The Glasgow Land Fraud and the Emergence of Andrew Jackson, 1783-1803

This thesis details an extensive but not uncommon land fraud scheme that was discovered by Andrew Jackson in the years just after Tennessee’s admission to the Union in 1796. Jackson’s emergence on the Tennessee political scene began as a Nashville judge when he exposed a scheme in which bounty grants for North Carolina’s revolutionary war veterans were being forged for residents around Nashville by land agents working for North Carolina Secretary of State, James Glasgow. Jackson’s exposure challenged many of Tennessee’s leading men, such as former state of Franklin and Tennessee governor, John Sevier. Jackson’s exposure of the the Glasgow Land Fraud helped facilitate his rise to power and thus - as some might say - the origins of America’s democratic tradition.