It would be quite wrong to defend Jackson on the Indian expulsions of the 1830's on any grounds.
Jackson is the "model"
- for Obama's selective enforcement of law;
- for Obama's coercing, bribing and suborning of legislators;
- for Obama's contempt for private property;
- for Obama's forced redistribution of wealth;
- for Obama's punishment of the productive
- for Obama's unearned subsidies to the shiftless,
- for Obama's destruction of farmers
- for Obama's "stroke of the pen" style of autocracy: law, states, and the U.S. Supreme Court be damned, and
- for Obama's massive import of immigrants to create constituencies for himself.
These people were not enemies of, or belligerents against, the United States. They weren't even so culturally different from their Euro-American neighbors. They held legal title to their lands, farmed, used plows, harrows and wagons pulled by horses and mules, ran sawmills, grain mills and printing presses, sang Christian hymns in their Christian churches. They were lawful, hard-working, sober and productive.
George W. Harkins, Choctaw
Cherokee Principal Chief John Ross
Betsy Stephens, Cherokee
Marcia Pascal, Cherokee
This was an ethnic cleansing Holder and Obama can only dream of.
Like the european colonialization, U.S. expansion in this time period was a run for resources.
That’s what the “modern” countries did back then. In this instance, the Cherokee lost. They had prior sovereignty agreements, which were violated. I don’t dispute that.
What I dispute is making some type of moral judgement against the victor for coming out on top of the conflict.
That somehow, just because they “lost”, the Indians were somehow more human than human.
Had roles been reversed, meaning, Europeans living in the stone age w/Indians being the colonizers, do you think it would’ve gone differently for the weaker side? I doubt it.
Quibbling over the treatment of the defeated by the victor in conflicts of the past seems to me to be just a way of modern propagandists to claim the U.S. is “bad” and therefore must change, which always seems to be in a direction of communism strangely enough.
I’m not buying it.
Throughout history, crappy things have happened to all sorts of folks.
AJ is on the bill for his positive contributions to U.S. history (maybe because it’s U.S, currency), not for his contribution to Cherokee history. If the Cherokee come up w/their own currency, they can put who they want on it.
Even if it’s someone who was mean to white folks.