Review of Jacksonland: President Andrew Jackson, Cherokee Chief John Ross, and A Great American Land Grab, by Steve Inskeep

Host of NPR’s “Morning Edition” and talented writer Steve Inskeep’s recent book, Jacksonland, pits President Andrew Jackson and Chief John Ross as pivotal antagonists on opposite sides of one of America’s greatest moral dramas. The book ambitiously explores the searing saga of the debate over Indian Removal through investigation of each of these men’s background, viewpoints, and actions. The result is a compelling and surprisingly balanced explanation of the complicated motivations underlying the causes and course of a struggle that still reverberates powerfully in our national psyche.

We all know the general outlines of the story as laid out by Inskeep: a steadily increasing American population with a seemingly insatiable demand for land jealously looked upon the vast native domain of the original American Southwest as more space than any combination of Indian groups could ever properly use, and determined by hook or by crook to have it as their own. Indians were overwhelmed and in a poor position culturally, economically, politically, or militarily to resist the onslaught. Americans ultimately had their way, systematically wresting lands from Native Americans in treaties providing flimsy legal sanction. The Creeks first felt the full force of this procedure, surrendering portions of their ancestral lands via treaties before having a huge twenty-million acre swath wrested from them in the aftermath of the Creek War of 1813-14. Soon the Chickasaws, Choctaws, and Cherokees experienced different strains of the same story leading to multiple “trails of tears.” This process altered the course of American history by both inglorious precedent in delineating the status of Native Americans in the country and by setting the stage for the rise of the “Old South.” It left us with a nagging stain on our character that seemingly only grows more troublesome as time goes on.

Inskeep frames this complicated tale with illuminating biographies of two men on opposite sides of one of the last, heartrending battles in this long drama—the struggle over Removal of the Cherokee. Andrew Jackson comes across perhaps as expected; a force of nature whose alternating competence and scheming, unwavering principle and moral relevancy, combine to forever make him in turns an object of esteem and derision. Rising from humble origins, he became a symbol for the age in which he lived and was thought to represent the very best of the American spirit; today he remains a symbol of his age but is increasingly associated in the popular mind only with the worst aspects of our national character. Inskeep pounces on those flaws, showing Jackson to have easily conflated official duty with private gain on more than one occasion, but in fairness also explores his deep and abiding patriotism as guiding even his morally questionable actions. John Ross, Inskeep shows, was perhaps an even more unlikely champion of native rights. He claimed at least as much white blood as Cherokee, and fought alongside Andrew Jackson against Red Stick Creeks during the Creek War of 1813-14, before becoming a planter and slaveowner thoroughly accustomed to a “white” lifestyle. Ross, in fact, moved seamlessly within both white and native worlds as his needs dictated, but in some ways was never entirely comfortable in either. Ross worked hard to maintain the Cherokees’ place in a changing America even if the course he charted represented a near total abandonment of ancestral ways as he strove to show his people could successfully live exactly as their white neighbors. It is refreshing to see that in Inskeep’s hands Ross is less shining martyr than lens through which to understand the tragic denouement to centuries of Indian hegemony in the American South. Jackson, in his telling, is representative of the unbridled greed and ambition of early America in this tale of conquest; Ross the unwilling foil forced to make mounting compromise that in the end sacrifices virtually the entirety of the original goals. The tale is tragic almost as much for its predictability as for its actual results.

Inskeep’s biographical portraits and his chronicle of the political intrigue as each man pursued his goals is gripping and informing narrative sure to help frame lucidly the events he details for a new generation, but scholars of the era and topic will in truth find little new in the story. Perhaps the most lasting contribution of the book will be Inskeep’s deft explanation of how the heart of the Old South—“Jacksonland” in his parlance—figures so prominently in the pivotal events of nineteenth century America. It is in this region that the defining clash of cultures occurred which led to Removal, and it is in this region that Jackson’s stamp on America was most pronounced. The book therefore frames in a new way the overarching influence of Jackson in American history. It is important we remember this man and what he represented, Inskeep’s book reminds us if only by accident, because his rise was only made possible by the support and encouragement of a majority of his fellow countrymen at the time. In this light it is vital that we understand the context of his actions and not paint him as the originator of racism and bigotry, even though there is an alarming trend in America today to make him the lone scapegoat for all the sins of his era and therefore exonerate any and all accomplices and remember as saintly all his foes. As historians we know that to encourage such an oversimplification of the facts would not be history but political spin. Inskeep makes no secret of who he views as the hero and the villain in his account of one of our nation’s most unfortunate crises, but I give him kudos for approaching the topic with balance and reminding us of the complexity of the story. We would do well to remember that, if we take away nothing else from our study of the time period.

JMB