Andrew Jackson’s controversial policy divided America during the pre-civil-war era, writes Christina Snyder
Illustration: Dan Williams
Listen to this story
Your browser does not support the <audio> element.
I N 1817, GENERAL Andrew Jackson invaded Florida, claimed by the Spanish empire but inhabited mostly by Seminole people. Jackson and his troops used scorched-earth tactics: destroying villages, burning cornfields and sacking storehouses, in the hope that terror and hunger would drive Seminoles to surrender. They killed warriors and civilians alike, and captured the Native leaders Hillis Harjo and Homathle Micco as well as Alexander Arbuthnot and Robert Ambrister, two British citizens who had aided the indigenous communities. Jackson executed them all without proper due process.
The Florida raids were committed without approval from Congress, even though military affairs and relations with Native nations fell under federal jurisdiction, and a congressional investigation was launched. Some claimed that Jackson was simply extending the policies of previous administrations; James Monroe had warned European empires to stay out of America’s backyard, while Thomas Jefferson, an eager expansionist, facilitated the Louisiana Purchase so that the “Empire of Liberty” might eventually rule the continent.
Jackson’s defenders applauded his muscular approach to seizing land and exerting power over foreign people. But his critics warned that such an authoritarian approach to imperialism would sow the seeds of America’s ruin. Senator John Calhoun reminded his colleagues that the founding fathers saw their republic as an experiment in democracy not seen since the days of ancient Rome. He noted that, in Rome, Augustus Caesar had seized power from the Senate and, while the emperor “did not change the forms of the Roman Republic”, he “exercised a most despotic power over the laws, the liberty and the prosperity of the citizens.”
Our own historical moment has many parallels to the age of Jackson. Then, as now, some championed the assertion of raw power while others worried about the rule of law. Opponents of “King Andrew”, as they called Jackson, warned about the concentration of power in the executive branch. Their understanding of history suggested that unchecked power would lead to tyranny or the downfall of society.
Despite, or perhaps because of, such criticism, Jackson gained popularity among the electorate—at that time exclusively made up of white men. He rode his military fame to the presidency, winning over 55% of the popular vote in 1828. The cornerstone of his platform was what became known as the Indian Removal Act, which sought to deport all eastern Native Americans to a vaguely defined space called “Indian Territory”, west of the Mississippi River. Jackson and his allies aimed to provide more land to their constituents; they were especially eager to seize the rich cotton lands of the Deep South.
Though Americans largely agreed that their nation should expand, they disagreed over the scope of the imperial project and how it might be achieved. In the House, the Indian Removal Bill scraped through with 102 votes in favour and 97 against. Opposition was strongest in the north-east. The Christian Advocate, a weekly newspaper published in New York, warned that “Nations which establish themselves by acts of injustice toward others, which extend over them a cruel dominion merely because a stronger arm enables them to do so, need expect nothing less than the reaction of a retributive providence as a punishment for all such deeds of injustice.”
Some southern members of the House, including Davy Crockett, also voted against the bill. Crockett explained that he “had always viewed the native Indian tribes in this country as a sovereign people…recognised as such from the very foundation of the Government; and the United States were bound by treaty to protect them; it was their duty to do so.” Legally speaking, Crockett got to the heart of the matter: the United States had recognised the sovereign rights of Native nations in treaties, which identified and protected Native dominion over their lands. Forcing Native nations to give up land would violate these treaties, which are binding under the constitution.
If treaties can be ignored, so can federal laws and court decisions. Andrew Jackson knew this—he had personally negotiated many treaties with Native nations. But he viewed treaties as a relic of the founding era, when the United States was too weak to conquer Native nations. In the aftermath of the War of 1812, the United States emerged as a continental power. Jackson argued that Indigenous Americans should be treated as “subjects” not sovereigns.
Jackson’s approach to imperialism fractured the United States and compromised its place in the world. Ignoring Native treaties normalised the idea that law is optional when power is sufficient. With its new status and power, the country chose coercion over law, executive force over constitutional checks and balances, and conquest over treaty obligations.
Native nations experienced this not as an abstract theory but as a lived catastrophe. Even though the Indian Removal Act did not authorise the use of force, violence came from all directions to compel Native people to leave their homelands. Federal troops and state militias dragged people from their homes and imprisoned them in concentration camps. Ordinary Americans mimicked Jackson’s tactics, stealing property and possessions, burning houses, torching fields and using violence and the threat of famine to drive people away.
In their anti-Removal memorial of 1832, leaders of the Muscogee Nation drew on history. They reminded Congress that all settlers were immigrants. Europeans came to North America “few in number and feeble in strength”, but Native people gave these newcomers “land on which to live” and “food to supply their hunger”. Now that the United States had become powerful, Muscogees asked, “For which of our services to you…are we subjected to the penalties of forfeiture?” Native leaders called on American citizens to remember their own past and to consider the future, keeping in mind the precarious nature of political power.
These warnings remain relevant. Jacksonian imperialism wasn’t a regrettable aberration but an early stress test for American democracy. Perhaps cowed by his popularity, Congress chose not to censure Jackson over Florida. Empowered, he continued to push the boundaries of the presidency and was eventually censured by the Senate in 1834 for removing federal deposits from the Second Bank of the United States without its approval. Reminding ourselves of America’s first experiment with empire reveals a worrying truth: when power expands faster than law, the United States sacrificed constitutional restraint, treated some as expendable “subjects” and risked descending into Augustus Caesar’s Rome. ■
Christina Snyder is the McCabe Greer Professor of the American Civil War Era at The Pennsylvania State University.
Explore more
→See the latest from topics you follow
A plan for Europe’s tech fightback
Britain and the EU can avoid being left in the dust if they work together, argues Sir Nick Clegg
John Maynard Keynes saved capitalism from itself
But America’s past economic success is no guarantee of its future, writes Joseph Stiglitz
Franklin Roosevelt: Brilliant commander-in-chief, terrible chief executive
His arbitrariness and anti-business tilt prolonged the Great Depression, writes Amity Shlaes
Hungary must seize its chance to oust Viktor Orban
Zsuzsanna Szelenyi, a former ally, on why she wants to see the back of him
The IT department: Where AI goes to die
Ethan Mollick on why employers should treat AI as what it is: weird
How the young use AI matters more than for how long
That undermines the case for blanket bans or time limits, writes Sema Sgaier