Andrew Jackson's acts to decide if he is a people's president

Hello readers,

While the teacher was away for some time due to a conference in Disney World we learned about Andrew Jackson. Our essential question for this unit was is Andrew Jackson’s long standing reputation as a people’s president deserved? Why or why not? This question is important because it helps us think about what makes a people’s person in general and specifically to a president. The question helps us learn about what some of his presidential acts were and how they affected others. To answer the question in the class we were split into six different groups. Each group was either assigned to read and learn about the Bank War, Spoils System, and the Indian Removal. Each group created a video or skit to teach the other groups about their topic and answer the essential question. My group was assigned the Indian Removal.

To answer the essential question for the Bank War it was that Jackson was a people’s president. The National Bank at the time was only serving the wealthy and Jackson wanted to have it serve the less wealthy classes. According to the Spoils System though he was not a people’s president. He bribed people to support him by promising them government jobs. This was not helping the people but only helping himself. The Indian Removal makes Andrew seem like an absolutely cruel president because he pushes the natives out and moves them to a land where they do not have enough resources to survive. Andrew does say he does this to improve the people of European descents lives.

My group did a script for the project on the Indian Removal Act. We had kids speak as Andrew Jackson, Native Americans, and narrators.

Click here for the script.

Here is a prop we used: