Talk:Andrew Jackson

Andrew Johnson

The hatnote "not to be confused with Andrew Johnson" has been added, removed, re-added etc. several times. There was a (now archived) matching discussion on Talk:Andrew Johnson which didn't reach a consensus. My opinion is such a hatnote is desirable: they're both US presidents in the 1800s, both named Andrew J***son, so they could be easily confused by people who aren't familiar with US presidents (that is, many of our readers, especially those outside the US). If a consensus is reached on this, we should consider adding an invisible comment "do not add/remove hatnote" to the source page to discourage any further reversions. 🦬 Beefaloe 🦬 07:43, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

I absolutely think it should be included. The confusion is *extremely* common amongst students and English language learners, witness:

• "Did Andrew Jackson get impeached?". homework.study.com. Archived from the original on 2024-12-02. Retrieved 2024-11-30.
• "Andrew Johnson: Impeached". learningenglish.voanews.com. Archived from the original on 2023-07-22. Retrieved 2024-11-30.

At one point Donald Trump said something about Andrew Jackson that was so weird that when absolutely bewildered professional historians were asked to explain it they thought possibly he confused Jackson and Johnson although that didn't really make sense either. Gunter, Joel (2017-05-01). "Civil War historians take on Trump". BBC News. Retrieved 2024-11-30.

Wikipedia is globalpedia not Americapedia and this is a service business non-profit organization. IMHO, we gotta imagine everyone is an 8th grader trying to write a report on a president they've barely ever heard of before and/or some nice lady in Ankara, Turkey who is just trying to figure out what that news story was referring to. jengod (talk) 20:18, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

Resource for Jackson writers

Just FYI, I created an index of portraits of Andrew Jackson.

Some unsolicited amateur art criticism (free of charge!):

• EARL: Ralph E. W. Earl is a goddamn terrible artist. It's not just that he's primitive-vernacular-rustic, it's that he created anti-art such as is found in 1982 motel rooms and is produced in oil-painting sweatshops for resale through Temu and Alibaba. The Nathan Wheeler is also primitive-vernacular-rustic, and it is patently ridiculous and it has thus often been the basis for Jackson caricature, and most scholars commenting are like "Uh...maybe he was trying to show Jackson was gaunt because of riding around a lot during the war?...?" but the Wheeler is by far a superior oil painting (and painted portrait specifically!) to any image of Jackson that Earl ever made. Earl's portraits of the "Old Hero" are vapid, dead-eyed voids actually sucking meaning out of the universe. I personally think we should avoid all of them because they are propagandistic (he was Jackson's nephew by marriage among other things), and because they are trash. That said (to my eye at least), the least horrifying of the batch are:
  • the Jockey Club portrait
  • the equestrian portrait because at least the horse, Sam Patch, has something to say
  • Tennessee Gentleman
  • Farmer Jackson
• SULLY: Of the three extant Sullys, the 1845 that is the basis for the USD$20 is by far the best; they say it's unfinished bc Sully just never got back to it but I personally suspect an intentional homage to Stuart's Athenaeum Portrait of Washington
• LONGACRE: Longacre's engraving work is all very good—and flattering of Jackson, if you're into that kind of thing! If there was an oil painting version of the 1829 "from life" engraving, I imagine it would be the portrait of Jackson
• WHAT DID ANDREW JACKSON LOOK LIKE? The truest non-photographic likenesses, IMHO, never having met Mr. Jackson myself:
  • Colonizer era
    • Rembrandt Peale
    • Waldo, especially the first one (notice the subtle smoothing in the face over the series)
    • Jouett contemplative side profile
  • Presidential era
    • Longacre engraving, 1829
  • Post-presidential era
    • Kellogg
    • Marchant
• DAGUERREOTYPES
  • The first daguerreotype is an absolutely legendary photographic portrait. ART.
  • The second set are notable for being made roughly two months before AJ's death.
• HONORABLE MENTION: The 1830s Hubard has a bizarre but compelling haunted-house-Miss-Havisham vibe that I suspect is quite authentic; this painting is weird AF but also warrants our attention.

Collecting these was a very interesting tour through American art! The list was intended to be of use to future Jackson-content creators so I wanted to let you all know it was there.

