Andrew Jackson (49 page)

BOOK: Andrew Jackson

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Jackson was no apologist for lawbreakers, but he couldn’t escape the irony of being asked to play the role of Britain against Americans. And though he applauded fair-mindedness in principle, he thought the administration overlooked a fundamental difference between whites and Indians on the frontier: the former were citizens of the United States and almost certainly would fight for the Union against any foreign foe, while the latter were noncitizens and might well take the part of Britain or Spain, as they had in the past. Unlike many of his white contemporaries, who asserted a higher claim to the land on grounds that they were civilized Christians, Jackson rarely addressed the cosmic morality of the land question. Instead he asked whether a particular arrangement would make the Union more secure or less. And in nearly every case he concluded that white control served national safety.

Crawford’s order caused another problem. The treaty Jackson had negotiated at Fort Jackson called for a continuous line of white settlement across the former territory of the Creeks. The war against Britain, not surprisingly, had hindered the demarcation of the line that would establish the limits of Indian territory. The survey commenced anew after the war, only to be blocked by legal action initiated by the Creeks, Cherokees, and others. Jackson deemed the survey essential to the original goal of uniting the various white settlements on the Gulf plain, and he sent John Coffee, his cavalry stalwart, to conduct it. “The line must be run,” Jackson told Coffee. He instructed Coffee not to expect any help from the Indians in determining the location of the line. “Every person acquainted with the disposition of an Indian knows they will claim every thing and any thing. You will therefore proceed on the best information you have and can obtain from the chiefs of the Cherokees and Creeks and any other sources on which you can rely and finish the line as early as possible.”

The pro-Indian policy of the government at Washington hindered the survey and thereby, in Jackson’s view, undermined American security. He told Crawford how stupid he thought the policy was. “Why the government should feel a wish to aggrandize the [Cherokee] nation at the expense of the other tribes, or against the interest of their own citizens, is unknown. In this matter the Indians—I mean the real Indians, the natives of the forest—are little concerned. It is a stratagem only acted upon by the designing half-breeds and renegade white men who have taken refuge in their country. If the course now adopted by the government is to be pursued, it is difficult to say at what remote period we may calculate on our uniting settlements and giving security to our frontiers.”

Jackson had another reason for adopting a stern attitude toward the Indians. He believed that the only real alternative to sternness by the government was not something better for the Indians but something worse. Articulating a view that would inform his Indian policies as president, Jackson argued that separation between whites and Indians offered the only chance for Indian survival. “Tennessee, I hope, will never disgrace herself by opposing the Government, but when it is recollected that, in open violation of the orders of the United States in 1794, a campaign was set on foot that broke the hostile spirit of the Cherokees and secured peace, judging of human nature it may be believed that when these people are ordered from the old Creek villages burnt by General Coffee and which they aided to conquer, they will feel disposed to wreak their vengeance on this tribe.” Jackson knew his neighbors, and he knew that abstract justice counted less with them than eighty acres for growing corn, especially when they thought those acres had been fairly won in war. And how, precisely, did Crawford propose to remove the settlers? The militia wouldn’t do it. “Their feelings are the same with the settlers.” Regular troops might be employed, but as soon as they left, the settlers would return. Anyway, did the administration really wish to send the army against its own citizens? Jackson didn’t say he wouldn’t follow such an order, but he made plain he didn’t want to—which might amount to the same thing, given his stature and popular support.

The government at Washington needed to know how deep the feelings ran on this subject. “Candour to the Government and to that administration I have admired,” he told Crawford, “compels me to be frank and state to you that the people of the West will never suffer any Indian to inhabit this country again that has been for thirty years the den of the murderers of their wives and helpless infants, and on the conquest of which, and for their security hereafter, they shed their blood and suffered every privation. I tell you frankly they never will unless coerced by Government, and when this is attempted I fear it will lead to scenes that will make human nature shudder. I might not be mistaken if I was to say it may lead to the destruction of the whole Cherokee nation, and of course civil war.”