Andrew Jackson (1767 to 1845) was an American military officer and politician who served as the seventh president of the United States from 1829 to 1837. From humble beginnings as a frontier lawyer in Tennessee, he rose to national prominence after his victory at the Battle of New Orleans (8 January 1815). He ran for president on a populist platform, supported by the new Democratic Party, and won election in 1828. During his two terms, Jackson worked to strengthen the power of the presidency as he dealt with major incidents such as the Bank War and the Nullification Crisis. He signed the Indian Removal Act, which displaced tens of thousands of Native Americans and has often been considered an example of ethnic cleansing. He left office in 1837 but continued to exert significant influence over national politics until his death in 1845.

Jackson was born on 15 March 1767 in Waxhaws, a frontier community bestriding the border between North and South Carolina; both states have claimed him as a native son, though the evidence indicates that he was most likely born in South Carolina. He was the third child of Andrew Jackson Sr. and Elizabeth Hutchinson Jackson, a pair of Presbyterian Scotch-Irish immigrants who had made the Atlantic crossing to the Carolinas only two years before. He never knew his father, as the senior Andrew Jackson had unexpectedly died three weeks before the birth of his namesake. With nowhere else to turn, the newly widowed Elizabeth Jackson took her three sons and moved in with her sister and brother-in-law, the Crawfords, who put her to work as a housekeeper. The Crawfords were much wealthier than the Jacksons, and, growing up on their plantation, young Andrew always felt like an outsider. "His childish recollections were of humiliating dependence and galling discomfort," a relative would later recall (quoted in Meacham, 9).

Elizabeth Jackson's experiences in Ireland had given her a strong hatred for the British, which she passed on to her sons. It was hardly surprising, then, that, after the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War (1775 to 1783), her oldest son, Hugh, sided with the Patriots and joined a militia company. He would never come home, dying of heat exhaustion shortly after the Battle of Stono Ferry in June 1779. The following year, the war came to the Jacksons' doorstep; the British seized Charleston in May 1780, unleashing a wave of brutal violence throughout South Carolina as Patriot and Loyalist militias butchered one another in the backcountry. "Men hunted each other like beasts of prey," wrote a future Jackson partisan (quoted in Meacham, 11). Although they were both only teenagers, Jackson and his surviving brother Robert aided the Patriot militias, drilling with them and carrying messages for them. In April 1781, the two brothers were captured by a party of British soldiers. When Jackson refused a humiliating order from the British officer to clean his boots, the officer slashed him with his saber, leaving lifelong scars on the boy's hands and face.

The Jackson brothers were then sent to a prisoner-of-war camp at Camden, where they languished for weeks in the scorching heat, packed tightly in with other disease-ridden prisoners. They were eventually released in a prisoner exchange, but Robert had contracted smallpox during their confinement and died only two days after returning home. As if this were not tragic enough, Jackson's mother died later that year, having contracted cholera while nursing injured soldiers in Charleston. At only 14 years old, Jackson was now the only surviving member of his family. He blamed the British for the deaths of his mother and brothers, and for the rest of his life carried a deep-seated hatred for all things he associated with Britain, including privilege and aristocracy. After the war, Jackson briefly returned to Waxhaws, where he worked as a saddler before going to Salisbury, North Carolina, to study law. He passed the state bar in 1787 and, the following year, set himself up in the western district of North Carolina, which would soon become the state of Tennessee.

In October 1788, Jackson moved to the frontier town of Nashville, where he quickly built a reputation as a successful lawyer. He boarded at the home of Col. John Donelson and became acquainted with his host's 17-year-old daughter, Rachel. Jackson was enraptured by Rachel, who was described by one account as "gay and lively…the best story-teller, the best dancer, the sprightliest companion, the most dashing horsewoman in the western country" (quoted in Meacham, 21). By 1789, Jackson and Rachel had struck up a romance and were soon living together as common-law man and wife. There was, however, a problem: Rachel was already married to a man ten years her senior. She and her husband were separated, to be sure, and the husband would file for divorce in 1790 on the grounds of infidelity. Yet it would be several years before the divorce was finalized, by which time Andrew and Rachel had been living together for quite some time, a detail that would come back to haunt them.

In 1796, Tennessee was granted statehood, and Jackson was elected to represent it in Congress. Over the course of the next few years, he served brief stints in both congressional chambers – accomplishing little of note – before returning to Nashville in 1798 to accept a position as judge on the Tennessee Superior Court. He purchased the Hermitage, a large cotton plantation on the outskirts of Nashville, that brought him wealth and status; the plantation, of course, was labored on by hundreds of slaves, whom Jackson was known to treat harshly if they disobeyed him or tried to escape. This newfound wealth did nothing to ease his fiery temperament as, in May 1806, he fought a duel with attorney Charles Dickinson over a horse-race dispute. Dickinson fired first, striking Jackson squarely in the chest. Jackson took careful aim before returning fire, killing his opponent; Dickinson's bullet, however, would remain lodged in Jackson's body for life. That same year, he conspired with disgraced former vice president Aaron Burr to seize Spanish Florida but distanced himself from the plot when Burr was later put on trial for treason.