Happy new year and warm regards to you all! jengod (talk) 21:02, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

Categories

@Jengod: The article doesn't mention Jackson's gambling (or am I missing something?), so Category:American gamblers doesn't make sense. Likewise, how does Category:United States Indian agents make sense?

Actually, there are a lot of categories there, and probably several of them don't meet the description in WP:CATDEF. But that's not an excuse for adding more. Many editors add categories to biographical articles without paying the slightest attention to WP:CATDEF, alas. Bruce leverett (talk) 22:31, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

Bruce leverett - Jackson had a long and multifaceted journey through American history. Hard to cover it all in one article.

• Evidence that he can be categorized as a notable American gambler is here: Kupfer, B. S. (1970). A Presidential Patron of the Sport of Kings: Andrew Jackson. Tennessee Historical Quarterly, 29(3), 243–255. http://www.jstor.org/stable/42623730
• Jackson is described as an Indian agent and info about his appointment as an Indian commissioner serving in the 1810s and 1820s is here: Ray, Jonathan (2014) Andrew Jackson and the Indians, 1767–1815, University of Alabama thesis, pp. 235–246 https://ir.ua.edu/handle/123456789/2002

Others are more qualified than me to render judgment on what is defining but his lifelong involvement with thoroughbred racing (with accompanying high-stakes wagers) is included in a number of biographies, and his role in the displacement of the Native Americans of southeastern North America began long before his presidential-era Indian removal efforts. jengod (talk) 23:00, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

The solution is not to add "teaser" categories that are unconnected to what's in the article. The reader who sees "American gamblers" has no idea where to look for more information. If your assessment of his racing activity (and its notability) is accurate, you should be able to add a paragraph about it, or a couple of sentences, with the usual citations of sources. Then the category would belong there.

As for "United States indian agents", we actually have an article Indian agent, which includes a list of "Notable indian agents", and Jackson isn't in the list. Could you read the article and determine if Jackson fits our definition of "indian agent"? If he does, then (1) add him to that list, and (2) mention his tenure as an indian agent in this (Andrew Jackson) article. Then the problem would be solved. If he doesn't fit our definition, then it's a different problem, which might be solved some other way. Bruce leverett (talk) 23:33, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

@Bruce leverett I'll undo the category for American gamblers just so I don't have to write/negotiate :) and I'll take a look at Indian agent right now and proceed as advised. jengod (talk) 23:42, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

I've added Jackson and several of his friends and a number of others whose names turned up in the sources to expand the list of notable Indian agents. I think there's a connotation of "the Indian agent" being someone who was sent from the government to help and/or to live with the tribes, ultimately becoming an ally, but from what I can tell, like most things, people who had that job were people, and thus ran the gamut morally and otherwise. The title Indian agent or Indian commissioner seems to have a lot of flexibility, at least per the Library of Congress which calls them "so-called Indian agents" who were "acting on behalf of the federal government...sometimes in conjunction with U.S. military presence and state and territorial officials and politicians". I also added Jackson's title as originally appointed "commissioner plenipotentiary" and cited to Remini and added the link to another treaty.

jengod (talk) 04:29, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

Thanks. I suspected that your research would turn up some degree of ambiguity about just what an "Indian agent" is and who was/is one. Bruce leverett (talk) 16:20, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

Recent lead addition on Democratic Party

I reworked the updated addition to Democratic Party. The latest version of this addition aligns with the main article better as per WP:Lead. Clause describing democratic party as oldest was deleted, the relevance of the democratic party is not a focus of this article, but readers can quickly access it by clicking the link. The lead still ends with with a statement of Jackson's policies toward Native Americans, as this is one of the bigger issues in his 21st century legacy. Wtfiv (talk) 15:53, 11 January 2025 (UTC)

Addition for Semicolon

In the early life of Andrew Jackson, there seems to be a wrong punctuation in this sentence during talking about Andrew Jackson's father, "Jackson's father is unclear. His father died at 29" something like that. What I mean is, the . should be replaced by a Semicolon, not a . Because the two independent clauses are connected, It emphasizes the unclear connection between Andrew Jackson's unclear Father and Early death. Correct if I'm wrong since I'm new to editing. HistorianofWorldHistory (talk) 10:56, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

 Done Wtfiv (talk) 18:24, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

@Wtfiv Thank you so much good sir. HistorianofWorldHistory (talk) 20:27, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

"Owner of slaves" vs "Enslaved"

In accordance with recent academic practice on the topic, I would suggest changing

becoming a wealthy planter who owned hundreds of African American slaves during his lifetime

to

becoming a wealthy planter who enslaved hundreds of African Americans during his lifetime

Thoughts? ElectronicsForDogs (talk) 14:20, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

 Done Wtfiv (talk) 18:24, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

That's terrible revisionism. It fails to distinguish one who inherited slaves, one who purchased or otherwise received someone who was already a slave, and actually enslaving someone by capture or by force.

