and Sally were invited
BLOODLINES 125
to sit with them. Sally had baby Mary with her, and Rachel looked after
Andrew junior, while Andrew dandled Lincoyen on his knee.
Bands played, people cheered, and the soldiers were resplendent. James felt
himself in the company of heroes. He never asked Andrew for the return of
his money, nor was it ever offered. As the troops marched past the
reviewing stand to the salutes of their general, someone called out three
cheers for Old Hickory. The crowd took it up, and the air resounded with
the calls of Andrew's name. James, standing beside him, was moved to tears.
But Andrew had a surprise for them all. After the soldiers came a dozen
Indian braves, prisoners, whom Andrew had brought back as hostages, or as
evidence of the battles he had fought.
They were the finest of the fine-on horseback, nearly naked, bedecked in
war paint and feathers. The crowd hushed in awe at sight of them, for these
were the warriors as they were seen only in battle, in dead of night or
heat of day, when very few white men lived to describe them, and no white
woman had survived the encounter.
Their squaws walked behind them, and half-breeds with drums. Priests of the
Cherokee and Chickasaw chanted ancient hymns in praise of the victor.
To James, it was the most exotic and extraordinary experience of his life,
and it caught at his soul.
Before him was man in his purest, simplest form. Man of the wilderness, at
one with the wild, lord of a lawless world, where survival required a
consummate union with the earth and the heavens. Man the hunter, living
from the land, and taking from it only what could be given back.
Andrew had no need to guess what James was thinking, for he felt it, and
assumed that every man would when confronted with the challenge of these
splendid creatures. Yet he owed a debt to his friend, and tried to
communicate to him what his money had bought.
"It is to do battle on the plains of Mount Olympus," he said softly, so
only James could hear, and perhaps Lincoyen.
"The landscape itself could be the domain of the gods, for it is the very
best of America, pristine and pure. The unsullied handiwork of God."
126 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN
He didn't speak for a moment, but stared at the Indians.
"These are not ordinary men," he said. "These are the most noble animals,
bred by Hermes and blessed by Apollo. To do battle with them is to
challenge the authority of Zeus."
Suddenly, some strange and mysterious anger exploded in him, and he
turned to James in fury.
"And I choose to do it! I am not chosen by some panel or drafted by some
committee! It is not my fate, for I am master of my own destiny. I choose
to challenge these colossi, and I win! "
Andrew had James completely in his thrall, and turned back to look at his
prisoners again.
"They are magnificent," he said softly.
At that moment, James would have given everything he possessed,
everything in the world-he would have sold his soul to the devil-to know,
if only for a moment, the heroic, surpassing majesty it must be to kill
an Indian.
1~6
Andrew had other spoils of war. Sent to negotiate a peace treaty with the
Creek, he gave them an ultimatum, and would not concede one single point
of it.
Under threat of war and destruction, and in return for some small
annuities to the chiefs, the elders of the tribes of the Creek, in
council, ceded to Andrew Jackson, representative of the United States
government, twenty-three million acres of land.
It was half of the ancient realm of the Creek and covered most of Alabama
and part of Georgia. Tennessee was no longer the frontier.
For the restless, journeying settlers, a new paradise had been found.
But before they could take possession of it, Andrew had to win another
battle.
BLOODLINES 127
In order to teach the Americans a lesson, a small British expeditionary
force had attacked the capital, Washington, and had set fire to the
president's home. They withdrew and attacked Baltimore, but were repelled
by gunfire. It didn't matter. The point had been made.
Tired of the war, the British amassed an army of ten thousand veterans,
who had served under Wellington against Napoleon, and prepared an
invasion of America on two fronts. One army, under Sir Alexander
Cochrane, took Maine and declared it part of New Brunswick. He seized
Nantucket and made a foray into Long Island Sound. New England demanded
Washington make peace and threatened secession from the Union.
Another British army, with Jamaica as its base, was to attack New
Orleans.
Andrew had a spy in Florida, where some British units were inciting the
Seminole to revolt, and got wind of the invasion plans. He implored the
government to send him south, but Madison, perhaps because the peace
negotiators in Belgium were close to an agreement, delayed his response.
So Andrew acted on his own accord, with only the blessing of Governor
Blount of Tennessee. He was now the military commander for the Southwest,
so he took his troops to New Orleans, declared martial law, engaged every
able-bodied man he could find, and waited for the British.
He needed money for the venture, and James, once again, was only too
happy to oblige. This time he would be repaid, not in cash out of
Andrew's pocket or the federal treasury, but in something far more
valuable than money.
Andrew had succeeded in having John Coffee appointed as a surveyor to map
the new territories acquired from the Creek, and Coffee's boundaries
erred on the other side of caution. Once the survey was complete and
Andrew had returned from New Orleans, a company was to be formed, the
Cypress Development Company, with Coffee and other friends as its prin-
cipals, and James as secretary, to promote and develop vast acreages of
this new land. To the surprise of everyone except James, Andrew, who was
a prime mover of the enterprise, took only a few modest shares in the
company. James guessed that it was because of his political ambitions.
