Andrew Jackson

Andrew Jackson (March 15, 1767 – June 8, 1845) was an American lawyer, planter, general, and statesman who served as the seventh president of the United States from 1829 to 1837. Born to Scotch-Irish immigrant parents in the Waxhaws region along the border of North and South Carolina, Jackson was orphaned at age 14 after his family perished during the American Revolutionary War, in which he briefly served as a courier and endured capture by British forces. He self-educated in law, moved to Tennessee, built a successful plantation at The Hermitage, and entered politics as a state legislator, judge, and U.S. congressman before rising to military prominence. Jackson's military career included decisive victories in the Creek War of 1813–1814, where he crushed the Red Stick faction at Horseshoe Bend, and the Battle of New Orleans in 1815, repelling a British invasion force despite being outnumbered, which elevated him to national hero status despite the war's prior end by treaty. His campaigns extended to the First Seminole War, securing Florida from Spanish control through unauthorized incursions that pressured U.S. acquisition of the territory. As president, Jackson championed policies favoring agrarian interests and expanded executive authority, vetoing the recharter of the Second Bank of the United States in 1832 on grounds of its unconstitutionality and favoritism toward elites, vetoing more bills than all prior presidents combined, and paying off the national debt in 1835—the only time in U.S. history. He signed the Indian Removal Act of 1830, authorizing negotiated or coerced treaties to relocate southeastern Native American tribes west of the Mississippi River to facilitate white settlement, a policy that resulted in the Trail of Tears, during which thousands of Cherokee and other tribes perished from disease, exposure, and violence amid forced marches. Known for his combative temperament, involvement in duels, and defense of personal honor—including killing a rival in 1806—Jackson embodied frontier individualism and populism, founding the Democratic Party and mobilizing common voters against entrenched interests, though his tenure also featured the Nullification Crisis, where he threatened force against South Carolina's resistance to federal tariffs.