From Florida, to Atlantic City, to India and Back: Andrew Jackson, Donald Trump, and Narendra Modi and their Historical Connections

When Donald Trump took office in 2017, he redecorated the oval office with a famous portrait of President Andrew Jackson.  The message of this portrait was clear, that Trump would follow along in the populist traditions of Andrew Jackson and sought to emulate him during his Presidency.  Both men were outsiders to the political establishment when elected, both made fortunes in real estate speculation, and both have had reputations for controversial actions.  While Jackson was president, he spoke of internal enemies, tried to shake up the established order, and fired numerous officials of his cabinet.  Seems to sound familiar, doesn’t it?  However, there is one great difference which seems to have developed between the two presidents: Their relationships with Indians. 

Jackson Clears the Southeast

              Andrew Jackson’s popularity and success in politics was at least partially due to his reputation as an Indian fighter.  In the War of 1812, where he was honored for defending New Orleans against the British, many of his primary battles came with Indian nations of the Southeast.  Jackson defeated the Creek Indians at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend, which led to that nation’s surrender.  After the war concluded, Jackson continued his military career by attempting to clear Indian nations out of the Southeast United States, to make room for American settlers. 

              During the first Seminole War, Jackson invaded Florida in order to attempt to subdue the Seminole Indians.  The Seminole Indians were a very distinct nation because of their ethnic composition.  Southeastern Indians as well as escaped slaves, fled to Spanish Florida in the early 1800s.  These different groups would come together and create the Seminole Nation.  Perhaps as the nation was founded by refugees from the United States, they created a strong warrior culture in order to preserve themselves.  Jackson and other Southern slaveholders believed that a powerful Indian nation which took in runaway slaves, was a major threat that needed to be eliminated. 

              Jackson then initiated a foreign invasion of Florida, which was still under Spanish control.  As Spain was in the midst of dealing with independence movements all throughout Latin America at the time, they had no ability to force back the invasion.  The war continued for some time, until the groups reached an uneasy peace and Florida was given to the United States. 

              When Jackson was elected president in 1828, it became even more clear that war would be made on the Indians of the Southeast.  In 1830, Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act, which would prove to be the end of most of the Indians in the Southeastern United States.  Many of these Indian groups had attempted to assimilate into American culture, in order to try to preserve their lands in their home states.  The Cherokee Indians even challenged the constitutionality of Indian Removal in the Supreme Court in the case Worchester v. Georgia.   The court ruled in their favor, but the process of Indian Removal was already underway, and the Cherokee would not be given any help from a hostile executive branch led by Jackson.    

              After seeing several Southeastern tribes removed to the west of the Mississippi, many Seminole Indians were determined to stay.  As in the past, they would violently resist American incursions into their territory.  The Second Seminole War would turn out to be the longest lasting war the United States would fight until the Vietnam Conflict.  At the end, many Seminoles were forcibly removed from Florida, but many decided never to surrender, and to this day, the Seminoles never made any formal peace treaties with the United States.[i] 

              Jackson’s legacies of Indian wars and removal, while controversial both in his time and today, did much to increase his popularity.  He first ran for president in 1824 winning the most electoral and popular votes.  However, he did not win this election as more establishment politicians teamed up to defeat him in the House of Representatives.  He would run again and win by large majorities in 1828 and 1832.  As his second term was ending in 1836, his hand-picked successor, Vice President Martin Van Buren, won the next election easily winning almost a 100 more electoral votes than the 2^nd place finisher.  In fact, the Whig political party, forerunners to today’s Republicans, was founded as a political party to largely oppose the policies of Jackson.  Andrew Jackson is one of the most well-known U.S. presidents also because his portrait is on the $20 bill.  This honor demonstrates his legacy to be in line with that of America’s other great leaders, such as Washington and Lincoln.* While during President Obama’s presidency it was announced that Harriett Tubman was selected to replace Jackson on the $20 bill, President Trump and his Treasury Secretary have since reversed that decision.

 

Trump, The Taj Mahal, and Hindu Nationalists

              Since coming to power, President Donald Trump has tried to cultivate a close relations with the government of India and Indian-Americans.  Well before Trump was president of the United States, he was president of major casino operations in Atlantic City, New Jersey.  For many years, the largest casino in Atlantic City was a recreation of India’s great monument to love, prefaced of course with the Trump name.  The Trump Taj Mahal developed a reputation for luxury and high rollers, and was featured prominently in the 1998 film Rounders, where it was said to be the premier location for poker on the East Coast. 

