Andrew Jackson Sworn Citizen of Spain Voids Indian Removal Act
Updated: Jan 24
Foreigners cannot pass American Laws against Aboriginals
President Jackson Signed Oath of Loyalty to Spain
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) _ Newly found documents show that Andrew Jackson, the fiery military man who chased the Spaniards from Florida and became the seventh U.S. president, once swore allegiance to the king of Spain, a historian says.
Like many other Americans at the time _ 1789 _ Jackson had to sign such an oath in order to do business in what was then Spanish territory, said Robert V. Remini, a professor emeritus at the University of Illinois at Chicago and an authority on Jackson.
Remini said Jackson ``probably paid no attention″ to the pledge. But the professor savored the irony. Here is this superman, this John Wayne figure, who later says he hates the dons and who invaded Florida, making himself a vassal to the king of Spain,″ Remini said Thursday.
Remini said the document was discovered last year in Seville, Spain, in the archives of Spain’s New World territories, by Douglas Inglis, a doctoral candidate at Texas Christian University.
Remini, who has written a three-volume biography on Jackson, said his research showed Jackson signed the oath at age 22 after moving to Nashville, Tenn., and serving as a district attorney.
Jackson received no salary, so he went into business and practiced law. His trading business expanded into Natchez, a Spanish community on the Mississippi River.
At the time, Remini said, the Spanish were growing wary of Americans in the Spanish territories of Louisiana and Florida and made them swear on a Bible that they would be subjects of the Spanish crown.
``In that oath, you have to promise to fight for the province and if there is a conspiracy against Spain, you had to reveal it and provide them with the names of the conspirators,″ Remini said.
``Jackson’s signature is in English but in the document Jackson’s name is spelled phonetically in Spanish,″ the professor said. ``That means that anybody who would have seen the document would not recognize the name unless they turned to the last page of the document and there it is _ with all the curlicues so typical of his signature. There’s no doubt about the signature.″
In 1818, Jackson, acting without authorization, captured Pensacola, Fla., from the Spanish; Spain ultimately withdrew and sold the Florida territory to the United States. Jackson was president from 1829 to 1837.
Kenneth T. Jackson, chairman of the history department at Columbia University in New York, said he would not be surprised if Jackson had taken such an oath.
``You have to consider his age, his time and the kind of frontier circumstances involved,″ the professor said. ``I wouldn’t think he probably spent a lot of time thinking about it.″
Kenneth Jackson said that Jackson was going into an area controlled by another government, and ``of course, he would have played by their rules.″
Andrew Jackson Takes an Oath of Allegiance to Spain
https://www.jstor.org/stable/42628387
Article RON HARRIST May 25, 1995
https://apnews.com/article/cf2dd1ad25e67b8c8d6c626b0e6b0f19
“President Jackson violated laws, treaties, and Supreme Court orders in his dealings with Native Americans" Outline of our Argument/ Opening Statement / Closing Statement ● Violated Treaty of Hopewell of 1785, which officially declared the Cherokee Nation “to be under the protection of the United States of America” Violated the territorial boundaries given to the Indians in Treaty of Holston in 1791 ● In Cherokee Nation VS Georgia the supreme court declared that the Cherokees “are not a state of the Union”and that they are “not owing allegiance to the United States” ● In Worcester vs. Georgia, the supreme court declared that Georgia’s laws which regulated Indian territory and violated their rights to be “unconstitutional and void because they impair the obligation of the various contracts formed by and between the aforesaid Cherokee Nation and the said United States of America”This is saying that the government cannot pass laws that regulate indian tribes because they are a violation of precedent indian treaties. ● Article One, Section 8 of the Constitution gives the government the right to “To regulate Commerce… with the Indian Tribes”It DOES NOT give them the right to forcibly remove them from their land. ● The Treaty of New Echota ,which gave the federal government the rights to Cherokee land, was signed by a small self appointed group of cherokee representatives, and did not accurately represent the wishes of the Cherokee nation as a whole. The true wishes of the Cherokee nation were made apparent in a letter written to the senate by John Ross, the chief of the Cherokee Nation, in which he protested the treaty, saying that: “The instrument in question is not the act of our nation. We are not parties to its covenants; it has not received the sanction of our people.”16,000 cherokee also signed a petition protesting the treaty. Quotes from John Ross’ letter to the US senate protesting the treaty of New Echota: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h3083t.html “The instrument in question is not the act of our nation,” “We are not parties to its covenants; it has not received the sanction of our people.” TREATY WITH THE CHEROKEE AT HOPEWELL http://digital.library.okstate.edu/kappler/vol2/treaties/che0008.htm#mn13 ARTICLE 3. The said Indians for themselves and their respective tribes and towns do acknowledge all the Cherokees to be under the protection of the United States of America, and of no other sovereign whosoever
