Andrew Jackson’s Cursing Parrot

On this episode of Our American Stories, history professor Mark Cheathem tells us why Andrew Jackson’s pet parrot had to be removed from his funeral.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is our American stories and some of our favorite
stories to tell our stories about our history. From George
Washington to Jackie Robinson. We love bringing you in depth
looks into the lives of great Americans. Today's story is
less about a great American but his pet parrot that
had to be removed from his funeral. History Professor Mark

(00:32):
Cheatham tells us one of his favorite stories that he
learned while working at Andrew Jackson's plantation, the Hermitage. Here's Mark.

Speaker 2 (00:43):
When I was a docent at the Hermitage the summer
between at junior and senior years of college, one of
my favorite stories to tell was that of Paul the Parrot.
I never questioned its validity at the time, but several
years ago I decided to check on this story and
see was it actually true. Marsha Mullen, the authority on

(01:04):
all things Andrew Jackson at the Hermitage, directed me to
Reverend William Menefee Norman's recollections, which are in volume three
of Samuel G. High School's book Andrew Jackson in Early
Tennessee History, and speaking about Jackson's eighteen forty five funeral,
Normant recorded before the sermon and while the crowd was gathering,

(01:26):
a wicked parrot that was a household pet got excited
and commenced, swearing so loud and long as to disturb
the people, and had to be carried from the house.
It's a great anecdote, and it's one I've told many
times over the years. But the story became even more
interesting for me because Normant was a graduate of Cumberland University,

(01:50):
where I currently teach. He was one of a group
of Cumberland University students who visited Jackson shortly before the
former president died in June of eighteen forty five. According
to one Norman obituary, there are few if any people
living today who saw General Andrew Jackson in the flesh
since the death of Judge Nathan Greene of Lebanon, Tennessee

(02:13):
a few years ago. Reverend Normant is the only survivor
of that little group of students of Cumberland University that
in the spring of eighteen forty five visited Old Hickory
at his famous country home, the Hermitage, fifteen miles from Nashville. Here,
Reverend Normant described their visit. Cumberland University is at Lebanon,

(02:35):
about fifteen miles from the Hermitage. In the early spring
of eighteen forty five, six of US Cumberland students decided
we wished to meet General Jackson one Saturday morning. We
packed our lunches and gotten a stagecoach which went near
the Hermitage on the way to Nashville. When we arrived,
Andrew Jackson Donaldson, nephew of the General, met us and

(02:58):
conducted us to the big East room where the General
was sitting before the fire. It was a wood fire,
and huge logs were burning. The fireplace was about five
feet high. Mister Donaldson introduced us to the General as
courteously as though we were distinguished guests, and without rising
the hero of New Orleans shook hands at once. We

(03:20):
saw that the famous man was very feeble. After this introduction,
we all sat around the fire. The General puffed occasionally
at a short stem silver pipe, which he held in
his left hand. In his right hand he held a
long hickory cane. A bible lay on the floor beside him.
The General was very religious at this time, and when

(03:41):
we told him who we were, some of us studying
for the ministry, he leaned forward with his chin on
his stick and exclaimed a noble calling young gentleman. He
then advised us to make the most of our opportunities
and become upright citizens. To tell the truth, we were
rather to disappointed because he did not tell us of

(04:02):
battles and duels. Could this gentle, religious, old gentleman be
the man whose by the eternal had sounded in the
halls of Congress, on the field of battle and dueling ground?
Yet we sat looking at the living reality of our
boyish dreams, an old man, feeble and lonely, who spoke
of his wife as that sainted woman, and whose grave

(04:24):
he daily visited. Up above the mantelpiece hung two long,
dueling pistols, mute witnesses of days gone by, and I
think these pistols occupied most of our attention. We spent
more than an hour talking with the General, and when
we were ready to leave, he again shook hands and
wished us happiness and health. Normant's obituary went on to report,

(04:50):
while still at school, word reached Cumberland University that General
Jackson was dead, only six weeks before he had shaken
his hand. Reverend Normant says he went to the funeral
and that the General's parrot, excited by the multitude and
the wailing of the slaves, let loose perfect gust of cusswords.

(05:11):
The slaves of the General were horrified and awed at
the bird's lack of reverence. The last quotation from this
obituary is interesting for more than just Paul swearing. Normans
claimed that the enslaved people's wailing set off Paul's blue streak,
and that they were horrified and awed by the parrot's

(05:32):
lack of reverence. Presents a view of enslaved people as
being more pious than their Southern slave owners. That's an
interesting perspective, but it isn't surprising. White views of African
Americans were complicated during and after slavery. Mark Smith's book
How Race Is Made, Slavery, Segregation, and the Senses offers

(05:55):
the simple yet powerful argument that Southern whites viewed African
Americans as dirty and loathsome at the same time that
they allowed them in their homes as servants and nannies, or,
in the case of some white masters, in the slaved
women as they raped them. The same dichotomy holds true
for African American morality and religion. Whites believed and slaved

(06:18):
people practiced a heathen African religion, not religions, mind you.
Yet they also thought enslaved people often possessed a spirituality
that gave them greater moral insight and wisdom than their
white Christian masters. In the case of Jackson's funeral, the
perception is that members of the Hermitage's enslaved community were

(06:40):
appalled by Paul's language, which she presumably learned from Old
Hickory or other whites on the plantation, because they were
too moral to have used that language themselves. Of course,
this interpretation ignores the agency of enslaved African Americans and
the complexity of their religious beliefs and practices. It also

(07:00):
overlooks the reality that the enslaved people at the funeral
might have been mourning the uncertainty they faced. But those
enslaved at the Hermitage needed only to look at his
son to see how things could get worse. Andrew Jackson
Junior struggled with alcoholism, and unlike his father, he was
a terrible money manager. The prospect of Junior taking over

(07:21):
may have been enough to produce the whaling that Normant
and others heard that spring day in eighteen forty five.
If that was the reason for the enslaved people sorrow,
they were right to worry. Over the next eleven years,
Junior not only sold off the Hermitage's piece by piece,
but he also sold many of them as well.

Speaker 1 (07:40):
And great job, as always to Joey, and thanks a
special thanks to Cumerland University history professor Mark Cheatham telling
us the story of Andrew Jackson's cursing parrot, but also
about so much more, and my goodness to meet imagine
meeting a president under those circumstances, and to hear the

(08:01):
reading of a memoir, and to get back into the
mind and time of the day. And we love bringing
people back in history. What we also do is try
not to judge people out of their context, out of
their historical context, because well it wouldn't be too kind
of people to do it one hundred years from now
to us. And what a life Jackson led, by the way,

(08:23):
a general the US Army, he served in both houses
of Congress, went by the name Old Hickory. You also
heard the hero of New Orleans, and of course in
the end there's King mob two. Those were his three
big nicknames. And by the way, if you have stories
about American history now we love telling them, but send
them to us. Send them to our American Stories dot com.

(08:46):
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(09:06):
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