20美元上的美国民主故事

Should Jackson Stay on the $20 Bill?

20美元上的美国民主故事

WASHINGTON —IN 1928 the Treasury Department issued the first $20 bill featuring Andrew Jackson, replacing Grover Cleveland. After almost a century, Jackson needs to step aside — and this time, the bill should feature John Ross, a Cherokee leader and Old Hickory’s opponent in a fight to control Indian land.

华盛顿——1928年，美国财政部(Treasury Department)首次发行印有安德鲁·杰克逊(Andrew Jackson)头像的面值为20美元的纸币——原来的是格罗弗·克利夫兰(Grover Cleveland)。在将近一个世纪之后，杰克逊得让位了。这次将换成切诺基族领袖约翰·罗斯(John Ross)的头像，他在一场争夺印第安土地控制权的战争中与“老核桃树”(Old Hickory，杰克逊的绰号。——译注)为敌。

Jackson infamously won that fight, but used methods that stained his country’s honor. Ross lost, but only after resisting for over 20 years. Placing Ross on the $20 bill would bring a measure of symbolic justice to a seminal episode of American history.

杰克逊不光彩地赢了这场战争，他使用的手段是美国荣誉的一个污点。罗斯失败了，但是是在顽强抵抗20年之后。在面值为20美元的纸币上印刷罗斯的头像，将象征性地为美国历史上一个重要事件主持公道。

This is hardly the first proposal to change the $20 bill. Calls to replace Jackson, a slave owner, with an American Indian or an African-American are common; this year a brilliant campaign to put a woman on the $20 bill has gained traction. We should be adding diverse figures to our money. But we should do this without losing sight of the incredible era the $20 bill now represents: America’s formative years between the Revolution and the Civil War.

这远非第一个改变20美元钞票头像的提议。时常有人提出用美洲印第安人和非裔美国人的头像替换奴隶主杰克逊;今年有人发起了一场非常妙的活动，要求将20美元纸币的头像换成女性，引来不少关注。但我们这么做时，不应该忽略20美元纸币现在所代表的不可思议的时代：独立战争和内战之间的时间是美国的成形期。

It was an era of nation building, and Jackson was a nation builder. Before running for president, he was a soldier, whose exploits changed the map of the United States. Alabama could not become a state until after he crushed the Creek Nation, which owned most of it. Florida belonged to Spain until after he invaded it.

那是一个缔造国家的时代，杰克逊是一名国家缔造者。在参加总统竞选之前，他是一名战士，他的开拓行动改变了美国的版图。在他镇压克里克族印第安人之后，亚拉巴马成为美国的一个州，这里的大部分领土原本由克里克族印第安人控制。佛罗里达州原本属于西班牙，直到他侵占了这部分领土。

The trouble lies in how Jackson made the country we inherited. His troops massacred Indians. He coerced Native Americans into surrendering land through unjust treaties. In 1830, President Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act, supporting a policy to push all natives west of the Mississippi. One result was the Trail of Tears in 1838, when 13,000 Cherokees left their homeland in the Appalachians. Another was a war against Florida’s Seminoles, lasting nearly as long as the war in Iraq.

问题在于，在缔造我们所继承的这个国家的过程中，杰克逊使用的手段。他领导的军队屠杀印第安人。他迫使美洲原住民接受不平等条约，交出领土。 1830年，杰克逊签署《印第安人迁移法》(Indian Removal Act)，支持将所有原住民迁往密西西比河以西的政策。一个结果是迫使1.3万名切诺基族人在1938年走上血泪之路，被迫离开了阿巴拉契亚山的家园。另一个结果就是导致与佛罗里达州塞米诺尔人开战，这场战争的持续时间几乎与伊拉克战争一样长。

The story is even worse than is generally known. Jackson and his friends obtained slices of Cherokee real estate for personal profit, and colonized the land with lucrative cotton plantations worked by slaves.

这个故事实际上比通常听到的版本还要糟糕。杰克逊和他的朋友将切诺基族人的部分土地占为己有，将它们变为棉花种植园谋取利益，并役使奴隶耕种。

What redeems this as an American story is the resistance of John Ross. A Cherokee of mixed race, Ross navigated between cultures in a way that feels familiar today. As a young man he fought in Jackson’s army. Later he became Jackson’s antagonist, rejecting his efforts to capture the Cherokee homeland in north Georgia and surrounding states.

约翰·罗斯的反抗，是对这个美国故事的一种救赎。作为一个混血的切诺基族人，罗斯以一种今人所熟悉的方式在不同的文化间穿越。年轻时期，他曾是杰克逊军队的一员。后来，他成为杰克逊的敌人，反抗杰克逊在乔治亚州北部及周边各州夺取切诺基族人土地的行动。

Determined to adapt to white civilization, Cherokees embraced white styles of clothing and agriculture. Some, including Ross, also took up slavery. (There are few saints in this tale.) The ultimate adaptation came in 1828, when Ross was chosen as principal chief under a new constitution modeled on that of the United States. Ross’s government started a newspaper, publishing exposés of the Cherokees’ white antagonists. He worked with white allies, including women. Cherokees even sued, asking the Supreme Court to recognize their right to govern their land.