WORCESTER V GEORGIA An act entitled an act to prevent the exercise of assumed and arbitrary power by all persons under pretext of authority from the Cherokee Indians, and their laws, and to prevent white persons from residing within that part of the chartered limits of Georgia occupied by the Cherokee Indians, and to provide a guard for the protection of the gold mines, and to enforce the laws of the State within the aforesaid territory, are repugnant to the aforesaid treaties, which, according to the Constitution of the United States, compose a part of the supreme law of the land; and that these laws of Georgia are, therefore, unconstitutional, void, and of no effect; that the said laws of Georgia are also unconstitutional and void because they impair the obligation of the various contracts formed by and between the aforesaid Cherokee Nation and the said United States of America, [p540] as above recited; also that the said laws of Georgia are unconstitutional and void because they interfere with, and attempt to regulate and control the intercourse with the said Cherokee Nation, which, by the said Constitution, belongs exclusively to the Congress of the United States; and because the said laws are repugnant to the statute of the United States, passed on the ___ day of March 1802, entitled "An act to regulate trade and intercourse with the Indian tribes, and to preserve peace on the frontiers;" John Marshall CHEROKEE VS GEORGIA “The counsel have shown conclusively, that they are not a state of the Union, and have insisted that, individually, they are aliens, not owing allegiance to the United States. An aggregate of aliens composing a state must, they say, be a foreign state; each individual being foreign, the whole must be foreign.” John Marshall, Supreme Court Justice
FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS "It will be my sincere and constant desire to observe toward the Indian tribes within our limits a just and liberal policy, and to give that humane and considerate attention to their rights and their wants which is consistent with the habits of our Government and the feelings of our people." Andrew Jackson, First Inaugural Address ● but Jackson did not “ give humane and considerate attention to their rights and their wants…”. The Indian Removal was far from peaceful and voluntary. If Jackson wanted to treat the Indians with respect, there would not have been many deaths on the Trail of Tears, military escorts to the west, etc. ● A few tribes went peacefully, but many resisted the relocation policy. During the fall and winter of 1838 and 1839, the Cherokees were forcibly moved west by the United States government. Approximately 4,000 Cherokees died on this forced march, which became known as the "Trail of Tears." http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/Indian.html (other team’s link) SECOND INAUGURAL ADDRESS “To do justice to all and to submit to wrong from none has been during my Administration its governing maxim, and so happy have been its results that we are not only at peace with all the world, but have few causes of controversy, and those of minor importance, remaining unadjusted.” Andrew Jackson, 2nd Inaugural Address SECOND ANNUAL MESSAGE TO CONGRESS “It will separate the Indians from immediate contact with settlements of whites; free them from the power of the States; enable them to pursue happiness in their own way and under their own rude institutions; will retard the progress of decay, which is lessening their numbers, and perhaps cause them gradually, under the protection of the Government and through the influence of good counsels, to cast off their savage habits and become an interesting, civilized, and Christian community.” Andrew Jackson, Second Annual Message to Congress “Toward the aborigines of the country no one can indulge a more friendly feeling than myself, or would go further in attempting to reclaim them from their wandering habits and make them a happy, prosperous people. I have endeavored to impress upon them my own solemn convictions of the duties and powers of the General Government in relation to the State authorities. For the justice of the laws passed by the States within the scope of their reserved powers they are not responsible to this Government. As individuals we may entertain and express our opinions of their acts, but as a Government we have as little right to control them as we have to prescribe laws for other nations.” Andrew Jackson, Second Annual Message to Congress THIRD ANNUAL MESSAGE The internal peace and security of our confederated States is the next principal object of the General Government. Time and experience have proved that the abode of the native Indian within their limits is dangerous to their peace and injurious to himself. In accordance with my recommendation at a former session of Congress, an appropriation of $500K was made to aid the voluntary removal of the various tribes beyond the limits of the States. At the last session I had the happiness to announce that the Chickasaws and Choctaws had accepted the generous offer of the Government and agreed to remove beyond the Mississippi River, by which the whole of the State of Mississippi and the western part of Alabama will be freed from Indian occupancy and opened to a civilized population. The treaties with these tribes are in a course of execution, and their removal, it is hoped, will be completed in the course of 1832. Andrew Jackson
THE INDIAN REMOVAL ACT The actual Act which gives the president the right to move indians: http://memory.loc.gov/cgibin/ampage?collId=llsl&fileName=004/llsl004.db&recNum=459 https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/removal.htm
THE CONSTITUTION ARTICLE II, SECTION 4 https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/United_States_of_America_1992#83 The President, Vice President and all Civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.