              What is interesting about the Trump Taj Mahal, is where the basis of its motif come from.  The original Taj Mahal in India was built when India was under the control of an Islamic Dynasty known as the Mughals.  As such the Taj Mahal features a great deal of Islamic influence in its architecture and design.  Although the Trump Taj Mahal was very different than the original Islamic mausoleum, it did feature some architectural influence from the Islamic Alhambra Palace in Spain, as well as naming its main nightclub the Casbah, after the Arabic word for central part of a town or citadel.[ii] This seems very surprising that Trump would feature Islamic culture so prominently in one of his past businesses, as his term as president has been marked by statements and actions derided by some as Islamophobic. 

              Unfortunately for Trump, his crown jewel of the Atlantic City Boardwalk would be plagued by problems since its inception.  Although it made great deals of cash, the expenses were enormous, and Trump’s organization incurred great deals of debt just to make it operate.  After only a year of operation, Trump was filing for bankruptcy on the property.  The property survived for a time, but Trump largely divested himself from it, relinquishing all stake in it around the same time he began his run from U.S. President.  By the start of his Presidential term, the casino was being sold for pennies on the dollar.[iii]

              However, President Trump’s next venture with Indian ties would be much more successful.  Since being elected, President Trump has tried to cultivate a close relationship with the current Prime Minister, Narendra Modi.  Modi himself represents the Bharatiya Janata Party or BJP.  The BJP is a Hindu Nationalist Party, which formed out of opposition to the Indian National Congress of Gandhi and Nehru. The Indian National Congress wished to create a secular state with no regard to religion, whereas the BJP has prioritized emphasizing India as a Hindu majority state. 

              For members of the BJP, President Trump seems to be a worthwhile ally in their cause.  President Trump’s travel ban on Muslim states, and his comments on Muslims, appeal to their nationalist causes.  Recently, a new law passed in India, would attempt to limit citizenship rights of Muslim-Indians.  This law caused a great deal of uproar in the nation, with millions of Indians taking to the streets to protest it.  During President Trump’s recent state visit to India, he expressed great support for Prime Minister Modi and by doing so, he seemingly gave international support of the BJP’s discriminatory policies.[iv]

              On Trump’s state visit to India, he spent time visiting its largest state, Uttar Pradesh.  This state is most famous for being the home of the Taj Mahal, where President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump posed for pictures.  Before that however, the President and his wife were greeted by the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, BJP member Yogi Adityanath.  Adityanath is known as a firebrand who has made many inflammatory statements about Muslims in India.  When he took power of the state in 2017, Adityanath made it clear that he did not think that the Taj Mahal represented Indian culture, and had it removed from the official tourist brochure for Uttar Pradesh.  Under pressure Adityanath has changed his stance, and when he met with Trump, he presented a framed photo of the Taj Mahal to him.[v] There seems to be a great amount of irony in this: Adityanath, who like Trump, has been condemned for Islamophobic statements, presenting him with a photo of one of the world’s most famous Islamic structures, which served as the basis for one of President Trump’s failed casinos.

              However, for both Trump and Modi, the visit was a mark of their mutual admiration for one another, and how the two largest democracies in the world, have leaders now, who believe that discrimination is the best policy to take.  Trump has also tried to leverage his support of Modi into political support at home, as this past year he hosted a large rally with Modi in Texas entitled “Howdy Modi”, in order to try and gain support from a voting block that overwhelmingly voted against him in 2016.[vi] 

Historic Connections

              These three prominent leaders; Jackson, Trump, and Modi, seem to have a lot in common.  They all rallied against elites and speak directly to people who felt left behind by the political process.  All of them capitalized on existing ethnic and religious conflict.  One must wonder if this is the type of leader, which is best during a time of global crisis. 

              As with all leaders, history will be their final judge.  However, history is often laced with a sense of irony.  As Trump was beginning his term in 2017, his former “8^th Wonder of the World” was being sold.  The Trump Taj Mahal, which was built for $1.2 billion in 1990, sold in March of 2017 for $50 million to Hard Rock International.  And who owns Hard Rock International?  Florida’s Seminole Indians. It seems fitting that as President Trump was immortalizing Andrew Jackson, one of his failed business ventures was being sold to the Seminole Indians that Jackson had sought to eliminate.  If you put the picture of Jackson next to the picture of the Taj Mahal it would seem that history was having quite a laugh at President Trump’s expense. 

*Ironically Jackson’s portrait on the $20 bill presents a great deal of irony.  The current U.S. money supply is controlled by the Federal Reserve, a national bank.  President Jackson hated central banks and worked very hard to end the National Bank of his day.  It makes one wonder what he might have thought about his picture being on a Federal Reserve note. 