Perhaps academia should reconsider their ways and seek the truth, and not promote historical presentist activism. Theologism (talk) 18:25, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

Editorial consensus for this article is that "enslaved" is the preferred term and is a term in use according to reliable sources. - Shearonink (talk) 18:32, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

The key distinction is not how one came to enslave but whether or not one enslaved or manumitted. Also, there is the moral question of defining any human as a slave—if I say you were born a slave does that make it so? (If aliens came here today and declared we were slaves of the empire of Luminos Prime would we accept our reclassification?) Thus "legally enslaved" is language that expresses that this was an imposed status not a choice or an inevitability.

As for the origin of the people Jackson enslaved, why does it matter if he bought them in Baltimore, if they were born to people who had first been enslaved by his father-in-law, or if he personally sailed them in from the Bight of Biafra? jengod (talk) 19:57, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

[Andrew Jackson] ... enslaved seems like it conveys an incorrect idea. Andrew Jackson didn't sail somewhere, change them from being free to non-free, then bring them back. For this reason I think the previous wording is better. –Novem Linguae (talk) 01:19, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

I have changed the text "who enslaved hundreds of African Americans during his lifetime" to "who profited off the forced labor of hundreds of enslaved African Americans during his lifetime." for clarity; note: "enslaved Africans" is not a neologism—Harriet Beecher Stow used the phrase in Uncle Tom's Cabin, first published in 1852. Carlstak (talk) 01:41, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

2025

@Wtfiv the page is biased when it says "he was criticized for his racist policies, because you're only citing one side. so I added how people who like him view him. And if his racist policies led to thousands of deaths, that should be mentioned in lede. DisneyGuy744 (talk) 17:46, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

@DisneyGuy744 Everything you added is covered by Sometimes praised as an advocate for working Americans and for preserving the union of states, his political philosophy became the basis for the Democratic Party.

His presidency saw the forced removal of Native American tribes from their ancestral lands.

Jackson had been working on divesting Native people of their land since 1813. How else are you going to "establish" Memphis and get cheap plantations for all your friends around Huntsville and Florence Alabama? This push, sometimes in the form of war, and sometimes in the form of "treaty-making for peace" goes on continuously until 1819, including the First Seminole War (which I'm pretty sure is really the third time he jumped into Pensacola; they made him give it back the first two times.) He says "haha just kidding" about the "land for peace" or "be my ally now and I'll only mess with that other tribe" part when he becomes President. The walls start closing in quickly; scholars speculate about the feds withholding annuity payments in the last few years before removal, so the tribes are literally desperate for food. In the early 1830s, Alabama newspapers start reporting starving Chickasaw lingering on their borders and actually sound kinda alarmed. It's a massive 25-year project in which Jackson is a leading if not the leading figure. Whether not Indian Removal was "inevitable" (as some scholars have argued as recently as the 1980s), Jackson's part in the story starts long before his Presidency.

Some of his supporters argue that he was a "populist hero" who challenged the political establishment, and a defender of democracy and the U.S. Constitution.

John C. Calhoun and Henry Clay and JQ Adams also liked democracy and the U.S. Constitution just fine. These are non-specific terms not rooted in a specific scholarship that flatter Jackson without contextualizing him in the politics of his time or the history of the United States. Meanwhile there is plenty of scholarship ("Pessen thesis," for one) that Jackson was in fact the vanguard of an American aristocracy that flourished from his time until the Civil War so his anti-establishment credentials are dubious at best. Being a chaos agent who couldn't organize a functioning cabinet is not the same as being a political iconoclast.

jengod (talk) 21:28, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

Everything I added is not covered by "Sometimes praised as an advocate for working Americans and for preserving the union of states, his political philosophy became the basis for the Democratic Party." What I just quoted says nothing about the political establishment or the Constitution. Also if the Indian Removal was "inevitable", why didn't you just remove "racist policies about native Americans" from the first paragraph. Instead you get mad I give more detail on the situation. And with the "populist hero" thing I was just quoting his supporters DisneyGuy744 (talk) 22:21, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

