Men of power-hungry: Andrew Jackson, James Knox Polk, and Simón Bolívar the Liberator of six South American republics.

Men of power-hungry: Andrew Jackson, James Knox Polk, and Simón Bolívar the Liberator of six South American republics. By, Rafael Alberto Vilagut, Central America Panama, Costa Rica, and Nicaragua, 17-02-2023.

 

During the development of relations between North México, Central America and South America, new racial ideologies emerged in the United States. The notion of innate racial differences and natural superiority of white United States citizens profoundly shaped the image many in the United States held of Native Americans, Mexicans, Central, and South Americans. Those who embraced the innate superiority of white North Americans in the United States saw their Mexicans, and South America neighbors as lacking the necessary characteristics for an effective republic. The increasingly hostile opinions of Bolívar corresponded with a rising sense of the natural superiority of the U.S. embodied in the notion of descending from Anglo-Saxons.

 

Daniel Boone was an American pioneer and frontiersman whose exploits made him one of the first folk heroes of the United States. He became famous for his exploration and settlement of Kentucky, which was then beyond the western borders of the Thirteen Colonies. 

 

In 1775, Boone blazed the Wilderness Road through the Cumberland Gap and into Kentucky, in the face of resistance from American Indians, for whom the area was a traditional hunting ground. He founded Boonesborough, one of the first English-speaking settlements west of the Appalachian Mountains. By the end of the 18th century, more than 200,000 people had entered Kentucky by following the route marked by Boone.

 

Jacksonian democracy was a 19th century political philosophy in the United States that expanded suffrage to most white men over the age of 21, and restructured a number of federal institutions. Originating with the seventh U.S. president, Andrew Jackson and his supporters, it became the nation's dominant political worldview for a generation.

This era, called the Jacksonian Era or Second Party System by historians and political scientists, lasted roughly from Jackson's 1828 election as president until slavery became the dominant issue with the passage of the Kansas–Nebraska Act in 1854 and the political repercussions of the American Civil War dramatically reshaped American politics. It emerged when the long-dominant Democratic-Republican Party became factionalized around the 1824 United States presidential election. Jackson's supporters began to form the modern Democratic Party. His political rivals John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay created the National Republican Party, which would afterward combine with other anti-Jackson political groups to form the Whig Party. 

 

The War for California | The Men Who Built America: Frontiersmen, https://youtu.be/z-gfxq8lhN8.  Davy Crockett makes a stand at The Alamo; President Polk risks war with Britain and Mexico, sending John Frémont and Kit Carson on a secret mission that ignites a war for California and the Pacific, in Season 1, Episode 4, "Empire of Liberty."

 

Andrew Jackson was an American lawyer, planter, general, and statesman. He gained fame as a general in the U.S. Army and served in both houses of the U.S. Congress. Although often praised as an advocate for ordinary Americans and for his work in preserving the union of states, Jackson has also been criticized for his racial policies, particularly his treatment of Native Americans. Simon Bolivar wrote a letter to Andrew Jackson, November 28, 1829.

 

Heralded today as a hero, in his lifetime, Simón Bolívar endured a barrage of criticism from United States diplomats and other public figures who saw him as power-hungry and monarchical in his designs. Diplomatic correspondences, congressional debates, personal memoirs, and press articles during the years 1811 to 1831 reveal the origins of these views of the Liberator of six South American republics.

David Crockett was an American folk hero, frontiersman, soldier, and politician. He is commonly referred to in popular culture by the epithet" King of the Wild Frontier".  Samuel Houston was an American general and statesman who played an important role in the Texas Revolution.

 

John Charles Frémont he was a native of Georgia but an opponent of slavery. In the 1840s, Frémont led five expeditions into the Western United States. During the Mexican–American War, he was a major in the U.S. Army and took control of California from the California Republic in 1846.

Christopher Houston Carson, Kit Carson, was an American frontiersman. He was a fur trapper, wilderness guide, Indian agent, and U.S. Army officer. 

 

James Knox Polk is chiefly known for extending the territory of the United States through the Mexican–American War; during his presidency, the United States expanded significantly with the annexation of the Republic of Texas, the Oregon Territory, and the Mexican Cession following American victory in the Mexican–American War. 

