Andrew Jackson
Planting career and slavery

Jackson resigned his judgeship in 1804. He had almost gone bankrupt when the land and mercantile speculations he had made on the basis of promissory notes fell apart in the wake of an earlier financial panic. He had to sell Hunter's Hill, as well as 25,000 acres (10,000 ha) of land he bought for speculation and bought a smaller 420-acre (170 ha) plantation near Nashville that he would call the Hermitage. He focused on recovering from his losses by becoming a successful planter and merchant. The Hermitage grew to 1,000 acres (400 ha), making it one of the largest cotton-growing plantations in the state.

Like most planters in the Southern United States, Jackson used slave labor. In 1804, Jackson had nine African-American slaves; by 1820, he had over 100; and by his death in 1845, he had over 150. Over his lifetime, he owned a total of 300 slaves. Jackson subscribed to the paternalistic idea of slavery, which claimed that slave ownership was morally acceptable as long as slaves were treated with humanity and their basic needs were cared for. In practice, slaves were treated as a form of wealth whose productivity needed to be protected. Jackson directed harsh punishment for slaves who disobeyed or ran away. For example, in an 1804 advertisement to recover a runaway slave, he offered "ten dollars extra, for every hundred lashes any person will give him" up to three hundred lashes—a number that would likely have been deadly. Over time, his accumulation of wealth in both slaves and land placed him among the elite families of Tennessee.
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