#Part 1

Cut and dry? Yes, Andrew Jackson was a racist. And no, the fact that he "adopted" (read: stole) an Indian child doesn't invalidate this accusation or the evidence of his genocidal actions and policies. That's akin to saying a criminal who kidnaps a child of a family they murdered is absolved of the crime because they took the now orphaned child in. First, I will address the issue of his "adoption" of Lyncoya. Then I will discuss the wider perspectives of Jackson's overall conduct.

###Lyncoya - A Creek Tragedy

Though commonly known as the War of 1812, a more apt description would be the Wars of 1812. During this time period, the United States engaged in conflict with not only the British forces in North America, but continued its wars of conquest against the numerous Indian Tribes north and south of the Ohio River resisting the onslaught of colonization. The United States had a national interest in pursuing these wars at the time because Tecumseh, a Shawnee leader, had established a competent confederation of Tribal Nations with the goal of rebuffing U.S. expansionism north of the Ohio River. What heightened American fears of a united Indian confrontation, however, was the confederationists move align with the British forces in Canada.^1

By the spring of 1812, another front opened up further south after the Creek allies of Tecumseh's confederacy, particularly the band of Creeks known as the Red Sticks, had begun conducting raids against settlers near the Duck and Tennessee Rivers, located in both Tennessee and northern Alabama, igniting what is now known as the Creek War. Public outrage among settlers spurred on the type of military response that would occur. This outrage was documented by the Nashville Clarion in where a request for a military expedition was made that would "exact a terrible vengeance" and wished for the "[I]ndians" to be removed to the west side of the Mississippi River.^2 Why it is important to mention this is because the Creek War would come to be categorized as war of extermination and this is where we see the roots of Andrew Jackson's sentiments that underpin his "adoption" of Lyncoya and even his future political career.

As these attacks involved Tennessee, this is where we see Andrew Jackson entering the picture. In March 1812, the federal government authorized troops to invade East Florida. By July of 1813, the Mississippi Territory was on guard against Creek incursions (Alabama at this time was considered part of the Mississippi Territory). Then in September, the Tennessee General Assembly authorized the commander of the state's militia, Andrew Jackson, to "repel the invasion of the state of Tennessee by [the Creeks] and their allies" with the goal of carrying out "a campaign into the heart of the Creek nation" to "exterminate them." It is under this pretense that Jackson enters the Creek War. This move by the state legislature was then endorsed by President Madison and Jackson's militia was placed under command of the U.S. Army.^3

The first victory for the United States of the Creek War was the "Battle" of Tallushatchee in November of 1813. This battle was fought by forces commanded by Brigadier General John Coffee, a subordinate of Andrew Jackson. Though Jackson would attempt to "negotiate" peace with the Red Sticks in the following weeks, numerous Creek Indians would be slaughtered before these talks happened, including women and children, as Jackson's forces burned down Creek towns. It was from this particular battle that we learn of Lyncoya. Lyncoya was orphaned as his mother was killed at the "Battle" of Tallushatchee. As a 10-month old baby, Jackson decided to take this child into his family. But this is where we get into the penultimate question: why?

Jeffrey Ostler contends that based on the writings of the well known Jacksonian historian Robert V. Remini, this was done for personal/psychological reasons, noting, "...Jackson, himself an orphan, evidently identified with the child, but his rescue also dramatized his own investment in a national ideology of paternalism."^4 The latter half of this quote is where we start to see the foundations of Jackson's future removal policies and a political ideology of paternalism that guided those actions. Christina Snyder concurs with these insinuated political motivations. "Lyncoya resided with America's most famous Indian fighter, who likely took the child for political and personal reasons." She also explains how scholarship has often overlooked the captivity of Natives as a result of war and the enslavement that followed. Indeed, Jackson did take Indian prisoners during this campaign, approximately 84 from the "Battle" of Tallushatchee. So it actually isn't surprising that Lyncoya would be taken prisoner, considering the personal attachment Jackson likely developed. And it wasn't uncommon for the Jackson family to do this as they evidently liked to keep Indian children as "pets" and "playmates" for the other non-biological children they were raising.^5 Seeing it this way, it really saps all the kindhearted nature out of Jackson's character. Sure, he "saved" an orphan infant...only after having a hand in the reason the child became orphaned in the first place. Hardly an excuse for the destruction Jackson carried out on Indians both before and after Lyncoya's kidnapping. Lyncoya wasn't Jackson's adopted child; he was a captive.