The outbreak of the War of 1812 offered Jackson a chance to even the score against the British. In January 1813, he raised a force of 2,000 volunteers and marched south to the defense of New Orleans. They never made it; after a hard 500-mile (800 km) march through ice and snow, the volunteers got as far as Natchez when they were told they were not needed and ordered to disband. Outraged, Jackson refused to leave his troops and marched with them all the way back to Nashville. The volunteers admired Jackson's toughness and nicknamed him 'Old Hickory'. In September, Jackson was shot in the shoulder in a tavern brawl with brothers Jesse and Thomas Hart Benton; although he bled through two mattresses, he resisted the doctor's recommendation to amputate, and he eventually recovered. That same month, he was tasked by the governor to lead a militia force against the Red Sticks, a faction of Creek Native Americans who had allied with the British.

Jackson spent the next half-year campaigning against the Red Sticks, employing scorched-earth tactics such as the burning of villages, the destruction of crops, and the starving of families. At the Battle of Horseshoe Bend (27 March 1814), he broke Red Stick power, slaughtering all their warriors; Davy Crockett, who was present at the battle, would grimly remember how the Tennesseans "shot them like dogs" (quoted in Meacham, 31). Jackson leveraged this victory to compel the Creeks to cede 23 million acres (93,000 km²) of land to the US government. Promoted to brigadier general in the US Army, Jackson then led troops into Spanish Florida, where he defeated a Spanish and British force at the Battle of Pensacola (9 November 1814). Shortly thereafter, he received word that a large British invasion force was heading for New Orleans. He rushed over and took control of the city, declaring martial law as he worked to build an army and improve the city's defenses; when two local officials complained about his takeover, Jackson simply had them arrested. The British army finally arrived outside New Orleans in early January 1815, and, after a series of skirmishes, they attacked the American entrenchments. Jackson's ragtag army managed to beat back the British and score a stunning victory that captured the American consciousness, turning the frontier general into a national hero.

After the war, Jackson remained in command of troops in the southeast, using this position to strongarm Native American nations into ceding land to the US. In December 1817, he once again invaded Spanish Florida, on the pretext that the indigenous Seminole people, living along the US-Florida border, were causing trouble. By May 1818, he had crushed both Seminole and Spanish resistance, captured Pensacola, and arrested two British subjects, whom he accused of aiding the enemy. After a brief trial, Jackson executed both of his British prisoners, sparking an international incident that put the administration of President James Monroe in an awkward position. Jackson was denounced in a long speech by Congressman Henry Clay – sparking a decades-long rivalry – but was ultimately exonerated from any wrongdoing by a congressional investigation in 1819. That same year, Florida was ceded to the US, diffusing much of the international tension. Monroe appointed Jackson as its first territorial governor in 1821.

In July 1822, the Tennessee legislature officially nominated Jackson for president. He was certainly a long-shot candidate, as his four opponents – John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun, and William H. Crawford – were all political heavyweights. But Jackson's reputation as a war hero and status as a political outsider earned him unexpected support from voters across the country. He leaned into this populism and presented himself as a reformer who would clean up corruption in the capital. In the election of 1824, Jackson received 99 electoral votes, the most of any candidate. But because no one had won the necessary majority of 131 electoral votes, the race was handed off to the US House of Representatives. Clay, who feared a Jackson presidency, withdrew his name from the contest and threw his support behind Adams, who ended up winning. After taking office, Adams appointed Clay as his secretary of state, leaving Jackson and his supporters to accuse the two men of having struck a 'corrupt bargain' to steal the election from Jackson.

No sooner had Adams been inaugurated than Jackson's supporters began to prepare for the next election. Under the guidance of master political organizer Martin Van Buren, they coalesced into a new political faction they called 'the Democracy', but which would soon become known as the Democratic Party; these new Democrats included powerful figures such as John C. Calhoun and Senator Thomas Hart Benton (the same man who had once shot Jackson was now one of his staunchest political allies). The election of 1828 was a nasty one, with personal attacks taking precedence over policy debate. The Democrats accused Adams and his National Republican Party of incompetence and corruption. Adams' supporters, in turn, dug up the story of Jackson's early relationship with Rachel, accusing the couple of bigamy and 'sinful living'. The story was printed in newspapers throughout the country, and the stress and embarrassment became too much for Rachel Jackson to bear. She died of a heart attack on 22 December 1828; Jackson was devastated by her loss, for which he would always blame his political enemies. In the end, he won the election with 178 electoral votes. On 4 March 1829, Jackson and his vice president, Calhoun, were inaugurated in Washington, ushering in a new era of US history.

