Jacksonland: President Andrew Jackson, Cherokee Chief John Ross, and A Great American Land Grab by Steve Inskeep

Five decades after the Revolutionary War, the United States approached a constitutional crisis. At its center stood two former military comrades locked in a struggle that tested the boundaries of our fledgling democracy.
 
One man we recognize: Andrew Jackson—war hero, populist, and exemplar of the expanding South—whose first major initiative as president instigated the massive expulsion of Native Americans known as the Trail of Tears. The other is a half-forgotten figure: John Ross—a mixed-race Cherokee politician and diplomat—who used the United States’ own legal system and democratic ideals to oppose Jackson. Representing one of the Five Civilized Tribes who had adopted the ways of white settlers, Ross championed the tribes’ cause all the way to the Supreme Court, gaining allies like Senator Henry Clay, Chief Justice John Marshall, and even Davy Crockett. Ross and his allies made their case in the media, committed civil disobedience, and benefited from the first mass political action by American women. Their struggle contained ominous overtures of later events like the Civil War and defined the political culture for much that followed. 
 
Jacksonland is the work of renowned journalist Steve Inskeep, cohost of NPR’s Morning Edition, who offers a heart-stopping narrative masterpiece, a tragedy of American history that feels ripped from the headlines in its immediacy, drama, and relevance to our lives. Jacksonland is the story of America at a moment of transition, when the fate of states and nations was decided by the actions of two heroic yet tragically opposed men.

Paperback

About the author:

Steven Alan Inskeep is an American journalist who is currently the host of Morning Edition and Up First on National Public Radio. Prior to being host of Morning Edition, Inskeep covered the Pentagon, the 2000 presidential campaign of George W. Bush, the U.S. Senate, and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and was host of Weekend All Things Considered.

Inskeep is the author of four books: Instant City: Life and Death in Karachi (2011); Jacksonland: President Andrew Jackson, Cherokee Chief John Ross, and a Great American Land Grab (2015); Imperfect Union: How Jessie and John Fremont Mapped the West, Invented Celebrity, and Helped Cause the Civil War (2020); and Differ We Must: How Lincoln Succeeded in a Divided America (2023).