Move to the back, Andrew Jackson.
Harriet Tubman will be the new face on the $20 bill.
Lancaster County’s native son will lose his place on the front of the
$20 bill, where he has resided since 1928, the U.S. Treasury announced
this week.
Old Hickory, who served as the seventh U.S. president from 1829-37, is
safe for a while. The new design won’t be released until 2020 and will
not be in circulation until 2030.
Former slave-owner Jackson’s image will be flipped to the back of the
new bill and replaced by a portrait of former slave Harriet Tubman.
Tubman was born into slavery in Maryland in 1822 and escaped in 1849. She spent her life freeing slaves from that point on.
“I am sentimental to Andrew Jackson. He was born in Lancaster County. He is one of us,” local historian Lindsay Pettus said.
The Treasury Department’s currency overhaul is an effort to place
notable women on bills for the 100-year anniversary of woman’s suffrage
and the 19th Amendment to the Constitution granting women the right to
vote in 1920.
Christopher Judge, assistant director of the Native American Studies
Center, believes Tubman is a good choice. Judge said his personal choice
would have been Wilma Mankiller, the first female chief of the Cherokee
Nation in the late 1980s and ‘90s.
She, like Tubman, was historically significant and a minority woman.
“I think it would have been a tremendous gesture of the United States
government to symbolically apologize for the Trail of Tears by placing
her on the $20 bill,” Judge said.
The Trail of Tears was part of Jackson’s Indian removal policy during 1838-39.
The Cherokee nation was forced to surrender its lands east of the Mississippi River and migrate to present-day Oklahoma.
Lancaster County Historical Commission adviser Miles Gardner said, “I
think it is revisionist history. There should be other ways of honoring
those whose contribution has been neglected or minimized in the past.
Ms. Tubman has become a popular heroine in our culture. I don’t know
that we need to unseat someone for someone else.”
Andrew Jackson State Park Ranger Laura Ledford said she has heard mixed reviews on the decision.
The only change at Andrew Jackson State Park will be how they tell a
story about the magnolia tree pictured on the back of the current $20
bill. Jackson planted the magnolia tree at the White House in memory of
his late wife, Rachel. A magnolia tree at AJ State Park grew from a seed
from that tree. The park will need to hold onto a current $20 bill for
the future telling of that story.
Jackson is likely laughing from the hereafter over this one, since he
thought paper money was illegal and was against the National Bank. In
his farewell address on March 4, 1837, he cautioned the nation about the
use of paper money.
4/24/16
Contact reporter Mandy Catoe at mcatoe@thelancasternews.com
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