Jacksonland
Steve Inskeep
2015, 10 audio CDs
Nonfiction
Jacksonland is a fascinating history of one of the United States’s most influential presidents, Andrew Jackson, and the events leading up to expulsion of Native Americans from the southern U.S. known as the Trail of Tears. Author Steve Inskeep, the co-host of NPR’s Morning Edition, intertwines Jackson’s story, both personal and political, with the story of Chief John Ross, who fought to keep Cherokee lands intact but was defeated by Jackson’s political strategies. Ross and Jackson, who had fought as comrades in the War of 1812, were divided over the question of Cherokee lands in Georgia and Florida. Although treaties had given the land to the Cherokee, Jackson continually pushed for those lands to be taken and sold to white settlers.
Inskeep reveals how Jackson, who speculated in land throughout his lifetime, extracted great wealth from this process. Both as a general and later as president, Jackson’s seizure of Native American lands was designed to benefit him economically in a way that completely contradicts modern ethics. In contrast, Ross was willing to fund the defense of the Cherokee land personally and spent much of his later life working to preserve the Cherokee nation even after they were driven off their eastern land.
The audiobook of Jacksonland (read by Inskeep) is an excellent length and very easy to listen to, particularly if you like the author’s voice. Inskeep’s writing is vivid and he explains the very tangled backstory between Ross and Jackson, as well as the politics of the early 1800s, in a way that transports the reader back to that time. Although Inskeep is obviously in favor of John Ross, he is fair to Jackson, pointing out how Jackson’s hardscrabble Southern childhood affected his relationships with money and land. Overall, this was a very engaging read, and one that I would recommend for anyone interested in American history.
Nora Cascadden
Concord Public Library
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