Andrew Jackson was born on March 15, 1767, on the North Carolina and South Carolina border.
The exact location of his birth is not known, as the land in the area had yet to be surveyed.
What type of life did Jackson have before becoming a national military hero and the
seventh President of the United States?
Andrew Jackson was born to Presbyterian parents who had emigrated from Ireland two years before,
and his birth came a mere three weeks after the sudden death of his father.
As a child, Jackson grew up in poverty in the Waxhaws wilderness and received little
education in the years leading up to the Revolutionary War.
When the conflict came to the Carolinas, Jackson’s oldest brother Hugh died in the Battle of
Stono Ferry, and Andrew, at the young age of 13, joined a local militia to serve as
a courier for the patriot army.
Jackson was captured by the British, along with his second brother Robert, in 1781.
The brothers were treated harshly by their captors, and both nearly starved to death
during their imprisonment.
While being held by the British, a confrontation left the future president scarred for the
remainder of his life.
In a show of defiance, thirteen-year-old Andrew Jackson refused to shine the boots of an arrogant
British officer.
The officer raised his sword in a fit of rage and wielded it at Jackson, gashing his left
hand and slashing his face.
Both Jackson boys contracted smallpox during their captivity, and Robert would not recover.
Although their mother managed to arrange for their release as part of a prisoner exchange,
Robert died shortly after obtaining his freedom.
The loss of both siblings was quickly followed by another tragedy.
After being assured that her only surviving child would recover, Elizabeth Jackson volunteered
to nurse American prisoners of war who were inflicted with cholera.
After Jackson’s mother struggled to save the lives of those imprisoned on British ships
in Charleston Harbor, the disease claimed her life.
She was buried in an unmarked grave, leaving Andrew orphaned and alone at age 14.
The deaths of so many family members during the Revolutionary War created a lifelong hatred
for the British that Jackson would harbor until his dying day.
Jackson spent the remainder of his youth living with uncles, and he went on to study law in
Salisbury, North Carolina.
After being admitted to the bar in 1787, the 21-year-old Jackson was appointed prosecuting
attorney in the western district of North Carolina (now part of Tennessee).
In 1788, he used profits made from his thriving law practice and moved to the frontier settlement
of Nashville, Tennessee.
In 1796, Jackson served as a member of the convention that wrote the Tennessee Constitution,
and he was elected to serve as Tennessee's first congressman in the US House of Representatives.
The following year, he was elected to the US Senate, but he resigned after a short stint
of only eight months.
He was later appointed to serve as a circuit judge on the Tennessee superior court, a position
he held until 1804.
Around that time, Jackson purchased The Hermitage, an expansive plantation in Davidson County,
Tennessee.
Over the next forty years, Jackson continued to invest in the estate, which eventually
grew into a 1,050-acre property.
In 1804, nine African-American slaves worked the cotton fields of the plantation, but by
the time of Jackson’s death in 1845, 150 slaves labored in The Hermitage’s fields.
Throughout his lifetime, Jackson is believed to have owned as many as 300 slaves.