Andrew did not want
128 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN
his reputation to be sullied with the taint of speculation.
The British landed near New Orleans, but Andrew did not wait to be
attacked. He sent a small army into the British lines, under cover of
night, and produced chaos and confusion. When the British reorganized
themselves to attack, Andrew had completed his defenses. The British
forces, unused to the swampy land and unprepared for Andrew's
unconventional tactics, were routed.
The battle of New Orleans was fought and won by Andrew at the beginning
of January. Unknown to him, or to any of the participants, the
negotiators in Ghent had signed a peace treaty between Britain and the
United S
tates the previous Christmas Eve, two weeks earlier, but the news
had not yet reached America.
Nor did the Americans care. Andrew was hailed as the greatest general
since Washington, the one true, unsullied victor in a useless war, even
if the war was officially over when the battle was won. The country went
wild for him, and he was proclaimed a hero. At a convention in Hartford,
the New Englanders had agreed on an ultimatum that unless there was peace
they would secede, but tore up the paper on the news of the victory and
the subsequent news of the peace.
There was nothing his country would not grant him. All Andrew had to do
was ask.
James, jubilant, assumed Andrew would run for president, and undoubtedly
be elected. He had visions of himself as a powerful figure behind
Andrew's throne, but the hero disappointed him. He was not ready for
elective office yet; he enjoyed being a general far more, and there was
work to be done.
Because Andrew wanted Florida.
It had been Andrew's ambition from the beginning. Florida had been held
by the Spanish until Napoleon defeated them, and then the western section
of it, which bordered the Gulf of Mexico, was annexed as a territory by
the United States. The peninsula itself, still governed by Spain, was a
wild and lawless land, peopled by pirates and hardy settlers, runaway
slaves from Georgia and South Carolina, buccaneers, mercenaries, and
criminals of all classes. During the war, the British had successfully
incited some of the locals to revolt, and now the native Seminole
Indians, together with some Creek who had
BLOODLINES 129
fled Alabama, took up arms. Andrew believed that the South was not safe
until Florida had been brought to heel. He offered his services to the new
president, James Monroe, and marched to Pensacola, leaving his affairs in
the good hands of his friend James Jackson.
Who didn't know what to do with the rest of his life.
James had settled into a comfortable routine. Partly because of his
financial success and his industrious relatives, and partly because of his
friendship with Andrew, he was one of the most prominent citizens in
Nashville. He and some others had founded the Arst Academy for Females,
he was on several boards and committees, and he had political ambitions,
but he was bored. His personal life was full and happy, although there was
a small tragedy when Jimmy Hanna, Sara's husband, died of a fever, and
Uncle Henry had passed away, but otherwise Sally and the children, Eleanor
and Tom and their family, and Sara and hers flourished.
He had achieved so much, and yet none of it was original, none of it was
unique to him. Even his plantation had been created by someone else;
James had simply acquired it in one of his land deals.
He had outgrown Nashville, which once had seemed so perfect to him.
He wanted to do something grand and extravagant, like Andrew, but he knew
he was not suited for military endeavors. At the urging of John Coffee,
he went to inspect the land in northern Alabama that had been acquired
in the Creek war, and fell in love with the wonderful, empty country.
A vision came to him, of a great estate that he would create, a vast
cotton plantation that would be one of the finest in the country, and he
would be a pioneer in this new territory, one of the first white settlers
on the land so newly acquired, and one of its leading citizens.
He took Sally on a trip to inspect the new territory, and she shared his
enthusiasm. She knew he was bored, knew he needed some new challenge, and
the prospect of building a home to their exact requirements intrigued
her. She also remembered her early dreams with her first husband, of
moving to the wilderness, and creating a sylvan idyll, and there was
130 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN
enough of the girl in her and enough of the pioneer to want that still.
Acquiring the land was easy. The Cypress Development Company struck a
dcal with the government to exploit the area. Prior to Andrew's departure
for Florida, the dining room at the Hermitage became a new boardroom, of
peace not of war, and one in which James was a welcome participant. In
long and cheerful sessions that went on till well past midnight, often
fueled by liquor, they envisioned the development of northern Alabama.
The lots would be decided according to John Coffee's survey. County
boundaries were established. A new town would be laid out. It was to be
called Florence, after the city in Tuscany, and architects and town
planners were to be brought from Europe. It would be the finest city in
the South, a cultural center and capital of a new Eden that would be
peopled by those most honest and industrious of souls, the simple
farmers, backbone of America.
These were heady and exciting days for James, who, as secretary of the
development company and Andrew's associate, was at the very center of the
activity. He threw all his energy into the enterprise, and yet did not
forget himself.
