WITH THE BEGINNING of the 1830s, time was running out not only politically but physically as well for David Crockett. He had reached his midforties, then viewed by some as the beginning of old age. Taking into consideration his vigorous lifestyle, the privations he had endured, and his many near-encounters with death, Crockett remained in fairly good physical shape. There was the occasional flare-up from the malaria and some old wounds that ached, but for the most part Crockett was fit.
With a growing number of legislative critics, Crockett realized that his physical stamina and mental alertness were essential to gaining passage of the Tennessee land bill and for his own political survival. Detractors from all camps were angry that, when it came to support of the measures they sponsored, Crockett left no room for compromise.
Early in his second term, Crockett became a leading opponent against any further appropriations for the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York. He firmly believed that the academy—founded in 1802—was an inherently elitist institution “managed for the benefit of the noble and wealthy of the country.” Crockett’s negative feelings about the academy no doubt resulted from some of the treatment he had received during the Creek War, including his superior officer’s failure to act on his scouting report until it was corroborated by another commissioned officer. Crockett felt so strongly about this matter that he even proposed the abolishment of the academy.1
In speaking at length on behalf of his proposed resolution, Crockett stressed: “A man could fight the battles of his country, and lead his country’s armies, without being educated at West Point.”2 He also pointed out that Andrew Jackson and several other past military heroes had not attended the academy and yet became effective leaders. “Gentlemen were not up to the task of commanding soldiers,” said Crockett. They were “too delicate, and could not rough it in the army because they were too differently raised.”3Crockett’s proposal was quickly tabled and soon quietly died, but not before alienating him even more with other legislators from all political persuasions.
On February 24, 1830, just a day before Crockett offered his resolution concerning the abolition of West Point, another important proposal was introduced in Congress—President Andrew Jackson’s Indian Removal Act. The passage and enactment of this legislation would be remembered as one of the darkest moments in the nation’s history.
Crockett’s Indian philosophy differed substantially from Andrew Jackson’s and from that of his diehard supporters, who pushed his controversial legislation through both houses of Congress. The legislation gave Jackson the power to negotiate treaties with the Indian tribes living east of the Mississippi. Under these treaties, the tribes were to give up all their lands in exchange for lands to the west. The Indians most affected were the southeastern tribes—Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and eventually the Seminole. They were all too familiar with Sharp Knife and his paternalistic view of Indians from long before he became president. Some of them had fought against him and others had battled alongside him as allies. All of them knew that Jackson considered them an “ill-fated race.”4
Yet Jackson’s betrayal of his former allies and his fierce advocacy of removal amounted to one of the most appalling periods in this nation’s relationship with American Indians. “If I had known that Jackson would drive us from our homes, I would have killed him at Horseshoe,”5 said Tsunu Iahunski, a Cherokee veteran of the Creek War who fought on Jackson’s side. Tsunu Iahunski was originally named Gulkalaski and had become acquainted with Andrew Jackson years before the bloody clash against the Creeks at Horseshoe Bend. He was the Cherokee known for having saved Jackson’s life during the battle by slaying a Creek warrior who had Jackson at his mercy. When the Indian Removal Act was being considered, Cherokee Chief John Ross sent Gulkalaski to Washington to appeal to Jackson and ask him to reconsider uprooting tribal people from their ancestral homeland. After he heard Gulkalaski’s plea, Jackson reportedly snapped at him, “Sir, your audience is ended, there is nothing I can do for you.” After that, Gulkalaski became known as Tsunu Iahunski, or “One who tries, but fails.”6
In an effort to maintain their tribal independence, the southeastern tribes, especially the Cherokees and Creeks, adopted many of the elements of the white world. This meant abandoning the old ways—the traditions and customs that the whites frowned on and considered pagan and offensive. Many of the prosperous mixed-bloods accepted the whites’ religion and lifestyle. They dressed like whites, ate the same type of food, started a plantation culture that included the keeping of black slaves to work the fields. Part of the rationale was tribal survival, with the hope that the whites would leave them alone if they became more like them. In the long run none of it mattered. Jackson and his troops eventually moved the tribes westward, sometimes at the point of bayonets down several “Trails of Tears” to Indian Territory, present-day Oklahoma, where they were referred to as the “Five Civilized Tribes,” a pejorative term still used by many.7
“Andrew Jackson has been saddled with a considerable portion of the blame for this monstrous deed,” Robert V. Remini, one of Jackson’s biographers, wrote of the Removal Act.
