Signers

 

Andrew Jackson participated in the Revolutionary War Battle of Hanging Rock as a young teenager; he was captured by the British and imprisoned. He worked in a saddler's shop and taught school before his admission to the bar in Salisbury, North Carolina in 1787. The next year he moved to Jonesboro (now Tennessee), where he was appointed solicitor of the western district of North Carolina, retaining the position when the area of Tennessee became the Southwest Territory in 1791. When Tennessee became a State in 1796, Jackson was elected to the US Congress. By 1798 he had resigned from the House to take a seat in the Senate, and resigned from the Senate to take an appointment to the Tennessee State Supreme Court. He became a planter, purchased more slaves, and opened a store in Gallatin, eventually becoming one of the largest slave holders in the state and a significant land speculator. During the War of 1812 he fought against the Creeks in the Southeast as commander of the Tennessee militia, and was commissioned a major general in the US Army, leading troops in the famous Battle of New Orleans. He followed this with a ruthless campaign in Florida against the Seminoles, causing an international incident in his treatment of British and Spanish citizens there. In 1819, Jackson founded Memphis, Tennessee with John Overton and James Winchester. He was named the military governor of Florida when Spain withdrew from the area in 1821. He was elected to the Senate again in 1822 and ran a limited campaign for President in 1824. Jackson won the Presidency in a bitterly personal campaign in 1828. During his two terms he eliminated the National Bank and pursued organized Indian removal (ethnic cleansing) as an official policy of the US. After his Presidency he retired to the Hermitage, the plantation where he kept 150 slaves. Jackson was Grand Master of Tennessee Masons and notable for the number of duels he fought. A parrot screamed obscenities during his funeral. Counties in AL, AR, CO, FL, IL, IN, IA, KS, KY, LA, MI, MS, MO, NC, OH, OK, OR, TN, TX, WV and WI (and Hickory County, Missouri)  are named for him.  He was a member of the Jackson/Butler kinship group.