Andrew Jackson and the Constitution by Matthew Warshauer (Secondary Source) https://www.gilderlehrman.org/historybyera/agejackson/essays/andrewjackson and constitution Jackson’s views regarding American Indians also challenged the law. Treaties were and continue to be legal agreements among sovereign nations. However, Jackson refused to believe that Native American tribes were sovereign and thus viewed Indian treaties as an absurdity.Ultimately, he forcibly removed a number of tribes, most notoriously the Cherokee, from their homes. The Trail of Tears is one of Jackson’s most infamous legacies. Yet even removal and issues of tribal sovereignty fit within a larger context of Jackson’s convictions regarding national security and state sovereignty. The general’s rise was due to his success as an Indian fighter on the frontier. He always, and to some extent legitimately, viewed American Indians as a serious threat to settlers. As president, Jackson understood the sentiment of southern states and their conception that states could not be erected within sovereign states such as Georgia. All of this, of course, revolved around the larger issue of Native American dispossession and who rightfully owned of the land The Trail of Tears the Indian Removals (Secondary Source) http://www.ushistory.org/us/24f.asp The CHEROKEES of Georgia, on the other hand, used legal action to resist. The Cherokee people were by no means frontier savages. By the 1830s they developed their own written language, printed newspapers and elected leaders to representative government. When the government of Georgia refused to recognize their autonomy and threatened to seize their lands, the Cherokees took their case to the U.S. Supreme Court and won a favorable decision. John Marshall's opinion for the Court majority in Cherokee Nation v. Georgia was essentially that Georgia had no jurisdiction over the Cherokees and no claim to their lands. But Georgia officials simply ignored the decision, and President Jackson refused to enforce it A Treaty of Peace and Friendship made and concluded between the President of the United States of America, on the Part and Behalf of the said States, and the undersigned Chiefs and Warriors, of the Cherokee Nation of Indians, on the part aide Behalf of the said Nation.