###Jackson's Political Career

Knowing the background of this whole ordeal with Lyncoya now let's us ask the ultimate question: how does this play into Jackson's racism and genocidal policies? The story of Lyncoya only accounts for Jackson's personal interest in taking an orphaned Creek child. As extrapolated from Ostler's earlier comments, this had to do with the personification of the national agenda within Jackson that transcended the psychology of Jackson-the-individual. While Jackson was certainly waging a war of extermination against the Creeks as part of his prime directive for his military campaign, he and his contemporaries were often beguiled by the auspices of their supposed Christian humanitarianism and their desire to prove national legitimacy in the eyes of other "civilized" nations. As I explained in this previous answer here, many of the Founding Fathers raised ethical concerns over how they should engage with Indian Tribes, not as individuals, but as sovereign nations. While Tribes were certainly delegitimized as land owners due to the Doctrine of Discovery, malevolent actions toward Tribes could prove detrimental to the reputation of the budding new nation. This has created a sort of paradox where on one hand the U.S. has a desire to expand and remove Indians from their midst as we are an obstacle to expansion. On the other, our removal could result in the loss of face for the U.S. as it sacrifices the humanitarianism birthed out of a combination of "Christian" values and European racism. But it was these Wars of 1812 that provided the perfect pretext for committing these atrocities as the "equal" Native Nations had made their alliances with Britain.

Yet, this couldn't be a wholesale act. This is where we see the manifestation of this paradox within Jackson as a person. As Native Nations were weakened, diplomacy and paternalism became more attractive methods for dealing with the "Indian Problem." Rather than contracting costly wars, Tribes could be subdued by the pen once stabbed enough with the sword. For Lyncoya, though, this era had not yet come. As wars of extermination were sanctioned and reconciled on the national level, Jackson upheld the need to at least feign Christian Humanitarianism, which is embodied in his "rescuing" of Lyncoya. Once Jackson entered his political career, he continued with this same feigned benevolence as he enacted policies that would lay the groundwork for genocidal events like the Trail of Tears that beset Tribes east of the Mississippi River.

It is these values that we see embedded into later addresses given by Jackson as he ushered in the era of Indian removal. He expressed in his second annual message to the Congress:

It gives me pleasure to announce to Congress that the benevolent policy of the Government, steadily pursued for nearly thirty years, in relation to the removal of the Indians beyond the white settlements is approaching to a happy consummation. Two important tribes have accepted the provision made for their removal at the last session of Congress, and it is believed that their example will induce the remaining tribes also to seek the same obvious advantages.

Jackson clearly wanted to frame the national agenda as being in favor of supporting the civilizing of Indians with removal being the key to decreasing tensions between Indian and white settlements...despite the fact that he did little to uphold the treaties safeguarding Indian lands in the American Southeast, allowing his policy directions to predicate the deaths of thousands of Indians. It is difficult to accurately underscore the situation of Jackson's racism at face value when he actively committed himself to what appear as humane acts. But the key is understanding his motivations behind each of these actions.

Edit: A word.

Having an adopted child of a certain race in no way immediately 'ruins' charges of racism, nor can it expiate the genocidal removal of Native Americans spearheaded by Jackson. We probably also want to differentiate the question "Did Jackson commit genocide?" from "Was Jackson a racist?" - I will address the titular one.

Jackson quite publicly stated that Native Americans are inferior to White Americans.

1830 State of the Union:

[The Indian Removal Act] will place a dense and civilized population in large tracts of country now occupied by a few savage hunters...[it will] enable them to pursue happiness in their own way and under their own rude institutions; will retard the progress of decay, which is lessening their numbers, and perhaps cause them gradually, under the protection of the Government and through the influence of good counsels, to cast off their savage habits and become an interesting, civilized, and Christian community.

