Were I president, I would have portraits of George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Harry Truman in the Oval Office. Still, I don’t believe President Trump should be criticized for having Andrew Jackson’s portrait in his office.
I seem to be rare in that viewpoint.
Consider the Twitter reaction to Trump’s event Monday, with Navajo Indian war heroes. A portrait of Andrew Jackson watched over the ceremony.
Dave Weigel started proceedings.
Extremely good and normal to make native American WWII veterans listen to an ethnic slur while standing near a portrait of Andrew Jackson
— Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) November 27, 2017
Oliver Willis said it was racist.
obama supported taking andrew jackson off the $20
trump put his portrait up in the white house, made native american vets stand under it.
the mainstream media still won’t directly call racism “racism.”— Oliver Willis (@owillis) November 27, 2017
NPR reporter, Jessica Taylor, was so unimpressed she used caps.
Getting largely overlooked in the “Pocahontas” controversy is the fact that the Trump White House held an event honoring WWII Navajo code talkers IN FRONT OF A PORTRAIT OF ANDREW JACKSON
— Jessica Taylor (@JessicaTaylor) November 27, 2017
The problem with these statements is that they adopt a false narrative of history.
That’s because Andrew Jackson’s Native American policies, both as a militia leader and as president, are not as simple as the above would presume.
In Jackson’s formative Creek War, for example, the future president’s military operations represented a necessary defense against fanatical Creek warriors of the Red Sticks war band. The Red Sticks were on a rampage and had to be stopped. Jackson’s efforts here do not excuse U.S. territorial expansion (although many Native American tribes were hardly peaceful in their own interactions), but Jackson had to act or suffer the slaughter of frontier settlers.
Moreover, in these military operations, Jackson wasn’t simply fighting Native American tribes, he was saving the union from British imperialism. This history, rendered best by Jackson’s heroism at the Battle of New Orleans, alone makes his portrait worthy of contemporary rendering.
Of course, as president, Jackson’s Native American record gets murkier.
While President Jackson signed numerous treaties with various Native American tribes, his record in holding firm to those agreements was mixed. Similarly, while Jackson did sometimes defend Native American interests (read HW Brands’ biography), there is simply no doubt that thousands of Native American civilians died because of his policies. The Trail of Tears is rightly named.
Even then, we must judge the man by the history of his time and the sum of his life’s work. And in the measure of history, Jackson did bring greater order and peace to what had been slow-rolling and often brutal exchanges between the tribes and the frontier settlers. Future presidents also presided over injustices against Native Americans; Abraham Lincoln, included (the latter part of the 19th century was a particularly dark period in this context).
At the same time, Jackson’s presidency was defined by its advancements for the rights of working and middle-class Americans, and improved government accountability and service.
Regardless, Twitter is a poor place to go if you want to understand Andrew Jackson and the sum of Native American frontier history. For a more historically accurate accounting of U.S. government-Native American hostilities, you might want to read Peter Cozzens’ The Earth is Weeping.
