September 11, 2012

"Most Terrifying Man Ever Elected President"

Andrew Jackson: Worst and Most Terrifying U.S. PresidentHe won the top spot on our worst U.S. presidents list and on September 10 Cracked.com featured a video titled “Andrew Jackson: Most Terrifying Man Ever Elected President,” which was certainly true for Native Americans. He earned nicknames like “Indian killer” and “Sharp Knife” and was a proponent of Indian removal.

The video describes the number of duels Jackson took part in—anywhere from 13 to in the hundreds—and talks about his other nickname, “Old Hickory,” which Cracked says is because of the hickory cane he carried. Other sources say he earned the nickname because of his toughness, which the video demonstrates.

The seventh president of the United States, who graces our $20 bills, earned his “Sharp Knife” nickname from the Cherokee according to Amargi who wrote an article on the website Unsettling America: Decolonization in Theory & Practice.

“He was also the founder of the Democratic Party, demonstrating that genocide against indigenous people is a nonpartisan issue,” Amargi wrote. “His first effort at Indian fighting was waging a war against the Creeks. President Jefferson had appointed him to appropriate Creek and Cherokee lands. In his brutal military campaigns against Indians, Andrew Jackson recommended that troops systematically kill Indian women and children after massacres in order to complete the extermination. The Creeks lost 23 million acres of land in southern Georgia and central Alabama, paving the way for cotton plantation slavery. His frontier warfare and subsequent ‘negotiations’ opened up much of the southeast U.S. to settler colonialism.”
Comment:  For more on Andrew Jackson, see Gingrich Cheers Killing of Indians and Indians, Terrorists = US Enemies.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

James Buchanan almsot invaded Haiti and Cuba over slavery. (In the case of Cuba, he thought the Spanish couldn't control their slaves.)

Most of the 19th-century presidents were of the "Thank God they only had 4-8 years." variety. I honestly just think Andrew Jackson's become iconic of it.

dmarks said...

The Dems are still the party that openly embrace Jackson and name so much after him and are so proud of his legacy

dmarks said...

And yes, I think he should even be taken off the money.

Anon: Complete control of the Cubans didn't happen until the Soviets turned the place into a prison in 1959.

Rob said...

Everyone embraces all the old presidents: Washington and Jefferson the slave-owners, Lincoln the Mankato executioner, Teddy Roosevelt the imperialist warmonger, et al. The first president who offends a lot of modern sensibilities is probably FDR.

I haven't heard any Republicans denounce Jackson, or any Democrats "embrace" him. Going to a dinner named for him is about as much of an embrace as flying into Reagan International Airport.