Jackson, Andrew, 1767-1845; Presidents -- United States -- Biography
Tohopeka broke down the organized resistance of the Indians. When
Jackson, a few days later, turned southward, he was able to march on to
the Hickory Ground without fighting another battle. The Red Sticks for
the most part fled to their kindred, the Seminoles, in Florida; but some
came in and submitted to the iron hand which had crushed them. Jackson
had been at the Hickory Ground but a short time when Weatherford himself
came in and surrendered. Some of the men, remembering Fort Mims, would
have done violence to the fallen chief, but Jackson protected him. Soon
afterwards, General Pinckney, of the regular army, arrived at Fort
Jackson, which had been built in the river fork, and took command. When
he ordered the Tennesseans to return to their homes, Jackson went with
them, and his fellow citizens at Nashville gave him the first of many
triumphal receptions. His eight months' work in the wilderness had made
him easily the first man of Tennessee. Georgia had had a better chance
than Tennessee to crush the Indians, for the distance and the natural
obstacles were less; but Georgia had no such leader as Andrew Jackson.
Another reward soon reached him. In May, General William Henry Harrison
resigned his commission, and in his place Jackson was appointed
major-general in the army of the United States. He was put in command of
the southwestern district, including Mobile and New Orleans.
But on his way to his post he had to stop again at Fort Jackson and
complete his work among the Creeks. Acting under orders from the
government, he compelled the chiefs there assembled, practically all of
whom had been friendly to the United States during the war, to sign an
"agreement and capitulation" by which they ceded to the United States
all the land which they had claimed to the west of the Coosa. He carried
the matter through with a high hand, but the Creeks themselves admired
him and put into the agreement a cession of land to himself. It was, of
course, not permissible for a negotiator to accept such a gift from the
other party. However, the land was part of the region claimed by the
United States and surrendered by the Creeks, and as a matter of fact,
Jackson never got possession of it. This "treaty," as it was improperly
called, was signed August 9, 1814, and then Jackson was free to take up
his new duties as the defender of the Southwest against the British.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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