"Andrew Jackson as the Great Father" —In this political cartoon, likely published in the 1830s, Andrew Jackson sits in an armchair holding two diminutive Native Americans on his lap. Six diminutive Native Americans sit or stand on the patterned rug at Jackson's feet, looking up at him.
Theodore (c. 1813 – before March 1814) was a baby or child who was "adopted" by Andrew Jackson during the early 1810s and sent to live at the Hermitage. He is presumed to have been of Muscogee heritage,[1]: 140 but his family background and tribal affiliation are unclear.[2]: 131 According to one researcher, "Because Theodore lived with the Jacksons prior to the Creek War, a Muscogee, Cherokee, or Choctaw chief probably gave him to Jackson in early to mid-1813. Jackson referred to Theodore as 'Indian' but he could have belonged to any nation. Some historians have posited that Theodore was an enslaved African-American...Since chiefs often gave children whom they had obtained from raids, or through captive-raiding and adoption practices, Theodore could have belonged to any nearby native nation and may have had some white or African-American ancestry."[2]: 131 Theodore was possibly one of the 30 prisoners taken from the tribal town of Littafuchee, near Big Canoe Creek, in present-day St. Clair County, Alabama.[3]: 36 [4]: 278 He was described as a "pet" or playmate for Andrew Jackson Jr., who was then about five years old. When Lyncoya, another Muscogee war orphan, was sent north to Nashville, Jackson described him as "about the size of Theodore and much like him."[5]: 189
Theodore died in the spring of 1814. Jackson wrote his wife from Fort Strother on March 4, 1814, "...I am sorry, that little theodore is no more, I regret it on Andrew account, I expect he lamented his loss-to amuse him, and to make him forget his loss, I have asked Col Hays to carry Lyncoya to him..."[6] Historian Evan Nooe wrote of Theodore's successor, Lyncoya, who survived until he was 16, "[He] lived a short life under the oversight of his parents' killers."[7]: 81
According to one historian, Jackson Jr. "threw a fit when his own playmate died and coveted Charley," who was another Indigenous captive and the assigned playmate of Andrew Jackson Donelson.[8]: 91 Lyncoya Jackson, who was captured at the Battle of Tallushatchee ("all his family is destroyed") arrived at the Hermitage in May 1814.[9]: 444
^Peterson, Dawn (2017). "5. Adoption in Andrew Jackson's Empire". Indians in the Family: Adoption and the Politics of Antebellum Expansion. Harvard University Press. doi:10.4159/9780674978720. ISBN978-0-674-97872-0.
^Nooe, F. Evan (2024). Aggression and sufferings: settler violence, native resistance, and the coalescence of the Old South. Indians and southern history. Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press. ISBN978-0-8173-9473-8.
^Snyder, Christina (2017). "Andrew Jackson's Indian Son: Native Captives and American Empire". In Garrison, Tim Alan; O'Brien, Greg (eds.). The Native South: New Histories and Enduring Legacies. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. pp. 84–106. doi:10.2307/j.ctt1q1xq7h.9. ISBN978-0-8032-9690-9. JSTORj.ctt1q1xq7h.9.
