John Andrew Jackson - Early Life

Early Life

Jackson had a bad relationship with his owner and mistress, as many slaves did, but often mentioned that his mistress hated him more than any other slave on the plantation. The reason for the mistress’s hatred toward John was that when John was about ten, he was playing with one of the mistresses children in the dirt. The two boys found an old hickory root and started to play with it. The mistress’s son started hitting John Andrew with the stick. When John asked the boy to stop; the boy continued to beat John until he was bloody. When John reached for the hickory root with a bloody hand, he smeared blood on the boy’s shirt. The little boy went to his mother and showed her the blood on his shirt. In return, the mistress whipped John and held her hatred for him and his family for the rest of the time she knew him.

John Andrew grew up surrounded by brutality. If he was not getting whipped, a friend or family member of his would be getting whipped. The plantation where John lived was overseen by a violent and unforgiving master. The slaves would wake up and work in the fields all day in the hot sun. The sun would burn lumps on their backs, and their bare feet would be torn and cracked by the end of the day. When the slaves did not obey their masters, they would be punished with 25-100 lashes. The brutal lumps obtained by the heat of the sun, combined with the lashes from the whip, were awful and painful. What little sleep the slaves did get was cherished. However rats would come in the middle of the night and chew on the slaves' feet. Since the slaves' feet were so torn up from working barefoot all day, they could not feel the rats eat through their feet. In the morning, their feet were in so much pain it was hard to work.

John Andrew’s first job was being a scarecrow in the corn fields. He would stand out from dusk until dawn everyday posing as a scarecrow in the hot Carolina air. When he got older he was ordered to manage the plow, but due to his lack of strength, he was unable to manage the plow correctly. If John Andrew ever dropped the plow his master would beat him until his back was covered in blood. Even though he was experiencing so much hardship, around this time, John fell in love with a girl named Louisa.