ANDREW JACKSON

As far as American history is concerned, Andrew Jackson is probably the most important person to come from Tennessee.

 

But he had a rough life. His father died before he was born; his mother and both his brothers died before he was 14. Luckily for him, he found a job as a lawyer's apprentice when he was a teenager. At the age of 20 he moved to Nashville at a time when the city was a frontier town. Jackson was a tall, slender, hot-tempered man, and he made a great general. His greatest military victory ever was over the British at the Battle of New Orleans in 1815. In 1828 he was elected president of the United States – the first person to ever hold that office who was not from one of the thirteen original colonies.

Today, people still argue about things Andrew Jackson did as president. He dissolved the Bank of the United States. He paid off the national debt. But the most controversial thing he ever did was order all Native Americans moved west--a migration known as the Trail of Tears.

Andrew Jackson's home in Nashville was The Hermitage, and today this place is preserved in much the way it looked when he lived there. Click here for a virtual tour of it.

Click here to learn about Jackson's role in the Battle of Horseshoe Bend in 1814.

And, elsewhere on the page, Andrew Jackson's name comes up quite a bit. Click here for "The Ten Most Fascinating Things About Andrew Jackson," from the eighth grade section.