Humanity has often wept over the fate of the aborigines of this country, and Philanthropy has been long busily employed in devising means to avert it, but its progress has never for a moment been arrested, and one by one have many powerful tribes disappeared from the earth. To follow to the tomb the last of his race and to tread on the graves of extinct nations excite melancholy reflections. But true philanthropy reconciles the mind to these vicissitudes as it does to the extinction of one generation to make room for another. In the monuments and fortifications of an unknown people, spread over the extensive regions of the West, we behold the memorials of a once powerful race, which was exterminated or has disappeared to make room for the existing savage tribes. Nor is there any thing in this which, upon a comprehensive view of the general interests of the human race, is to be regretted. Philanthropy could not wish to see this continent restored to the condition in which it was found by our forefathers. What good man would prefer a country covered with forests and ranged by a few thousand savages to our extensive Republic, studded with cities, towns, and prosperous farms, embellished with all the improvements which art can devise or industry execute, occupied by more than 12,000,000 happy people, and filled with all the blessings of liberty, civilization, and religion?

1831 State of the Union

Thus will all conflicting claims to jurisdiction between the States and the Indian tribes be put to rest. It is pleasing to reflect that results so beneficial, not only to the States immediately concerned, but to the harmony of the Union, will have been accomplished by measures equally advantageous to the Indians. What the native savages become when surrounded by a dense population and by mixing with the whites may be seen in the miserable remnants of a few Eastern tribes, deprived of political and civil rights, forbidden to make contracts, and subjected to guardians, dragging out a wretched existence, without excitement, without hope, and almost without thought. But the removal of the Indians beyond the limits and jurisdiction of the States does not place them beyond the reach of philanthropic aid and Christian instruction. On the contrary, those whom philanthropy or religion may induce to live among them in their new abode will be more free in the exercise of their benevolent functions than if they had remained within the limits of the States, embarrassed by their internal regulations. Now subject to no control but the superintending agency of the General Government, exercised with the sole view of preserving peace, they may proceed unmolested in the interesting experiment of gradually advancing a community of American Indians from barbarism to the habits and enjoyments of civilized life.

It seems clear to me that Jackson's characterization of Native Americans as "savage," "uncivilized," "barbaric," is racist; and it is quite the understatement to say that his presidency "was not good for a lot of the natives."

Jackson's views, however, weren't particularly uncommon; surely many worse views of Native Americans could be found in the 1830s, while Jackson's predecessor John Quincy Adams was regarded as quite fair in his treatment of the southern Native Americans. Ralph Waldo Emerson's letter to Van Buren, Jackson's successor, provides a particularly rich view of the countercurrent into the 1830s - note in particular the distinction Emerson draws between the Northeastern transcendentalists and the Southern advocates for Indian removal.

Jackson's adopted son, Lyncoya, is a quite interesting figure: and in his letters Jackson does refer to Lyncoya as his own: "I have my little sons including Lyncoya, at school, and their education has been greatly neglected in my absence..."

I think Jackson's anxiety here is telling, however: he wants Lyncoya to embrace Jackson's culture, through education. I don't see forced assimilation as particularly redemptive, especially as Lyncoya's parents died in a battle with Americans, though it does complicate how Jackson saw Native Americans: are they innately worse than Whites, or can they be 'saved' through religion, culture, etc?

The tradition of Indian Schools inspired by these questions is a long and unfortunate one; James Monroe signed the Civilization Fund Act in 1819, for example. The goal of such actions isn't the eradication of Native Americans, but the erasure of Native American culture, which is envisioned as 'rude,' 'savage,' 'barbaric.' George Washington expresses much the same thirty years earlier, stating

It is sincerely to be desired that all need of coercion, in future, may cease; and that an intimate intercourse may succeed; calculated to advance the happiness of the Indians, and to attach them firmly to the United States. In order to this it seems necessary:... that such rational experiments should be made, for imparting to them the blessings of civilization, as may, from time to time suit their condition...

Jackson's view is one of White cultural superiority, not necessarily like the (pseudo)scientific racism of the later 19th century; this brings to mind Jefferson, who writes in Notes on the State of Virginia that

The Indian of North America...I am able to say, in contradiction to this representation, that he is neither more defective in ardor, nor more impotent with his female, than the white reduced to the same diet and exercise: that he is brave, when an enterprise depends on bravery; education with him making the point of honor consist in the destruction of an enemy by stratagem, and in the preservation of his own person free from injury...

The belief that Native American culture is inferior to that of the White colonists is racist, but is borne out of a much larger tradition that views Native Americans as potential equals, if only they were civilized (how this is to be effected varies widely - certainly Washington did not advocate for the removal of Native Americans, while Jefferson has a very nationalistic investment in defending America against the Buffonist view that Europe is environmentally superior).