切诺基族人决定适应白人文明，接受了白人的衣着风格和农业。包括罗斯在内的一些人开始采用奴隶制。(这个故事中没圣人)。1828年，根据以美国宪法为摹本制定的新宪法，罗斯当选邦部首领，这是对白人文明的全盘接受。罗斯领导的政府开办了报纸，揭露切诺基族人的白人对手。他与白人联盟合作，包括女性。切诺基族人甚至提出控告，要求美国最高法院(Supreme Court)承认他们拥有管治自己土地的权利。

A ruling in their favor was ignored. But Cherokees were more than mere victims. They enriched our democratic tradition. Ross wanted the Cherokee Nation to become a territory or state within the Union — which it did, in a way, generations later as part of Oklahoma.

一项对他们有利的裁决遭到了无视。但切诺基族人不单单只是受害者。他们丰富了我们的民主传统。罗斯希望切诺基族成为联邦内的一个区域或一个州，几代人之后，这部分领土确实成为俄克拉何马州的一部分。

Ross deserves a prominent place on our currency. But that doesn’t mean Jackson should go completely. He should remain on the $20 bill, but on the flip side — because there’s a flip side of the story.

罗斯有资格成为货币头像。但这并不意味着杰克逊应该完全消失。他的头像应该留在20美元纸币上，但应该在另一面——因为故事还有另一面。

Jackson, too, enriched our democratic tradition. Orphaned in youth, this son of poor Scots-Irish immigrants started life with almost nothing. His election as president was a landmark: No one from such a modest background had ever risen so high in America.

杰克逊同样也丰富了我们的民主传统。他的父母是有苏格兰和爱尔兰血统的贫穷移民，年少时便成了孤儿的他开始时几乎一无所有。他当选为总统是一座里程碑：在当时的美国，从未有出身如此卑微的人上升到那么高的地位。

He won the Battle of New Orleans in the War of 1812, blocking British invaders with an army of white frontiersmen, black militia troops, Gulf Coast pirates and Indians. Given Jackson’s greed for Indian real estate, it is startling to read an 1817 letter in which he insisted his Cherokee troops receive pay and benefits equal to those of white soldiers.

他赢得了1812年战争中的新奥尔良战役，用一支由白人拓荒者、黑人民兵力量、墨西哥湾沿岸地区的海盗和印第安人组成的军队，拦下了英国入侵者。考虑到杰克逊对印第安人房产和地产的贪婪，读到他在1817年的一封信时会让人感到吃惊。杰克逊在信中坚持要求，自己带领下的切洛基士兵领取和白人士兵相同的工资和福利。

Given that he bought and sold human beings, it is equally strange that he played a role in slavery’s eventual demise. He prevented the Union from fracturing during his stormy presidency, and his fortitude set an example. Decades later, as Abraham Lincoln strained to save the Union during the Civil War, a portrait of Jackson hung on his wall.

考虑到他曾买卖人口，杰克逊在奴隶制的最终灭亡中所起的作用，也同样让人感到奇怪。他在自己冲突不断的总统任期内阻止了联邦的分裂，并且他的坚韧也树立了榜样。几十年后，当亚伯拉罕·林肯(Abraham Lincoln)在内战期间竭力挽救联邦时，他的一面墙上就挂着一幅杰克逊的画像。

A $20 bill with Ross and Jackson would set a pattern for other bills. Each denomination should feature two different people who together tell a story, illustrating our democratic experience.

在面值20美元的纸币上同时印上罗斯和杰克逊的头像，会为其他纸币树立典范。各种面额的纸币都应该印上两个不同的人的头像，他们一起讲述着同一个故事，阐释着我们的民主经历。

Lincoln could share the $5 bill with Frederick Douglass, the escaped slave who prodded him to move faster to end slavery. Ulysses S. Grant could share the $50 bill with Harriet Beecher Stowe, whose antislavery novel “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” did as much to start the Civil War as Grant’s armies did to end it.

面值5美元的纸币上，除了林肯还可以印上弗雷德里克·道格拉斯(Frederick Douglass)的头像。作为一名逃跑的奴隶，道格拉斯促使林肯加快行动以结束奴隶制。尤利西斯·S·格兰特(Ulysses S. Grant)可以和哈丽特·比彻·斯托(Harriet Beecher Stowe)一同出现在面值50美元的纸币上。斯托的反奴隶制小说《汤姆叔叔的小屋》(Uncle Tom’s Cabin)对发起内战的意义，与格兰特领导的军队对结束内战的意义相当。

Pairings can even clear space for new stories. Four of today’s seven bills feature founding fathers. Pair the founders on two bills — Washington and Franklin, Hamilton and Jefferson. (The latter pair clashed viciously over federal versus state power, a conflict that still animates our politics.) Two bills will then be available for more recent figures. Imagine a civil rights-era bill with Rosa Parks and Cesar Chavez.

配对甚至还能为新故事创造出空间。在当下七种面值的纸币上，有四种印的是开国先贤。可以让他们两两出现在两种纸币上——华盛顿和富兰克林一起，汉密尔顿和杰斐逊一起。(后面这一对在联邦权力和州权力的问题上交锋激烈，这个冲突现在依然让我们的政坛充满活力。)这样，剩下的两种纸币就可以印上距今更近的人物头像了。想象一下，罗莎·帕克斯(Rosa Parks)和塞萨尔·查韦斯(Cesar Chavez)出现在一张反映民权时代的纸币上。