Andrew Jackson

Andrew Jackson first achieved fame as a military leader in the War of 1812 with the British and in later conflicts with the Creek and the Seminole Indians. As commander of American forces in the 'old southwest,' which included Mississippi, he negotiated treaties with other tribes; "A Courtship" mentions the one he signed with the Chickasaw that lived in the region where Yoknapatawpha imaginatively exists. Jackson became the seventh President of the U.S. in 1829, where one of his most famous - or infamous - acts was to create and implement the 'Indian Removal' policy, which forced most of the Indians in Mississippi and elsewhere to leave their homes for land west of the Mississippi River. While there is an ironic edge to the way the fictions treat Jackson, the passage in Requiem for a Nun that notes that the new capital of the state of Mississippi was named for the "old hero," the "brawling lean fierce mangy durable old lion," also displays a kind of admiration for him (85). This novel also refers to the rumors about the legality of his marriage to his wife, whose "honor must be defended whether it was or not" (85).