GENERAL, THEN PRESIDENT, ANDREW “LONG KNIFE” JACKSON A Jacksonian motto: “Desperate courage makes one a majority.” Question: Did Thoreau access such a motto while he was crafting his tropes? HDT WHAT? INDEX PRESIDENT ANDREW GENERAL ANDREW Political Parties Then and Now ROUND 1 DEMOCRATIC REPUBLICANS FEDERALISTS Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, 1792 et al. representing the North and commercial interests Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, et al. representing 1796 the South and landowning interests 1817- James Monroe’s “factionless” era of good feelings, ho ho ho 1824 ROUND 2A DEMOCRATS NATIONAL REPUBLICANS John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay, representing the North and the commercial interests, 1828 and in addition the residents of border states ROUND 2B DEMOCRATS WHIGS Andrew Jackson, representing the South John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay, and landowning interests, plus wannabees such as representing the North and the commercial interests, 1832 our small farmers, backwoods go-getters, the “little and residents of border states, and in addition the anti- guy on the make” in general Jackson Democrats ROUND 3 DEMOCRATS REPUBLICANS Abraham Lincoln, William Henry Seward, representing 1856 Northerners, urbanites, business types, factory workers, and (more or less) the abolitionist movement ROUND 4 DEMOCRATS REPUBLICANS 1932- F.D.R., representing Northeasterners, urbanites, Representing businesspeople, farmers, white-collar 1960 blue-collar workers, Catholics, liberals, and types, Protestants, the “Establishment,” right-to-lifers, assorted ethnics moral majoritarians, and in general, conservatism of the “I’ve got mine, let’s see you try to get yours” stripe. Our Fearless Leaders NAME BORN INAUGURATED EX OFFICIO DIED GEORGE WASHINGTON 1789 1792 JOHN ADAMS 1796 JULY 4, 1826 THOMAS JEFFERSON APRIL 13, 1743 1800 DITTO 1804 JAMES MADISON 1808 HDT WHAT? INDEX PRESIDENT ANDREW GENERAL ANDREW Our Fearless Leaders NAME BORN INAUGURATED EX OFFICIO DIED 1812 JAMES MONROE 1816 1820 JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 1824 ANDREW JACKSON 1828 1832 MARTIN VAN BUREN 1836 WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON 1840 JOHN TYLER 1841 JAMES K. POLK 1844 ZACHARY TAYLOR 1848 FRANKLIN PEIRCE 1852 JAMES BUCHANAN 1856 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 1860 1864 HDT WHAT? INDEX PRESIDENT ANDREW GENERAL ANDREW 1526 November: There is something we need to bear in mind about our term “settler,” which has for so long been a code designation for people who are privileged to be inheritors due to the white color of their skins. The thing we need to bear in mind is that in this month of this year there were some 500 Spaniards under Francisco Gordillo, a skipper for Lucás Vasquéz de Ayllon, with some 100 black slaves, at Cape Fear, forming the 1st “settlement” on the lands that would someday be included within the United States of America. Their settlement was called San Miguel de Gualdape, and it was located on the Pee Dee River, probably near Winyah Bay at what is now Georgetown, South Carolina. They’d been there since August, and during this month of November, since the whites were being decimated by a sickness, the black slaves of the settlement were able to enter into an alliance with the local tribe of red Americans (Chicora or Shakori or Chiquola) and stage a successful revolt. CHARLESTON HDT WHAT? INDEX PRESIDENT ANDREW GENERAL ANDREW Approximately 150 of the 500 whites managed to make their way back to Hispaniola, leaving these approximately 100 blacks to become (disregarding for the moment, as is unfortunately conventional, native American settlers who had been on this continent already for some 10,000 to 20,000 years) our first permanent “settlers.” Which is to say, when General Andrew Jackson would be down in Georgia and Florida attempting to exterminate “Seminoles” of mixed red and black origins who had found refuge in the swamps a dozen or so generations later, it is plausible that the persons whom he was attempting to exterminate were in actuality a people whom we ought to be honoring as the legitimate descendants of our “first settlers”! Had these 100 persons been white, there would now be an extensive shelflist honoring them in every bookstore in our grand nation. They’d be part of the perennial Search For The Blue-Eyed Indian. But no, they were black, and so they are ignored. I will quote from the presumptuous just-so story as it is told by Kevin Mulroy in 1993 in his FREEDOM ON THE BORDER: THE SEMINOLE MAROONS IN FLORIDA, THE INDIAN TERRITORY, COAHUILA, AND TEXAS (Lubbock TX: Texas Tech UP, pages 10-11): At the very time the Seminole band were establishing a separate political identity in Florida, therefore, their neighbors were treating Africans favorably. The Spaniards welcomed runaways from southern