@DisneyGuy744 I didnt say it was inevitable, I said the 1980s were the last time people were pushing that argument. Scholarship over the last 30 years has been moving toward the conclusion that it was genocide, etc. As for what "his supporters say," we are under no obligation to republish Democratic Party campaign materials from 1846, our job is synthesize high-quality secondary sources, of which there are many for Jackson, into an encyclopedia article. jengod (talk) 22:54, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

We list what his haters say. It says "he got criticized for being racist" in the lede. So why not mention both what the haters and also his supporters say. If not it's biased and remove Native American and racist from the first paragraph DisneyGuy744 (talk) 23:03, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

This is not a fansite.

I will refer you to our article on false balance and the essay Wikipedia:NPOV means neutral editing, not neutral content. The existence of Jacksonists and the why they liked him, based on reliable sources, is already included in the article, and multiple other articles including the presidential election articles. jengod (talk) 23:23, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

I'm not using this site as a fan site. I am neutral editing. As I do not have an opinion on Andrew Jackson. Also lots of things are mentioned more than once in this article, like racism against Native Americans. Why can't I go into more detail in the first paragraph. Most of the early presidents were racist and slave owners. Andrew Jackson is the only president where racism is mentioned in the first paragraph. I'm going into detail on why it's mentioned in the first paragraph and why he's more controversial, as well as going into detail what his supporters say since it'll be biased content or at least look like that to only cite his haters who accuse him of being racist in the first paragraph and not the supporters too. DisneyGuy744 (talk) 23:50, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

DisneyGuy744, this first paragraph of the lead was a source of contention that brought the article under Featured Article Review. The conversation on this topic got extremely contentious and this version of the lead was the compromise that balanced supporters and critics. It starts with the positive claims of his legacy-advocate for working Americans and for preserving the union of states, his political philosophy became the basis for the Democratic Party- ends with his negative claims.

Jackson seems to bring on strong opinions about both. Take a look at the conversation at the beginning of this archive talk page. It has additional links to conversation during the Featured Article Review, which tried to clean up some of the parts.

Here's a summary of where these issues were discussed in detail:

To get a sense of the different voices involved crafting the lead, please take a look at the following.

• This example comes before the FAR review: the discussion of the lead
• This section was also before the FAR review: Request for Comments on the lead
• Here's a concern raised during the FAR review about concerns of coverage regarding Native Americans. Scroll to the section that says "The shocking truth about Wikipedia’s Holocaust disinformation". This also references a discussion about a Slate article on this article's biases. The discussion is archived here.

The discussion of Jackson's attitude towards Native American was clearly the most controversial. As Jengod points out, The "Trail of Tears" was only a small part of Jackson's Indian Removal Policy, and the Indian Removal Policy is only a small part of his Native American displacement. If you read the article, and look at the map, you'll see that Jackson's policies starting from the Treaty of Fort Jackson wound up displacing Native Americans from over 3/5ths of Alabama, 2/3 of Mississippi, more than 1/4 of Tennessee, and significant parts of Georgia and Florida. The specific treaties are all referenced in the main article. Wtfiv (talk) 02:53, 21 December 2024 (UTC) Wtfiv (talk) 02:23, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

Please stop removing the contents from the page until the discussion is over. You're causing an edit war. DisneyGuy744 (talk) 05:04, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

Please arrive at consensus before adding contents that have been discussed before. Please see the links above for context. Until we agree to the changes, it's best to keep the original wording of the lead. Wtfiv (talk) 05:19, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

The content I added has been discussed before? I don't think so. The content I added was in my own words and I didn't change the wording of the lead. I just added additions content that hasn't been discussed before that I honestly have no idea why we're discussing since my edit doesn't violate any rules DisneyGuy744 (talk) 05:25, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

I think this is getting closer. It looks like the main change is the order has been changed. At this point, I removed one of the sentence referencing native Americans, as the previous addresses it. I also returned the sentences at the end of the fourth paragraph of the lead. If you take a look, this summarizes the material in the lead. I also fixed an ambiguous link and replaced one that had been lost. Wtfiv (talk) 05:41, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

Is it just me, or is this lead section different from other president lead sections in a startling way? The first paragraph contains a sentence starting with "He is often criticized ...", and another sentence starting with "He is also sometimes praised ...". Most other prez lead sections leave that stuff about how history views the guy until the last paragraph.

