Opinion: Andrew Jackson led horrifying campaigns against tribes

After reading the new biography, "Jacksonland," by Steve Inskeep, I think Obama should seriously consider their request to remove Jackson.

The two-term president and founder of the Democratic party was infamous for his removal of Indian tribes - over 45,000 during his administration. But the book reveals new details about Jackson's massive land grab both as a private businessman, military general, and president.

As a 27-year-old lawyer, Jackson teamed up with a friend in 1794 to start a real-estate business that made money by profiting off the illegal white settlement of native American territory. They bought and sold lands that had been granted by treaty to the Chickasaw and Cherokee Indians.

Twenty years later, as a military general, Jackson led a squad of soldiers who killed 800 Red Stick Indians at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend in 1814. He almost reveled in the death of a Creek spiritual leader "who had been shot in the mouth by a grapeshot, as if heaven designed to chastise his impostures by an appropriate punishment," Inskeep writes.

To be fair, Jackson could also be kind to Native Americans, adopting a Creek Indian boy orphaned in the battle. He made sure the boy, named Lyncoya, got an education and later tried to get him into West Point, even writing to President James Monroe to no avail.

Jackson forced harsh terms on the tribes, tearing up the original surrender treaty and demanding they give up 23 million acres of land in what is now Georgia and Alabama. He threatened them with removal to Florida if they didn't sign.