He makes an easy mark. But the criticism is unfair if it distorts the role he actually played. His objective was not the destruction of Indian life and culture. Quite the contrary. He believed the removal was the Indian’s only salvation against certain extinction…. Yet he practiced a subtle kind of coercion. He told the tribes he would abandon them to the mercy of the states if they did not agree to migrate west.8
Jackson’s own words serve as the best evidence of how he felt about Indian people and their tribal lands. In a message delivered to Congress in late 1830, several months after the Removal Act became the law of the land, Jackson spoke of his hope that relocation to a distant land would help the tribes “cast off their savage habits and become an interesting, civilized and Christian community.”9 He went on to say:
Toward the aborigines of the country no one can indulge a more friendly feeling than myself, or would go further in attempting to reclaim them from their wandering habits and make them a happy, prosperous people…. To save him from this alternative, or perhaps utter annihilation, the General Government kindly offers him a new home, and proposes to pay the whole expense of his removal and settlement…. May we not hope, therefore, that all good citizens, and none more zealously than those who think the Indians oppressed by subjection to the laws of the States, will unite in attempting to open the eyes of those children of the forest to their true condition, and by a speedy removal to relieve them from all the evils, real or imaginary, present or prospective, with which they may be supposed to be threatened.10
Although some historians tried to present a balanced picture of Jackson’s role in Indian Removal, it is clear that Jackson had no real concern whatsoever for the Indians—“the children of the forest”—whose lives he disrupted. To this day there remain traditional Cherokee and Creek people in Oklahoma who refuse to handle or even touch twenty-dollar bills, which since 1929 have been imprinted with the image of Andrew Jackson. These Indian people find commemorating Jackson’s presidency on legal tender an insult to the memory of ancestors who died along “the trail where they cried.” Some equate having Jackson’s picture on the money to printing Adolf Hitler’s face on the bills. Through the years, there have been petitions calling for the U.S. Treasury Department to remove Jackson from the twenty-dollar bill. One of the candidates suggested as a suitable replacement is John Ross, the much-revered chief who led the Cherokee Nation during the horrors of Indian removal.11
David Crockett, however, is still remembered by many Indian people in Oklahoma as one of the few white men in government who had the courage to stand up to Jackson and vote against his Indian Removal Act.12 Crockett may not have been the most vociferous opponent of Jackson’s removal legislation, but he was the lone member of the entire Tennessee congressional delegation to vote against the bill on May 24, 1830, when it passed by the narrow margin of 102 to 97.13 Cherokee Chief John Ross wrote Crockett a letter of thanks for his courageous stance. It was a brave act and, some have said, a politically naive vote. Crockett stood his ground against all of his colleagues, his president, and, as he well knew at the time, the vast majority of the citizens he represented. It took little time for the news to reach voters in West Tennessee that the man they had put in office, primarily to help turn old tribal land into farms for squatters and settlers, had betrayed them.
In the final pages of his 1834 autobiography, Crockett wrote about casting his vote against Indian Removal, which he described as an “infamous” measure. “I opposed it from the purest motives in the world,” wrote Crockett.
