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Jacksonland: President Andrew Jackson,…
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Jacksonland: President Andrew Jackson, Cherokee Chief John Ross, and a Great American Land Grab (edition 2015)

by Steve Inskeep

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338876,135 (3.89)6
Five decades after the Revolutionary War, the United States approached a constitutional crisis. At its center stood two former military comrades locked in a struggle that tested the boundaries of our fledgling democracy. One man we recognize: Andrew Jackson--war hero, populist, and exemplar of the expanding South--whose first major initiative as President instigated the massive expulsion of Native Americans known as the Trail of Tears. The other is a half-forgotten figure: John Ross--a mixed-race Cherokee politician and diplomat--who used the United States' own legal system and democratic ideals to oppose Jackson. Representing one of the Five Civilized Tribes who had adopted the ways of white settlers--cultivating farms, publishing a newspaper in their own language, and sending children to school--Ross championed the tribes' cause all the way to the Supreme Court. He gained allies like Senator Henry Clay, Chief Justice John Marshall, and even Davy Crockett. In a fight that seems at once distant and familiar, Ross and his allies made their case in the media, committed civil disobedience, and benefited from the first mass political action by American women. At stake in this struggle was the land of the Five Civilized Tribes. In shocking detail, Jacksonland reveals how Jackson, as a general, extracted immense wealth from his own armies' conquest of native lands. Later, as president, Jackson set in motion the seizure of tens of millions of acres in today's Deep South. This is the story of America at a moment of transition, when the fate of states and nations was decided by the actions of two heroic yet tragically opposed men.--From publisher description. A renowned journalist and cohost of NPR's Morning Edition presents a thrilling narrative history of President Andrew Jackson and Cherokee Chief John Ross--two heroic yet tragically opposed men whose actions decided the fate of states and Indian nations in America at a moment of transition.… (more)
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Title:Jacksonland: President Andrew Jackson, Cherokee Chief John Ross, and a Great American Land Grab
Authors:Steve Inskeep
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Tags:Geography, History, Biography - North America - General History of North America United States

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

  1. 00
    The Heathen School: A Story of Hope and Betrayal in the Age of the Early Republic by John Demos (baobab)
    baobab: Several of the main characters in Jacksonland are also depicted in The Heathen School, and the enlightened leadership the Cherokees enjoyed may have come in part from the education given at the Heathen School.
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Showing 1-5 of 8 (next | show all)
I had picked up Jacksonland several times but didn't have the mental focus for Steve Inskeep's story of the Cherokee removal. Inskeep focused on two men at the center of this horrific event in United States history: John Ross, the principal chief of the Cherokees, and Andrew Jackson, the President who presided over what has become known as the Trail of Tears. I knew it wouldn't be an easy book to read and I was right. Inskeep chooses details and anecdotes intentionally for maximum impact and gets to the heart of the machinations and corruption that led to the Cherokee removal. Ultimately, no matter how "civilized" the Cherokee became, they inhabited land that others with more power wanted. Inskeep has a solid story telling style that reminded me of David McCullough. Just enough historical detail fleshed out with human stories and emotions to truly bring history to life.
  witchyrichy | Sep 29, 2022 |
Life has an intriguing and often twisted way of testing the ability and endurance of former comrades-in-arms and nowhere is this more evident than in Jacksonland which delineates how President Andrew Jackson, the 7th President of the United States, insidiously acquired the Cherokee Nation's tens of millions of acres of land in the deep South. But Jackson had an opponent. His former comrade-in-arms, Cherokee Chief John Ross who headed one of the so-called five civilized tribes who had adopted the seemingly cultured ways of contemporary whites.

Ross used the United States own constitutionalism and legalism against it to preserve the Cherokee's future economical prospects while avoiding all-out war with Washington having witnessed dozens of genocidal routs suffered by Natives at the hands of American armies.

While Inskeep can't be faulted for relaying history as it is, Ross emerges more or less a man of concessions while Jackson retains his prominence as an immovable warrior at the apex of his ability. The author's journalistic side with digressive investigations prolongs an otherwise already tedious narrative. The value of this book is in its legalistic history rather than its analytical treatment of the personalities involved. ( )
  Amarj33t_5ingh | Jul 8, 2022 |
Well balanced narrative of the removal of the Cherokee Indians from their Cherokee Nation (North Carolina, Alabama, and Georgia) to Arkansas. Inskeep recounts the process starting after the War of 1812 and ending with the "Trail of Tears" in the late 1830's. ( )
  Waltersgn | Jul 8, 2018 |
A well-researched, well-written explanation of the lead-up to the Trail of Tears when Andrew Jackson exercised his might against the Cherokee nation led by principal chief John Ross. Jackson bent to the will of the Georgians, who wished to claim lands in Cherokee nation without payment which weakened the federal government in negotiations with native Americans in the south east.
Inskeep reveals the written word of both principal characters as well as the Congress and sympathizers. It took quite a while for me to get through the book, not because it was poorly written -- it wasn't. Because it was so dense with information and, more importantly, I was so thoroughly disgusted with our government's handling of the natives that I had to put it away. And reading it during the last presidential campaign made it doubly difficult. I could see parallels with the campaign and was reminded that we never learn our lesson from history. Too bad. We are condemned to repeat it. ( )
  book58lover | Dec 31, 2016 |
I was motivated to read this warts-and-all retelling of Andrew Jackson's great play for empire due to an encounter I witnessed a few years ago, where two people I knew to be card-carrying members of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma were arguing over the worth of John Ross as a tribal leader. Essentially you have the conflict over two visions of America; either a blood-and-soil republic for free white men or a more inclusive country with respect for its subcultures. An argument that we're still having. I'll also observe that the more I read about Jackson the more he feels akin to the culmination point of Cromwell's Puritan answer to the conquistadors, if you place him in the long context of the Atlantic World. ( )
  Shrike58 | Oct 21, 2015 |
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Those who profess inviolable
truthfulness must speak of all
without partiality and without
hatred.
                    Tacitus
Dedication
To Carolee, Ava, and Ana
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This story follows two men who fought for more than twenty years.
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Five decades after the Revolutionary War, the United States approached a constitutional crisis. At its center stood two former military comrades locked in a struggle that tested the boundaries of our fledgling democracy. One man we recognize: Andrew Jackson--war hero, populist, and exemplar of the expanding South--whose first major initiative as President instigated the massive expulsion of Native Americans known as the Trail of Tears. The other is a half-forgotten figure: John Ross--a mixed-race Cherokee politician and diplomat--who used the United States' own legal system and democratic ideals to oppose Jackson. Representing one of the Five Civilized Tribes who had adopted the ways of white settlers--cultivating farms, publishing a newspaper in their own language, and sending children to school--Ross championed the tribes' cause all the way to the Supreme Court. He gained allies like Senator Henry Clay, Chief Justice John Marshall, and even Davy Crockett. In a fight that seems at once distant and familiar, Ross and his allies made their case in the media, committed civil disobedience, and benefited from the first mass political action by American women. At stake in this struggle was the land of the Five Civilized Tribes. In shocking detail, Jacksonland reveals how Jackson, as a general, extracted immense wealth from his own armies' conquest of native lands. Later, as president, Jackson set in motion the seizure of tens of millions of acres in today's Deep South. This is the story of America at a moment of transition, when the fate of states and nations was decided by the actions of two heroic yet tragically opposed men.--From publisher description. A renowned journalist and cohost of NPR's Morning Edition presents a thrilling narrative history of President Andrew Jackson and Cherokee Chief John Ross--two heroic yet tragically opposed men whose actions decided the fate of states and Indian nations in America at a moment of transition.

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