Jacksonland is the thrilling narrative history of two men—President Andrew Jackson and Cherokee chief John Ross—who led their respective nations at a crossroads of American history. 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.  Jacksonland is their story. 

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—cultivating farms, publishing a newspaper in their own language, and sending children to school—Ross championed the tribes’ cause all the way to the Supreme Court. He gained allies like Senator Henry Clay, Chief Justice John Marshall, and even Davy Crockett. In a fight that seems at once distant and familiar, 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 set the pattern for modern-day politics. 

Steve Inskeep is host of NPR’s Morning Edition, the most widely heard radio news program in the United States, alongside co-hosts Renee Montagne and David Greene. He is the author of Instant City: Life and Death in Karachi. He has been a guest on numerous TV programs including ABC’s This Week, NBC’s Meet the Press, MSNBC’s  Andrea Mitchell Reports, CNN’s Inside Politics and the PBS NewsHour. He has written for publications including The New York Times, Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and The Atlantic.