plantations, gave them their freedom, and asked for little in return save for their cooperation in repelling elements hostile to both parties. The way these Europeans treated their African associates well may have made an impression upon the Seminoles. The Spaniards allowed Africans to live apart, own arms and property, travel at will, choose their own leaders, organize into military companies under black officers, and generally control their own destinies. Several of the Mose men even had wives in the nearby Indian villages. A separate, armed settlement of free blacks, which enjoyed the full support of the adjacent Spanish residents, had been established just outside St. Augustine, the two communities being joined in a mutually beneficial alliance based primarily upon their joint opposition to British expansionism. It seems probable that the early Seminoles would have been aware of these developments and that their initial perceptions helped determine the course of their own relations with blacks.... Attracted by the semitropical climate, sparse white settlement, and chronic political instability of Florida, ... runaways continued to cross the border in ever- increasing numbers. They seemingly founded maroon communities and sought military and trading alliances with the nearby Seminole villages. Africans became associated with the Seminoles in the late eighteenth century in two other ways: by capture from plantations and by purchase from whites or from other Native Americans. Those blacks also would come to reside in the adjacent Florida maroon communities. Though it cannot be pinpointed with any degree of accuracy, the ethnogenesis of the Seminole maroons took place during the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century. The true beginnings of this ethnic group date from the time its individual members were HDT WHAT? INDEX PRESIDENT ANDREW GENERAL ANDREW forced to accept common values and interests to counter the threat of domination and reenslavement. The group’s members would have come together as a people primarily for survival and then to pursue mutual goals. Ethnicity would have acted as a structural principle long before their society emerged clearly as an ethnic group. Whether runaways, captives, or slaves to the Seminoles, these blacks preferred to live beyond the pale and ally with Europeans and Native Americans rather than remain enslaved on Southern plantations. Of major significance to their ethnohistory, the maroons’ early and close association with the Seminoles would contribute strongly to the development of their identity. Yet these people would go on to establish a culture and history of their own and in so doing define themselves, and be defined by others, as a separate and distinct entity. The above is not based upon historic evidence. It is based only on the known fact that later there were dusky skins in the area, combined with a.) the standard white-racist presumption that white people are innovative whereas dark people are obviously merely imitative, and with b.) the standard white-racist presumption that these 100 black men who had set themselves free would continue in a native context to be classified as escaped slaves rather than becoming a tribe of “Indian warriors” in their own right, and with c.) the standard white- racist presumption that free darkies are obviously mere escapees. This sort of account can stand only on the basis of presumption. The presumption involved is the idea that since this is the only available explanation, it must be true regardless of lack of research into confirming evidences. But the above presumptuousness is not all that is available. Also available is a demographic model which, beginning with 100 black males in this 1526 timeframe, assuming a 20-year reproductive cycle and assuming that these old-world blacks would have had great survival potential when set suddenly in the midst of a native red population being decimated by its first contact with old-world diseases such as smallpox, becomes the genetic equivalent1 of 105 black individuals in the 1546 timeframe, becomes the genetic equivalent of 110 black individuals in the 1566 timeframe, becomes the genetic equivalent of 116 black individuals in the 1586 timeframe, becomes the genetic equivalent of 122 black individuals in the 1606 timeframe, becomes the genetic equivalent of 128 black individuals in the 1626 timeframe, becomes the genetic equivalent of 135 black individuals in the 1646 timeframe, becomes the genetic equivalent of 143 black individuals in the 1666 timeframe, attracts recruitments from slave populations and becomes the cultural core of the genetic equivalent of 171 black individuals in the 1686 timeframe, attracts recruitments from slave populations and becomes the cultural core of the genetic equivalent of 200 black individuals in the 1706 timeframe, attracts recruitments from