Thread by @HerbertHistory

Every now and then a take it so bad that makes you literally shake your head in disbelief. Such seems to be the case among those who would tell you Andrew Jackson is getting a bad rap and is, in this case, been "unfairly smeared."

Pull up a chair. 1/

https://twitter.com/michaeljknowles/status/1139580462068690944

Jackson emerged on the national scene during something called the Redstick War, or Creek Civil War. The war broke out in Creek Indian towns for a multitude of reasons, but largely over the changing nature of what it meant to be "Creek" in the nation. 2/

By 1813 the Creeks were the most powerful nation in the Southeast and the largest check on American expansion. Americans watched the war in present-day Georgia and Alabama and waited. When Americans were killed at Fort Mims on August 30, 1813, they finally had an excuse. 3/

Tennessean Andrew Jackson answered the call for revenge and mounted an army to invade Creek Country. But this was hardly about Fort Mims. Tennesseans had for years decried their lack of access to exportable rivers. Jackson aimed to fix that. 4/

It is not revisionist to say that Jackson was a particularly cruel man who hated Indians. His force torched Creek towns, destroying crops and livestock along the way. He waged total war against his enemies with utter annihilation his aim. 5/

His attitude spread to his subordinates. The Battle of Tallushatchee on November 3, 1813 was particularly brutal. Neither women nor children were spared. A disgusted Davy Crockett recalled, "We shot them like dogs." 6/

And while Crockett lamented his actions, Jackson did not. In fact, the comparison to dogs is much in line with his own thoughts. Jackson, like many western Americans, viewed American Indians as subhuman and deserving of eradication. 7/

At the Battle of Tohopeka, (Horseshoe Bend), Jackson's force surrounded and massacred over 800 Redstick Creeks. According to a survivor, Creek tastanakis (warriors) dropped "like the fall of leaves." Many of these leaves were women and children. 8/

The number is not exact because between 250 and 300 Creeks were shot as they swam to safety. The remaining 500 had their noses cut off so that counts could be accurate. 9/
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Tohopeka marked a turning point in the Southeast. At the Treaty of Fort Jackson, Creek Indians, both those allied to and enemies of Jackson's force, were made to cede 22 million acres of their land, effectively paving the way for American expansion. 10/

But Jackson's war did more than reshape Creek Indian boundaries. It strengthened and reinforced ideas about Manifest Destiny. It also created, in the words of Alfred Cave, a historiographic fault line in which Indians appear only as they are leaving. 11/
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But what about Jackson's valiant defense of New Orleans? Few need to be reminded that the War of 1812 had been concluded by the time of the battle. What the Battle of New Orleans actually did was embolden a man with dreams of empire in his mind. 12/

Jackson's actions are hardly worthy of exaltation. He invaded Mikasuki lands in 1818 and executed several Creek Indians, including Josiah Francis. Also executed were two British citizens he found "guilty" of aiding Florida Indians: Alexander Arbuthnot and Robert Ambrister. 13/

Of course, his bloodlust could not be contained there. Jackson saw in Florida a land for all those he hated and feared: free Indians and free blacks. Towns belonging to both were torched before he returned to Nashville. 14/

But let's leap ahead a bit to the "benevolence" of Jackson during the Indian Removal Act in 1830. Jackson's supporters like @JarrettStepman often point to his 1828 inaugural address to show his support for Native needs: 15/ breitbart.com/politics/2015/…

And on occasion they'll even return to the Battle of Horseshoe Ben, in which Jackson "adopted" a Creek child (later named Lyncoya) whose parents had fallen like so many leaves. Is this not benevolence? Surely Jackson couldn't be genocidal after all. 16/

Of course Jackson was genocidal, both on and off the battlefield. Historian Dawn Peterson has shown that via supposed acts of kindness like Lyncoya's adoption, expansionists were actively engaged in cultural genocide. 17/
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But let's think about the physical act of removal itself. By now, you're probably aware of the thousands of people who were forced off of their sovereign lands, many of whom perished on the trek. Certainly we are supposed to ignore this in favor of a $20 bill. 18/

But what I would ask you to consider is the very nature of moving. 19th century Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and other peoples' very understanding of the world was tied to the land. 19/

Look to Chickasaw and Choctaw tradition bearers who tell of being tied to a mound in eastern Mississippi called Nanih Waiya. Native communities could not bear to part *from* the land because they were quite literally a part *of* the land. 20/
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Jackson's plan to remove tribes from their homelands was no less benevolent than his actions during his war against the Creeks. 21/

We must consider that Jackson's face on our currency is an endorsement of the values we hold dear to ourselves. At one point, this genocidal madman certainly embodied much of that. 22/

But like the statue of Robert E. Lee in my hometown which continues to signal to people of color @MurrayKentucky's position on racial hierarchy, Jackson's image on our currency and the White House walls is a brutal endorsement of his actions. 23/

If we are as a country to heal wounds manufactured by our past and picked at by our present, we must understand symbolism matters. Andrew Jackson does not represent the world in which I want my children to grow up in. We can do better. We can choose to do better. 24/

And a final word on Jackson apologists. Falling for his cult of personality doesn't make you a Jacksonian or a rogue historian. It makes you little more than a fanboy. 25/25