He had a surprising visit from someone he had not seen in several years.
Jimmy Doublehead, son of the chief, was living on a Chickasaw reservation
to the south of Nashville, near Huntsville, and heard that James was
involved in the new company. He came to see James to ask a favor. He
wanted him to buy a particular piece of land.
They rode together to the place Jimmy had in mind, and when James saw it,
his heart skipped a beat. A few miles south of where the new town of
Florence would be, at a confluence of two rivers whose banks were lined
with untidy cypresses, the land was rolling and gentle, ideal for cotton.
Some small distance from the river there was a hill, and it was this hill
that interested Jimmy.
"It is a holy place, sacred to my people," he told James. "It is a place
of the old ones."
In the Indian mythology, the spirit of a warrior did not die with his
body, but simply moved to a higher plane, and was available to the living
for advice and counsel. Once a year,
BLOODLINES 131
old Chief Doublehead had called the other Cherokee chiefs to this place,
and they had listened to the guidance of the old ones.
James was deeply moved by the land and its significance, and felt humble.
"Why have you come to me, Jimmy?" he asked the young man.
"Because you were his friend, and you were kind to our people," Jimmy
said. "You will preserve his memory."
James spent the afternoon exploring the land, and told Jimmy he would buy
it, no matter what the cost. Already he could see a mansion rising on the
sacred hill, but he was determined to do as Jimmy asked, and preserve
Doublehead's memory.
"I will put a wigwam here," he said, pointing to an open space at the
edge of the little hill. "And it will be available to a family of your
tribe for all time, so that they may be near the old ones."
/>
Jimmy said nothing, but bowed his head, in what James thought was
gratitude. He could not know the despair that Jimmy, and all the Indians,
were experiencing at this loss of their land. What Jimmy had done was
pragmatic, but not his most desired solution.
The deal for the land was simple. The Cypress Development Company
guaranteed to develop a minimum number of acres, and the government would
receive two dollars an acre regardless of whether the land was sold or
not. Whatever else was bid would be profit to the developers.
The auction was a circus. The first five thousand acres sold at an
average of forty-five dollars an acre. The end of the war and the
resolution of the old arguments with Britain, the swarming tide of
immigrants from Ireland and Europe, and the availability of the new land
opened the floodgates to settlements, and buyers flocked to the sales.
The past president, James Madison, came with President Monroe. A
potential presidential candidate came when Andrew Jackson made a special
trip from Florida to bid for a lot. Out of respect for his service to the
country, no one bid against him. The only land that was sold at the
government minimum was sold to Andrew.
132 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN
The gentry from five states came. Farmers from major, medium, and small
land holdings came. Newcomers bought their first lots. Poor whites bid
for a few scrubby acres to get a start in life. River frontage and the
town sites fetched the highest prices, eighty-five dollars an acre.
Church sites were purchased by Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, and
Roman Catholics.
The directors of the Cypress Development Company bought land for personal
use or for private resale. Apart from the site of his plantation, James
bought twelve lots for himself, and another three in partnership with
John Coffee.
By the end of the four-day sale, James was rich beyond his wildest
imaginings.
On the afternoon of the last day, he drove Sally to the place that was to
be their new home, and she loved it as much as he. Together they chose a
name. It would be called The Forks of Cypress, for it lay where the two
rivers, the Big Cypress and the Little Cypress, joined. He told her of its
holy significance, and that he believed the land was blessed.
It was a magic time, a cool, crisp day, and the winter sun lay low on the
horizon. Sally wandered away to inspect the property, and James was on
his own for a few minutes.
He stared at the land. His land.
"You will never amount to anything."
His father's final words to him rang in his ears, and he laughed out
loud, for he had proved them so wrong. He shivered at the awesome
achievement, and thought it was the cold, but then he saw a small group
of Indians standing on the path at the bottom of the hill, staring at
him.
They did wothing and saidnothing. They simply stared at him, or at the
hill that was the home of the old ones, as if they were looking at what
they had lost.
James shivered again, and turned and called for Sally. She came to him,
and when he looked back, the Indians had gone. He could not swear that
they had been there.
"What is it, what's wrong?" Sally asked him. James laughed and threw
aside his odd feeling of melancholy, or failure, or betrayal.
"Nothing," he said. "I'm a sentimental old fool, that's
all."
BLOODLINES 133
She laughed, and took his hand. James pulled her to him and kissed her,
lightly at first, but then with passion.
Sally looked at him in surprise, for his need was urgent.
"I want you," he whispered, "Here. Now."
He kissed her again, as violently as he had ever kissed her. He laid her
on the ground, and took her there, in the open, like a peasant boy, as
once, when young, he had taken a peasant girl under a hayrick in a
flawless Irish summer that he had spent with Sean.
At the moment of his climax, he pulled himself from her and spilled his
seed upon the ground, as if to consummate his union with the land.