Several of my colleagues got around me, and told me how well they loved me, and that I was ruining myself. They said this was a favourite measure of the president, and I ought to go for it. I told them I believed it was a wicked, unjust measure, and that I should go against it, let the cost to myself be what it might; that I was willing to go with General Jackson in every thing that I believed was honest and right; but further from this, I wouldn’t go for him, or any other man in the whole creation; that I would sooner be honestly and politically d—nd, than hypocritically immortalized…. I voted against this Indian bill, and my conscience yet tells me that I gave a good honest vote, and one that I believe will not make me ashamed in the day of judgment.14
Despite Crockett’s explanation, some historians have taken exception with this account. They claim that, while Crockett may have had some empathy for the Indians and their plight, his opposition to the legislation was mostly driven by his growing relationship with the eastern Whigs and his mounting hatred of Jackson.
“Some have cast doubts as to the sincerity of David’s efforts on behalf of native Americans citing his eagerness to fight in the Creek War in 1813,” points out historian Joe Swann. “But when one reads the Creek War section of the Narrative it is not difficult to see that David saw the insanity of war and the cruelty of men charged with its prosecution. He knew his stand was contrary to the feelings of his constituents back home but David was very bull-headed and felt he was morally right.”15
Other historians, including James Atkins Shackford, contended that Crockett never delivered a speech protesting the Indian Removal Act during debate on the floor of Congress. Whether or not Crockett actually delivered the speech, a report was published in 1830 showing that his prepared remarks about the measure were entered in the records of the House of Representatives, some five days before passage of the bill.16 This document, written in third person, stressed that Crockett “would never let party govern him in a question of this great consequence.” It goes on to explain that Crockett had “many objections to the bill—some of them of a very serious character. One was, that he did not like to put half a million of money into the hands of the Executive, to be used in a manner which nobody could foresee, and which Congress was not to control. Another objection was, he did not wish to depart from the role which had been observed towards the Indian nations from the foundation of the government. He considered the present application as the last alternative for these poor remnants of a once powerful people. Their only chance of aid was at the hands of Congress. Should its members turn a deaf ear to their cries, misery must be their fate. That was his candid opinion.”17
Crockett also said that he considered the removal measure “oppression with a vengeance,” and he found that intolerable. His speech against the Indian Removal Act also was published in the Jackson Gazette twice in June 1830. In February 1831, he issued a sixteen-page letter to the voters in his congressional district in which he shared his views on several key issues of the day.18 Included in the letter are several pointed complaints about the performance of President Jackson, such as “my heart bleeds when I reflect on his cruelty to the poor Indians. I never expected it of him.”
By that time Crockett had long abandoned the Jackson ranks and his own congressional delegation. His stand against the Jackson and Polk forces on Indian Removal and the Tennessee vacant land issue would prove costly. Crockett must have seen the proverbial writing on the wall even before he returned home and launched his reelection campaign in the spring of 1831. The break with the popular Old Hickory did not play well on the western frontier of Tennessee, nor did all the time Crockett was spending with Yankee Whigs.