 

Often referred to as the first “dark horse” President, James K. Polk was the last of the Jacksonians to sit in the White House, and the last strong President until the Civil War. “Who is James K. Polk?” Polk was the candidate who stood for expansion. He linked the Texas issue, popular in the South, with the Oregon question, attractive to the North. Polk also favored acquiring California.

 

Even before he could take office, Congress passed a joint resolution offering annexation to Texas. In so doing they bequeathed Polk the possibility of war with Mexico, which soon severed diplomatic relations.

 

He offered to settle by extending the Canadian boundary, along the 49th parallel, from the Rockies to the Pacific. When the British minister declined, Polk reasserted the American claim to the entire area. Finally, the British settled for the 49th parallel, except for the southern tip of Vancouver Island. The treaty was signed in 1846.

 

Acquisition of California proved far more difficult. Polk sent an envoy to offer Mexico up to $20,000,000, plus settlement of damage claims owed to Americans, in return for California and the New Mexico country. Since no Mexican leader could cede half his country and still stay in power, Polk’s envoy was not received. To bring pressure, Polk sent Gen. Zachary Taylor to the disputed area on the Rio Grande.  To Mexican troops this was aggression, and they attacked Taylor’s forces.

 

Congress declared war and, despite much Northern opposition, supported the military operations. American forces won repeated victories and occupied Mexico City. Finally, in 1848, Mexico ceded New Mexico and California in return for $15,000,000 and American assumption of the damage claims.

Hardeman County was created by the Tennessee General Assembly in 1823 from parts of Hardin County and "Indian lands." It is named for Thomas J. Hardeman (1788-1854), a veteran of the Creek War and War of 1812 and a prominent figure in the fight for Texas independence. He served as a congressman in the Republic of Texas.

 

Simón Bolívar, an American Liberator, https://youtu.be/wxuxFg_8nkI.

Bolivar is a city in and the county seat of Hardeman County, Tennessee, United States. The town was named for South American revolutionary leader Simón Bolívar.

 

On the first floor of the Organization of American States (OAS) Building in Washington, D.C., just beyond the interior courtyard famous for the hybrid rubber and fig tree planted by William Howard Taft in 1910, symbolizing the intertwining of “south and north,” the Peace Tree, as it is known, and through the newly named Marcus Garvey Hall of Culture, sits the Simón Bolívar Room. 

 

This large room where the 34-member states conduct the business of the organization is bracketed by two miniature equestrian statues of Bolívar, the one at its main entrance from Garvey  (Amy Jacques and Marcus Mosiah) Hall, the other opposite, at its patio entrance from the OAS gardens. Inside, a portrait of Bolívar, the only object on the wall facing the raised table of the OAS chair and OAS president, watches over delegates at their respective seats, half of them with the portrait to their left, the other half to their right.

 

The sources demonstrated that people in the United States failed to understand Bolívar’s actions or motives as a military and a political leader in northern South America. At first, these North Americans saw Bolívar embracing the United States style of republicanism and following George Washington’s example of peacefully giving up power in the interests of the republic. Critics began to suspect Bolívar as having imperial ambitions and lusting for power, the very antithesis of Washington. Only Bolívar’s public resignation from his position of power silenced these critics. As important, some public figures never abandoned their positive view of Bolívar. Certainly, President Andrew Jackson saw him as a model of republicanism, a sentiment that ultimately prevailed in the United States. 

Since 1819, there are records of US locations dedicated to the Venezuelan hero: Bolivar County in Mississippi; the Bolivar Peninsula in Texas; Bolivar City in Missouri and Tennessee; Bolivar Town and Bolivar Village in New York; Village of Bolivar in Ohio; Bolívar in West Virginia and also in Pennsylvania. It is estimated that 42 cities in that nation bear his name after him, as well as fire stations, police stations, primary and secondary schools, and even consumer products.

 

“The seed of liberty yields its just fruit. If there is anything which is never lost, it is the blood which is shed for a deserving cause.” Simón Bolívar.