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/chr1791.asp VIOLATED TREATY: Treaty of Holston 1791 ARTICLE IV. The boundary between the citizens of the United States and the Cherokee nation, is and shall be as follows: Beginning at the top of the Currahee mountain, where the Creek line passes it; thence a direct line to Tugelo river; thence northeast to the Occunna mountain, and over the same along the SouthCarolina Indian boundary to the NorthCarolina boundary; thence north to a point from which a line is to be extended to the river Clinch, that shall pass the Holston at the ridge which divides the waters running into Little River from those running into the Tennessee; thence up the river Clinch to Campbell's line, and along the same to the top of Cumberland mountain; thence a direct line to the Cumberland river where the Kentucky road crosses it; thence down the Cumberland river to a point from which a south west line will strike the ridge which divides the waters of Cumberland from those of Duck river, forty miles above Nashville; thence down the said ridge to a point from whence a south west line will strike the mouth of Duck river. And in order to preclude forever all disputes relative to the said boundary, the same shall be ascertained, and marked plainly by three persons appointed on the part of the United States, and three Cherokees on the part of their nation And in order to extinguish forever all claims of the Cherokee nation, or any part thereof, to any of the land lying to the right of the line above described. beginning as aforesaid at the Currahee mountain, it is hereby agreed, that in addition to the consideration heretofore made for the said land, the United States will cause certain valuable goods, to be immediately delivered to the undersigned Chiefs and Warriors, for the use of their nation; and the said United States will also cause the sum of one thousand dollars to be paid annually to the said Cherokee nation. And the undersigned Chiefs and Warriors, do hereby for themselves and the whole Cherokee nation, their heirs and descendants, for the considerations above mentioned, release, quitclaim, relinquish and cede, all the land to the right of the line described, and beginning as aforesaid. **Article 4 paraphrased: The Cherokee Nation has the right to live inside the boundaries ARTICLE V. It is stipulated and agreed, that the citizens and inhabitants of the United States, shall have a free and unmolested use of a road from Washington district to Mero district, and of the navigation of the Tennessee river. ARTICLE VII. The United States solemnly guarantee to the Cherokee nation, all their lands not hereby ceded. **In the Indian Removal Act, the Cherokees never formally ceded or surrendered their lands. Jackson forced their removal, breaking this treaty. ARTICLE XI. If any citizen or inhabitant of the United States, or of either of the territorial districts of the United States, shall go into any town, settlement or territory belonging to the Cherokees, and shall there commit any crime upon, or trespass against the person or property of any peaceable and friendly Indian or Indians, which if committed within the jurisdiction of any state, or within the jurisdiction of either of the said districts, against a citizen or white inhabitant thereof, would be punishable by the laws of such state or district, such offender or offenders, shall be subject to the same punishment, and shall be proceeded against in the same manner as if the offence had been committed within the jurisdiction of the state or district to which he or they may belong against a citizen or white inhabitant thereof. LIST OF TREATIES BROKEN http://www.tn4me.org/Rminor_cat.cfm/minor_id/15/major_id/32/era_id/2 THESE ARE ALL TREATIES THAT GAINED MORE LAND FOR AMERICANS, WHILE TAKING LAND AWAY FROM THE NATIVE AMERICANS http://www.tn4me.org/minor_cat.cfm/minor_id/15/major_id/32/era_id/2 The Trail of Tears the Indian Removals (Secondary Source) http://www.ushistory.org/us/24f.asp The CHEROKEES of Georgia, on the other hand, used legal action to resist. The Cherokee people were by no means frontier savages. By the 1830s they developed their own written language, printed newspapers and elected leaders to representative government. When the government of Georgia refused to recognize their autonomy and threatened to seize their lands, the Cherokees took their case to the U.S. Supreme Court and won a favorable decision. John Marshall's opinion for the Court majority in Cherokee Nation v. Georgia was essentially that Georgia had no jurisdiction over the Cherokees and no claim to their lands. But Georgia officials simply ignored the decision, and President Jackson refused to enforce it. Supreme Court Decision “Cherokee Nation vs. Georgia http://www.pbs.org/wnet/supremecourt/antebellum/landmark_cherokee.html Thus, the Court asserted that "foreign nations," as used in the Constitution, could not include "Indian nations." Because the Constitution only authorizes the Supreme Court to hear cases brought by "foreign nations," not "Indian nations," the Court was not authorized to entertain this case and dismissed it. Worcester v. Georgia The Georgia government recognized that Worcester was influential in the Cherokee resistance movement and enacted a law that prohibited "white persons" from residing within the Cherokee Nation without permission from the state Marshall wrote that the Indian nations were "distinct, independent political communities retaining their original natural rights" and that the United States had acknowledged as much in several treaties with the Cherokees http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/governmentpolitics/worcestervgeorgia1832 https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/30/1 https://redbirds2017.weebly.com/uploads/5/8/9/6/58961281/argumentsforpro-incident3indians.pdf
At Jackson's Gravesite at his home today is this kiosk and note the comment " The engravers chose to call him "Gen Jackson NOT PRESIDENT JACKSON"