Immediately upon taking office, Jackson sought to make good on his promise to root out corruption in the federal government. He purged 919 officeholders – an astonishing 10% of the government – and promised greater transparency in his administration. But Jackson tended to replace these officials with his own political supporters, causing quite a stir across the country. "They see nothing wrong in the rule," said Senator William Marcy, "that to the victor belong the spoils" (quoted in Meacham 83). It is from this quote that Jackson's system of patronage became known as the 'spoil system'. His cabinet, too, was stocked with loyalists, but it would soon become the source of much frustration when the wife of his secretary of war became embroiled in a sex scandal. The so-called Petticoat Affair essentially paralyzed the administration for the first year of its existence and ended only after Jackson purged the cabinet and replaced them with better-qualified, less drama-prone secretaries.

Much like his first cabinet, Jackson's eight years as president would be filled with drama and controversy. As part of his supposed crusade against corruption, he targeted the Second Bank of the United States (BUS), the largest corporation in the country, which Jackson viewed as an elitist institution that concentrated power in the hands of the wealthy. Jacksonians believed that, if the BUS were not destroyed, it would "subjugate the government" and become the true power center in the country. The matter came to a head in 1832, when Nicholas Biddle, president of the BUS, applied for a renewal of the Bank's 20-year charter. With the help of Clay and other National Republicans, Congress voted to approve the Bank's recharter, but the bill was abruptly vetoed by Jackson. Vowing to 'kill' the Bank, Jackson directed his treasury secretary, Roger B. Taney, to remove federal funds from the BUS and deposit them in dozens of state banks chosen for their loyalty to the administration. Jackson's enemies decried this move as illegal, and he was censured in Congress. The ultimate victory, however, was Jackson's, as the BUS was liquidated shortly after the expiration of its charter in 1836.

As Jackson's administration waged the so-called Bank War, a different kind of war was brewing in South Carolina. The trouble began over the unpopular Tariff of 1828, which had been imposed during the waning years of the Adams administration and was viewed by many disgruntled Southerners as unfairly protecting Northern manufacturers at the expense of cotton planters. Planters in South Carolina tried to pressure the Jackson administration to repeal the tariff, but when this had no effect, some radicals began to talk of nullification; that is, the theoretical ability of a state to nullify a federal law within its own borders. Nullification would be the ultimate test of states' rights versus federal authority, and was championed by Calhoun, who bitterly split with the president over the issue. In June 1832, Calhoun resigned from the vice presidency to run for Senate, where he felt he could better support the nullification cause. Jackson, however, was unwilling to tolerate any challenge to federal authority. On 1 March 1833, at his urging, Congress passed the Force Bill, which authorized the president to use military force to compel South Carolina to obey federal law. The Nullification Crisis was narrowly diffused when Clay and Calhoun agreed to a compromise tariff, leaving the question of states' rights to fester for another three decades.

But perhaps the darkest episode of Jackson's presidency was that of Indian Removal. At the time of his first inauguration, around 100,000 Native Americans lived east of the Mississippi River, and it was Jackson's intention to push them onto lands farther west – voluntarily, if possible, but forcibly if necessary. Despite spirited opposition from Senator Theodore Frelinghuysen, Congress passed the Indian Removal Act in 1830, as states began to extend their authority over sovereign Native American nations within their borders. When, in 1832, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall ruled in favor of tribal sovereignty, Jackson ignored the ruling, allegedly remarking, "John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it." The Indian Removal Act pertained mostly to the so-called 'Five Civilized Tribes' of the southeast, which included the Cherokee, Creek, Chickasaw, Seminole, and Choctaw nations. Some Seminoles refused to relocate, sparking the long Second Seminole War (1835 to 1842) with US troops. By the time Jackson left office, over 50,000 Native Americans had been removed west. Removal would continue under Jackson's successor, Van Buren, including the infamous Trail of Tears.

On 4 March 1837, Jackson left the presidency, having served out his two terms. Already, it was clear that he was one of the most consequential presidents in history, having both reshaped the way politics worked in the US and strengthened the power of the presidency itself. His tenure had also been divisive – he was derisively referred to as 'King Andrew' by his critics, and his enemies had formed the Whig Party solely to oppose his policies.

Upon his return to the Hermitage, Jackson continued to wield great influence over the Democratic Party; indeed, his influence was so great that Van Buren's presidency has been called 'Jackson's third term'. He strongly supported the annexation of Texas in the early 1840s and, in one of his final acts, played kingmaker, supporting the candidacy of his political protégé James K. Polk for president. In his later years, Jackson became infirm, suffering from a combination of dropsy, tuberculosis, and heart failure. He died on 8 June 1845 at the age of 78, leaving behind one of the most significant legacies of any US president – for better or for worse.