             

             

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[i] Dunbar-Ortiz, Roxanne. An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States.  Boston: Beacon Press, 2014. Pgs 96-116. 

[ii] Johnson, Nelson. Boardwalk Empire: The Birth, High Times, and Corruption of Atlantic City.  Medford, New Jersey: Plexus Publishing Inc, 2002. Page 233-235. 

[iii] The Chicago Tribune, “Trump’s Taj Mahal- the 8^th Wonder of the World-Sold for Pennies on the Dollar” by Wayne Parry.  https://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-trump-taj-mahal-sold-20170509-story.html: Retrieved April 29^th, 2020. 

[iv] Vox, “Trump praises India’s Religious Freedom while Muslim-Hindu Violence Erupts” by Sigal Samuel and Kainaz Amaria. https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2020/2/25/21152829/trump-india-modi-muslim-hindu-violence: Retrieved April 29^th, 2020. 

[v][v] The Week, “Islamophobia Paradox: When Yogi gifted Taj Mahal’s Portrait to Trump”. https://www.theweek.in/news/india/2020/02/25/islamophobia-paradox-when-yogi-gifted-taj-mahals-portrait-to-trump.html: Retrieved April 29^th, 2020. 

[vi] CNBC.com “Howdy Modi, Thousands, plus Trump, rally in Texas for India’s leader” by Reuters. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/23/thousands-plus-trump-rally-in-texas-for-indias-leader.html: Retrieved April 29^th, 2020. 

Ruminations From Within a Cage

By Michael Dunn


             Being pent up in my house due to the raging virus outside, I recently had the opportunity of watching the documentary The Tiger King, which is quite popular these days.   During the viewing, I found myself thinking about how strange this species of ours is.  For one thing, we seem to be the only creatures who not only take pleasure in capturing and caging animals for others to gawk at, but we engage in such endeavors for profit and gain.  Granted, other animals build things, but they do so to help them adapt and survive in the environment in which they live.  Whether it’s a bird building a nest, a beaver building a dam, or a swarm of bees constructing a hive, those endeavors have a constructive purpose.  Humans, on the other hand, the supposed highest form of life on the planet, the species with the ability to construct the most marvelous of structures, seem to be genetically programmed to build cages, walls, fences, and pens so that they can restrict movement and deprive creatures, including themselves, from moving freely about.

            I mention this now in the context of what’s happening around the world with the seemingly unstoppable spread of a virus that has caged all of us in our own little cells, whether they be in apartment complexes, houses, castles, prisons, or homeless shelters.  We are all prisoners now, sometimes allowed to roam around “the yard”, but prohibited from getting too close to one another for fear of contracting the dreaded disease perpetrated by a nonliving thing, a virus mysteriously created by a force of nature.  And for those thousands of us who are destined to do our time in the hole, at least we know that we will remain safe as long as we do not attempt to escape from solitary confinement.

And if you go back and examine the history of the human race and look at the madmen and megalomaniacs who tried and failed to conquer the world, you would indeed have to see the irony and admire the incredible power of a virus which, for the time being, holds sway over our species.  Without so much as issuing a decree or firing a shot, this virus has subjugated a species who see themselves as a cut above all forms of life on a planet that they alone are in the process of destroying.  Quite impressive, I’d say.

            And as you sit penned in your cage, like me, you just might ask yourself why exactly do we put creatures in cages and lock up so many of our own kind in prisons, gulags, iced cages, and detention centers that seem ill suited for members of any species.  What purpose is served by detaining individuals who don’t resemble us or share our beliefs?  And why do we so futilely attempt to correct and rehabilitate those who failed to adhere to the rules that were created by the many wardens in our society.  Surely, there must be a better way to help those who are different from us or who have made mistakes and been caged and walled off as a result.  In another stroke of irony, many of those prisoners may soon be released not because their time was well served, but rather because our leaders fear that their continued captivity would add to the virus’ army and further deplete our already short supplies.  Captives hardened by conditions that would make most of us cringe, I might add.   

            And so, we are forced to do battle with an invisible foe, a foe that gladly welcomes recruits into its ranks.  And what strategy have our generals devised to defeat this most formidable of enemies?  To cage and confine the entire human race until they can come up with a better plan or find a weapon to blunt the strength of the virus?  Scary.  But in the end, if they do come up with a winning strategy or a cure, only then will our cages be unlocked.  And when and if we emerge victorious, hopefully we will realize that capturing and caging is just not the best way to treat any creature that roams the planet.