. 48–49.

“
Tennesseeans . . . are recorded as the worst sort of robbers”
Jackson to Crawford, June 16, 1816, ibid.,
p. 45
.

“the risk of being murdered at every wigwam . . . value of the land”
“Remonstrance Against the Treaty,” undated among papers from 1816, American State Papers,
Indian Affairs, 1815–1827,
pp. 89–91.

“extra service of the most unpleasant nature”
Jackson to Crawford, November 12, 1816, ibid.
,
p. 117.

a warning that their nation might be destroyed
Wilkins, Cherokee Tragedy, pp. 93–94.

“some small presents to the fifteen chiefs that attended here
” Jackson to Coffee, September 19, 1816
,
Owsley et al.,
Papers of Andrew Jackson
, vol. 4,
p. 63.

90 George Guess or Sequoyah
:
His signature is on “Treaty with the Cherokee, September 14, 1816,” Kappler, ed., Indian Affairs: Laws and Treaties, p. 133.

The Cherokees succeeded in retaining
Wilkins,
Cherokee Tragedy,
p. 94.

Chapter Ten: Let Me See You as I Pass

“I know of no situation combining so many advantages”
Jackson to Crawford, November 12, 1816, American State Papers,
Indian Affairs, 1815–1927,
p. 117.

“I am so deeply impressed”
Jackson to Monroe, November 12, 1816. Owsley et al.,
Papers of Andrew Jackson
, vol. 4,
pp. 73–74.

Coffee would be an excellent choice
Ibid.

“I wrote to Genl Parker”
Jackson to Coffee, December 26, 1816,
ibid.,
p. 77.

“white with cotton and alive with negroes”
Royall, Letters from Alabama.

southern planters generally needed to sell cotton for 10–15 cents a pound
Glaeser, “A Nation of Gamblers,” NBER Working Paper 18825, p. 13.

Cotton reached 32 cents . . . 35 cents
All price figures from Cole,
Wholesale Commodity Prices in the United States, 1700–1861
, chart, republished by Centers for International Price Research.

Tennessee Valley soil could produce far more pounds of cotton per acre
From 800 to 1,000 pounds per acre, compared with 300 pounds in the North Carolina uplands. Glaeser, “Nation of Gamblers,” p. 13.

sixty field hands could probably have picked six hundred acres
Alan Olmstead and Paul Rhode note a variety of estimates that had been made over generations for how many acres an enslaved field hand could pick in a season—such as 12 acres, 14 acres, 42.5 acres, or even more—but cast doubt on them, and observe that ratios above 10 acres per person were considered exceptional on plantations in the early nineteenth century. My calculation of Jackson’s operations therefore aims low, assuming 10 acres per field hand and no more. Olmstead and Rhode, “Slave Productivity in Cotton Production,” pp. 4–20.

exceeded $35,000, which in 1817 was an income for a prince
This estimate makes the following assumptions:

300 acres under cotton cultivation

600 pounds of cotton per acre

30 cents, gross sale price per pound of cotton

10 cents, cost per pound of cotton production

20 cents, profit per pound of cotton

300 acres x 600 pounds x 20 cents = $36,000

The calculation conservative estimates for all the numbers. There may have been up to 600 acres under cultivation; Glaeser in “Nation of Gamblers” notes that Alabama soil was said to produce 800 pounds per acre; and prices that year reached 35 cents per pound.

“If I have not that sum in the Bank”
Andrew Jackson to James Jackson, August 28, 1814, Moser et al.,
Papers of Andrew Jackson: A Microfilm Supplement,
reel 4.

in
1819 . . . Andrew and Rachel Jackson gave up living in their two-story log house
So says the Hermitage staff; also Parton,
Life of Andrew Jackson
, vol. 1,
p. 307.

The old log house was cut down to a single floor and converted into slave quarters
Parton, author of
Life of Andrew Jackson,
apparently saw it in the 1850s, and it can still be seen there.

“Let me see you as I pass”
Jackson to Coffee, September 28, 1817, Owsley et al.,
Papers of Andrew Jackson
, vol. 4,
p. 138.

dividing the
property into city blocks for a new town
Jackson to James Monroe, November 15, 1818,
ibid.
,
p. 246. Lots for Marathon had been auctioned in October, according to Rohrbough,
Land Office Business,
p. 123.

“will become one of the largest towns”
Jackson to Coffee, August 12, 1817, Owsley et al.,
Papers of Andrew Jackson
, vol. 4,
p. 132.

“I am yet confined at this loathsome place”
John Coffee to his wife, Mary, January 3, 1814, transcribed in Sioussat, “Letters of General John Coffee to His Wife,” p. 279.

Food was so scarce that prices soared
Rohrbough,
Land Office Business,
p. 121.

“many gentlemen from the Eastern States”
Ibid.

a log cabin in Huntsville
Ibid.
,
pp. 122–23.

close to a million acres
In 1817 the office sold 5,610 acres; in 1818 it would be 973,361.54 acres. Ibid.
,
p. 123.

Buyers formed coalitions . . . their efforts collapsed
An account of this pattern can be found in Chappell, “Some Patterns of Land Speculation in the Old Southwest,” pp. 471–72.

And
then $78
Coffee to Jackson, February 12, 1818, notes prices of $50, $70, and $78.
Andrew Jackson Papers, 1775–1874,
reel 24. Also Chappell, “Some Patterns of Land Speculation in the Old Southwest,” p. 472.