“I found the storm had raised against me sure enough,” Crockett wrote of his 1831 homecoming between sessions of Congress, “and it was echoed from side to side, and from end to end in my district, that I had turned against Jackson. This was considered the unpardonable sin. I was hunted down like a wild varment [sic], and in this hunt every little newspaper in the district, and every little pin-hook lawyer was engaged. Indeed, they were ready to print any and every thing that the ingenuity of man could invent against me.”19
Crockett’s enemies were even more determined to see his defeat. His opponent, handpicked by Jackson and the Democratic leadership, was William Fitzgerald, a thirty-four-year-old lawyer and judge from Dresden, the seat of Weakley County, and a loyal and prominent Jacksonian. From the start of the campaign, it was apparent that Crockett faced not only Fitzgerald but also the entire Jackson machine, including Martin Van Buren, a former U.S. senator and governor of New York who became Jackson’s secretary of state and then replaced John C. Calhoun as vice president in Jackson’s second term of office from 1833 to 1837. Crockett had always looked at Van Buren with a jaundiced eye and usually called him “the little Red Fox,” or “the Magician,” two of the nicknames ascribed to the urbane and squat little man who also was an adept and clever political operator.20 Crockett believed Van Buren manipulated Jackson and was mainly interested in advancing his own career and agenda. Even before his break with Jackson was complete, Crockett wrote, “I am still a Jackson man, but General Jackson is not; he has become a Van Buren man.”21
The campaign of 1831 was ugly from start to finish. Jackson wanted Crockett out of office and said so many times. In an April 23, 1831, letter to his friend Samuel Jackson Hayes, the president wrote: “I trust, for the honor of the state, your Congressional District will not disgrace themselves longer by sending that profligate man Crockett back to Congress.”22
With Jackson’s backing and the support of Polk’s political machine, Fitzgerald made great inroads into Crockett’s base of voter support in the district. Editorial coverage seemed to favor Fitzgerald. The Jackson Gazette, at one time politically neutral, not only threw its support to Fitzgerald but also published many smear stories about Crockett filled with the recurring lurid accusations of his supposed rampant gambling and drinking escapades. In endorsing Fitzgerald, the newspaper first took a swipe at Crockett. “He can’t ‘whip his weight in wild cats,’ nor ‘leap the Mississippi,’ nor ‘mount a rainbow and slide off into eternity and back at pleasure’…but this we believe, that Mr. Fitzgerald will make a better legislator; that he will far excel Col. Crockett upon the floor of Congress, as the Col. does him in the character of a mounte-bank,” the popular word at the time for a charlatan or trickster.
One of the Fitzgerald camp’s favorite dirty tricks was to spread word of where Crockett was going to appear but not inform Crockett. Then, when he failed to show up, Fitzgerald or one of his backers would speak to the crowd and tell them that Crockett was afraid to appear.23
Finally, over the long summer of 1831, Crockett became so frustrated by the barrage of lies that he made a fateful mistake. He stopped relying on his good humor to win votes and instead allowed his anger to take over, putting out the word that if Fitzgerald made any more false charges he would receive a good country thrashing.24 On a scorching July afternoon at a joint appearance in Paris, Tennessee, Fitzgerald was scheduled to speak before Crockett, who was present with a large number of his partisans. Fitzgerald was well aware of Crockett’s threat, and when he rose to address the large crowd, he placed an object wrapped in a handkerchief on the table. Fitzgerald began his remarks by explaining that all the charges made against Crockett were true, and that he was going to repeat them despite Crockett’s threat of violence. He began his stock stump speech, and when he reached the part where he heaped insults on his opponent, Crockett, as promised, rose from his place in the audience and began advancing on Fitzgerald. When Crockett was just a few feet from him, Fitzgerald reached down and pulled a pistol from the handkerchief, leveled it at Crockett’s chest, and warned that if he took one more step forward it would be his last. Fitzgerald’s action was so sudden and unexpected that a surprised Crockett stopped. He briefly hesitated and turned around and retreated into the crowd. Word of the incident at Paris became the chief topic of discussion throughout the district. It did more to damage Crockett’s reputation than all the outlandish newspaper stories, chicanery, and other ploys combined.
It was hardly a surprise that Crockett was defeated in the August 1831 election. According to official returns, Fitzgerald received 8,534 votes to Crockett’s 7,948. Despite Crockett winning the majority in seventeen of the eighteen counties of his district, Madison County voters—and the Jackson Gazette—put Fitzgerald over the top, with 1,214 votes to just 429 for Crockett. It was close enough for Crockett to contest it, but the 586 margin of votes held.25
Only a few days after his defeat, Crockett declared in a letter, “I would rather be beaton [sic] and be a man than be elected and be a little puppy dog.”26 Crockett’s other consolation in defeat was the gift of time. He would be able to get out of debt, or at least try. He could hunt bears, see about family needs, and mend the broken political fences on the home front with the voters upset about his support of the Cherokees. And, most of all, there would be time to watch the Crockett legend expand.