Daguerrotype of Andrew Jackson
The U.S. government never hesitated to relocate Native Americans when it decided white people needed their land. In 1814, U.S. military commander Andrew Jackson (later, 7th president of the U.S.) divested the Creek nation of 22 million acres of land in Georgia and Alabama after its defeat at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend.
Jackson’s troops later invaded Spanish Florida and took land from the Seminoles in 1818. He was ruthless in battle and was known as Sharp Knife by the Seminoles.
From 1814 through 1824, Jackson helped negotiate nine treaties that gave the government substantial Native American land holdings in the eastern United States. In exchange, tribes were given land in the west. Many of the treaties were little more than sanctioned arm-twisting. Tribes agreed to their terms because they wanted to appease the U.S. government and protect what little land they had left.
Battle of Horseshoe Bend
Horseshoe Bend, courtesy National Park Service
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