President Andrew Jackson was famous for his passionate style and strong-willed leadership This personality was no act It was a lifetime in the making Jackson’s colorful character got its start in a childhood brimming with both hardship and adventure A Wild Childhood In 1765 Jackson’s parents Scotch Irish immigrants Andrew and Elizabeth Jackson and their two young sons Hugh and Robert settled in the remote hill country of the British colonies They lived in a log cabin on the border between modern North and South Carolina in an area called the Waxhaw settlement In early 1767 Elizabeth who was pregnant was left alone with her two boys when her husband died A few weeks later on March 15 1767 Andrew was born Elizabeth Jackson moved her family to nearby Lancaster District South Carolina to live with her sister and serve as the housekeeper for her sister’s large family Andrew spent his first dozen or so years there AN ADVENTUROUS LIFE CHAPTER ONE 10
The birthplace of Andrew Jackson in the Waxhaw settlement near the border of North Carolina and South Carolina Elizabeth Jackson wanted her youngest son to become a Presbyterian minister so she took pains to provide him with an education not a given in a region where there were few schools and teachers Andrew attended an academy at the Waxhaw Presbyterian meetinghouse There he learned to read write and cast accounts or do arithmetic He also studied Greek Latin history and the Christian Bible Andrew’s academic performance was lackluster He learned the Bible and he picked up a knack for language that would eventually make him a good orator But he never mastered Greek or Latin His spelling skills were weak And as Andrew grew it became obvious to his community that he would never become a minister 11
People expect a minister to set a good example Andrew did the opposite Elizabeth Jackson had her hands full managing the household so she could not closely supervise her three sons and her sister’s eight children As a result the children did largely as they pleased Andrew developed a wild and mischievous character and his stubborn streak and fiery temper went unrestrained He was constantly playing pranks and cursing even as a young boy Andrew was fiercely loyal to anyone who agreed with him but if anyone dared challenge him he was more than willing to fight Though he lost plenty of the fights he started he always jumped right back up ready to fight again The American Revolution Throughout Jackson’s childhood tensions were growing between Great Britain and its North American colonies During this time the British government banned settlements west of the Appalachian Mountains The government wanted to avoid the cost of defending the settlers from American Indians who resisted the colonists encroachment on their land This frustrated colonists many of whom were eager to move away from the crowded eastern colonies and establish new homesteads In addition Britain taxed the colonies heavily and the colonists were not allowed to have representatives in the British Parliament The government also tightly controlled trade in and out of the colonies which caused financial hardships for the colonists In response to these and other problems colonial leaders organized a Continental Congress in 1774 and again in 1775 to defend American colonists interests and rights The first fighting between British soldiers and colonial militiamen broke out in 1775 On July 4 1776 the Continental Congress approved and published the United States Declaration of Independence 12
As the colonial rebellion transformed into a full-blown war Jackson’s childhood drew to a close Not all American colonists supported the American Revolution 1775 1783 and independence from Britain In fact nearly half were undecided or neutral and 15 to 20 percent were Loyalists who supported British rule Some 40 to 45 percent were patriots who believed that Americans would be much better off under self-rule Loyalist sentiments were stronger in the Carolinas than in most of the other colonies because the wealthy plantation owners there had strong family financial and emotional ties to Great Britain But even in the Carolinas patriots were fairly well represented The Jacksons were among the Carolina patriots In 1779 Andrew’s brother Hugh joined the patriot soldiers and soon died in battle One year later Andrew and his brother Robert joined too In 1781 enemy soldiers captured them and a British officer struck Andrew causing severe injuries The brothers were dragged off to prison where they weakened under poor conditions and smallpox Elizabeth Jackson managed to get them home but Robert died within days Andrew survived only to lose his mother a few 13 While serving in the patriot army Jackson right was captured by British soldiers and received a sword cut when he refused to clean an enemy officer’s boots