“The prices have surpassed any ever known in the U.S. heretofore”
Coffee to Jackson, February 12, 1818,
Andrew Jackson Papers, 1775–1874,
reel 24.

he had failed to forward some $80,000
Numerous documents, including the receiver’s admission that he had come up short and a chart of his purchases, are in American State Papers, House of Representatives, 17th Cong., 1st Sess.,
Public Lands
, vol. 3,
pp. 485–93.

federal patents for more than fifteen thousand acres
According to author’s review of the Bureau of Land Management General Land Office Records database.

James Jackson’s name would eventually appear
Ibid.

“to purchase or enter lands in the Alabama Territory”
Article of Agreement, March 2, 1818, Owsley et al., Papers of Andrew Jackson, vol. 1.

John Donelson, Andrew Jackson’s brother-in-law . . . Philadelphia investors
The investors are listed in ibid.

6,700 acres was bought for the partnership, and possibly much more
An examination of federal land records for this book found two or more of the partners’ names to be together on land purchases amounting to 6,700 acres. It is possible that other purchases, bearing only a single partner’s name, were for the partnership.

“This section I bought at two dollars”
Jackson to Isaac Shelby, November 24, 1818, Owsley et al.,
Papers of Andrew Jackson
, vol. 4,
p. 250.

sometimes lived there for a month at a time
Jackson to Richard Keith Call, November 27, 1822, ibid., vol. 5, p. 225.

“I am determined to push that farm for a livelihood”
Jackson to John Coffee, ibid., pp. 157–58.

he advertised a $50 reward
Nashville Whig,
April 24, 1822. James,
Andrew Jackson
, p. 29, quotes a May 1 advertisement from the
Nashville Whig
, and assumes the slave must have been from Melton’s Bluff; but Jackson had long since surrendered the bluff for the creation of the town of Marathon. The April 24 advertisement calls it the plantation “near the Big Spring, in Franklin County.”

In 1823 he personally led the effort
Ibid., p. 31.

At least one of those tracts became Jackson’s third plantation
Jackson’s papers include a bill for “sundries” for “the farm of A. J. Hutchings,” January 27, 1823, Owsley et al.,
Papers of Andrew Jackson
, vol. 5,
pp. 245–56.

twenty-two hundred acres were purchased under the name of William Donelson
According to author’s review of the Bureau of Land Management General Land Office Records database.

it paid
$
85,000 for the land
Garrett,
History of Florence, Alabama,
p. 4.

quickly resold it (in half-acre town lots) for $229,000
History of Florence
has a list of buyers whose purchases total this amount, pp. 4–7. A March 1818 document, “List of Purchasers of Lots in the Town of Florence,” reflects a similar tally as reconstructed by company officials after the 1827 fire that destroyed Cypress Land Company documents. The List of Purchasers, from the record of an 1840s lawsuit, was copied by Florence historian Milly Wright, who graciously supplied it to the author.

taking the title of a Florence man’s home
“Fulton to Jackson & others,” in Lauderdale County Deed Records, February 21, 1829, book 4, pp. 304–5, states that William Fulton owed Jackson and others $400 for his purchase of “Florence Stock” as well as other debts, and so would surrender the 7½ acres “whereon the said William Fulton now lives.” Signatories included “Andrew Jackson, by his attorney in fact John Coffee.”

he advanced $20,000 to buy a strip of land . . . . “doceur”
The transaction is described in the journal kept by federal negotiators, in the entry for October 17, 1818. Jackson, Shelby, et al.
“Secret” Journal on Negotiations of the Chickasaw Treaty, 1818.

repaid James Jackson’s $20,000
Farrell, “
James Jackson, Thomas Kirkman and the Chickasaw Treaty of 1818
,”
p. 2.

“correct”
his reports
James Monroe to Jackson, July 19, 1818, Owsley et al.,
Papers of Andrew Jackson
, vol. 4
, p. 227.

their official report included a veiled reference to it
: The Senate report, February 24, 1819, reprinted in the
National Intelligencer,
says that Jackson’s motive “seems to have been to involve the nation in a war without her consent, and for reasons of his own, unconnected with his military functions.”

“hypocritical lying puppy”
Jackson to Coffee, April 3, 1819, Owsley et al.,
Papers of Andrew Jackson
, vol. 4,
pp. 279–80.

John Donelson . . . carrying a letter of introduction from Andrew Jackson
According to an affidavit by Thomas Childress, January 12, 1820, ibid., p. 351.

“Pensacola speculation”
John McCrea to Jackson, April 15, 1819, ibid., p. 285.

“friendly motives”
Affidavit by Thomas Childress, January 12, 1820, ibid., p. 351.

A pamphlet during the 1828 campaign
This was a special edition of the
Kentucky Reporter
, a newspaper linked to Henry Clay. A barely readable copy of the pamphlet is in Dyas Collection—John Coffee Papers
.

On December 14, 1827 . . . fire consumed the building
Garrett,
History of Florence,
p. 4.

Part Four: Young Prince, 1820–1828
Chapter Eleven: This Unexpected Weapon of Defence

The house said alot about Ross
Ross may have built it after 1816, though local tradition dates it earlier. DeWeese et al., “Dating of the Chief John Ross House,” Southeastern Archaeology, Winter 2012, p. 221.

“I have been induced to accept of the command of the Cherokee Light horse”
All text of this letter comes from Ross to Andrew Jackson, June 19, 1820, Moulton,
Papers of Chief John Ross
,
vol.
1,
pp. 40–41.

“I have no troops within three hundred miles of the cherokee nation”
Jackson to Return J. Meigs, February 28, 1820, Owsley et al.,
Papers of Andrew Jackson,
vol. 4
,
p. 358.