As we all know, many readers won't get past the first paragraph. I would think we should tell what he did in that paragraph, rather than telling how history sees him. Readers can't appreciate the historical evaluation anyway until they have read what he did.

This unorthodox organization of the lead dates back to at least December, so I don't know who to blame it on.

We have other presidents who are as controversial as Jackson, but we don't have endless arguments about them, or am I missing something?

Would one of you Jackson experts like to put together a two- or three-sentence description of what things Jackson did that are most famous, that would be suitable for the first paragraph? It should, of course, be supported by what's in the main body of the article. Having put that there, then we could move the historical evaluation stuff to where it would normally belong, at the end of the last paragraph. Bruce leverett (talk) 05:29, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

I agree with you Bruce. 11 out of the 45 U.S. Presidents have been documented as slave owners. The early presidents since slavery was abolished early on but that's besides the point. George Washington inherited his first slaves at age 11 and owned hundreds over his lifetime. Do we call him racist in the first paragraph? No. I either go into more detail on the first paragraph on what his policies on native Americans are to explain why Wikipedia editors don't like him or we just remove"racist" from the first paragraph and place it somewhere else. Public opinion on u.s. presidents shouldn't be in the first paragraph. It makes the page biased and no other page is like this DisneyGuy744 (talk) 05:35, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

@Wtfiv please add back "His presidency saw the forced removal of Native American tribes from their ancestral lands". And remove "Jackson's legacy is controversial. He is often criticized for his racist policies" as the first paragraph of any U.S. president is supposed to describe the president and not what random people think of him. You're literally starting an edit war for no reason when I asked you multiple times can you please wait. DisneyGuy744 (talk) 05:59, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

I'm not going to weigh in on the specifics here yet, but speaking generally, Jackson appears to have been a demagogue, so more negative statements than normal doesn't set off my alarm bells. Demagogues often do negative things.

The WP:BRD principle suggests that any bold edits that are objected to should be reverted until consensus is achieved for them on this talk page. The onus is on the person making the recent edits to convince others to keep their changes. –Novem Linguae (talk) 09:34, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

Photograph

I just changed Andrew Jackson's image to that of a photograph taken later in his life. Can you let me keep it? BarfChimp445 (talk) 01:52, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

• 
  A - BarfChimp445 choice
• 
  B - Status quo image
• 
  C - Proposed new
• 
  D - Proposed new

I see the Wikipedia tradition of choosing unflattering pictures of people for their articles is still strong. lol. The previous one wasn't great either. Seems like the artist wasn't great at getting the proportions of the body and clothing correct. Searching Commons, I think C and D are better than A and B. I propose Option D. –Novem Linguae (talk) 02:03, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

Oops, I recommended in my edit summary that you should "start a discussion on the talk page", but now I see that you had already done so. Thanks.

I agree with a previous poster that A is "unflattering". Perhaps it is the result of primitive daguerrotype technology or, perhaps, just a photograph that somebody never got around to retouching. I'm not happy with B either, it looks as though someone wanted Jackson to look god-like. C and D are OK, at least by comparison. Bruce leverett (talk) 02:25, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

Rereading MOS:LEADIMAGE, I am reminded that familiarity or recognizability is a good thing in this context. We should if possible use "a representative image ... what our readers will expect to see.' So I reached into my wallet and pulled out a picture of Jackson. Looks a lot like C or D. Bruce leverett (talk) 06:10, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

BarfChimp445's choice was discussed in March 2024, see Talk Archive. The 1835 Earl (B) was used many years back by the original editor who got the article through the Featured Article process. I had nothing to do with the choice, but I personally think the Earl (B), which was painted in 1835 when Jackson was president and at the peak of his power, is ideal. Earl was Jackson's painter, becoming known as his "court painter". Jackson clearly approved of Earl's work and style. Ironically, the "weaknesses" of Earl's style that Jengod points out above may be part of the work's strength. Jackson chose Earl, who lived with Jackson between 1829-1838 and was friends with him, to paint most of his legacy throughout the years (and even had him paint Rachel). Wtfiv (talk) 03:30, 22 January 2025 (UTC)