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Andrew Jackson was born to Presbyterian Scots-Irish immigrants Andrew and Elizabeth Jackson, on March 15, 1767 approximately two years after they had emigrated from Carrickfergus. [2][3] Three weeks after his father’s death, Andrew was born in the Waxhaws area near the border between North and South Carolina. He was the youngest of the Jacksons’ three sons. His exact birth site was the subject of conflicting lore in the area. Jackson claimed to have been born in a cabin just inside South Carolina. [4] Jackson refusing to clean a British officer’s boots (1876 lithograph) Jackson refusing to clean a British officer’s boots (1876 lithograph)
He received a sporadic education in the local “old-field” school. During the American Revolutionary War, Jackson, at age thirteen, joined a local regiment as a courier. [5] Andrew and his brother Robert Jackson were captured by the British and held as prisoners of war; they nearly starved to death in captivity. When Andrew refused to clean the boots of a British officer, the irate redcoat slashed at him with a sword, giving him scars on his left hand and head, as well as an intense hatred for the British. [6] While imprisoned, the brothers contracted smallpox.
Robert died a few days after their mother secured their release. Jackson’s entire immediate family died from war-related hardships which Jackson blamed on the British, and he was orphaned by age 14. Jackson was the last U. S. President to have been a veteran of the American Revolution, and the second President to have been a prisoner of war (Washington was captured by the French in the French and Indian War). In 1781, Jackson worked for a time in a saddle-maker’s shop. [7] Later he taught school and studied law in Salisbury, North Carolina.
In 1787, he was admitted to the bar, and moved to Jonesboro, in what was then the Western District of North Carolina, and later became Tennessee. Though his legal education was scanty, Jackson knew enough to practice law on the frontier. Since he was not from a distinguished family, he had to make his career by his own merits; soon he began to prosper in the rough-and-tumble world of frontier law. Most of the actions grew out of disputed land-claims, or from assaults and battery. In 1788, he was appointed Solicitor of the Western District and held the same position in the territorial government of Tennessee after 1791.
In 1796, Jackson was a delegate to the Tennessee constitutional convention. When Tennessee achieved statehood in 1796, Jackson was elected its U. S. Representative. In 1797 he was elected U. S. Senator as a Democratic-Republican. He resigned within a year. In 1798, he was appointed a judge of the Tennessee Supreme Court, serving until 1804. [8] Besides his legal and political career, Jackson prospered as a planter and merchant. In 1803 he owned a lot, and built a home and the first general store in Gallatin, Sumner County. In 1804, he acquired the “Hermitage”, a 640-acre (2. km2) plantation in Sumner County, near Nashville. Jackson later added 360 acres (1. 5 km2) to the farm. The primary crop was cotton, grown by enslaved workers. Jackson started with nine slaves, by 1820 he held as many as 44, and later held up to 150 slaves. [9] Bibliography # 1 Wilentz, Sean. Andrew Jackson (2005), p. 8, 35. # 2″Andrew Jackson”. Information Services Branch, State Library of North Carolina. # 3 “Andrew Jackson Cottage and US Rangers Centre”. Northern Ireland Tourist Board. # 4″Museum of the Waxhaws and Andrew Jackson Memorial”.
Retrieved on 2008-01-13. Controversies about Jackson’s birthplace went far beyond the dispute between North and South Carolina. Because his origins were humble and obscure compared to those of his predecessors, wild rumors abounded about Jackson’s past. Joseph Nathan Kane, in his almanac-style book Facts About the Presidents, lists no fewer than eight localities, including two foreign countries, that were mentioned in the popular press as Jackson’s “real” birthplace ??? including Ireland, where both of Jackson’s parents were born. 5 “Andrew Jackson”. Library of Congress. Retrieved on 2007-06-03. # 6 a b Crocker III, H. W. (2006). Don’t Tread on Me. New York: Crown Forum, 105. ISBN 9781400053636. # 7 a b Paletta, Lu Ann; Worth, Fred L (1988). The World Almanac of Presidential Facts. World Almanac Books. ISBN 0345348885. # 8 JACKSON, Andrew, (1767 ??? 1845),, Biographical Directory of the United States Congress # 9 Remini (2000), p. 51 cites 1820 census; mentions later figures up to 150 without noting a source.