Fathers and Children: Andrew Jackson and the Subjugation of the American Indian [Paperback]

Michael Paul Rogin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 1991

Rogin shows us a Jackson who saw the Indians as a menace to the new nation and its citiens. This volatile synthesis of liberal egalitarianism and an assault on the American Indians is the source of continuing interest in the sobering and important book.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“The most brilliant psychoanalytic study of an American president yet published… altogether extraordinary.” – Fawn M. Brodie

Product Details

• Paperback: 373 pages
• Publisher: Transaction Publishers (January 1, 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0887388868
• ISBN-13: 978-0887388866
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #817,230 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fathers and Children..., August 19, 2009

By 

Harry Littell (Sacramento, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Fathers & Children the Subjugation of the American Indian (Hardcover)

Mike Rogin was a professor of mine at UC Berkeley in the early 1970's. One of his interests was Jacksonian Democracy. Mike, like many of the professors in Political Science and Philosophy at UC during that time, had a core understanding of psychoanalytic theory which brought additional, and even immense understanding and insight into very complex dilemmas which would normally be simply passed over. Rogin's interests were very much concerned with betrayal and one could extend this to the violation of incest taboos when the parent (someone like Jackson for example) sends his sons out to destroy the Native people; and for certain, rape was well tolerated as a means of terror and subjugation.

This is a marvelous book. A person could be initially turned off to it because of the approach, but it is Rogin's approach that is the key here as the questions he provokes are in many ways more important in leading to major and significant insight than the actual content of what is written in the book.

Surely, if a person is interested in Jackson, this is a seminal text insofar as gaining understanding of not only that period in US history, but how this perverse paternalistic feature seemingly inherent in our culture evolved, established itself, and then got away with extraordinary crimes that persisted in the inhumane treatment of others, (and even to this day).

8 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Andrew Jackson, the Indians, and Psychohistory, October 1, 2001

By 

Robin Friedman (Washington, D.C. United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Fathers and Children: Andrew Jackson and the Subjugation of the American Indian (Paperback)

Rogin's book is an amalgamation of biography, history, and psychohistory. As biography, the book discusses the young Andrew Jackson, the trauma he underwent by being a posthumous child, and the death of his mother on the American frontier when he was fourteen. The book then explores Jackson's violent early manhood and his following career as a successful land speculator and local polititican. The book proceeds to examine Jackson's role in the War of 1812 and, most importantly in the Creek and Seminole Indian Wars. It follows this discussion with a treatment of Indian affairs during Jackson's Presidency as well as with a broader, though shorter discussion, of the nature of Jacksonian democracy and of Jackson's destruction of the Second Bank of the United States.

There is some good information and thought in the book. When the book focuses on telling the story of Jackson and his activities, it is good reading and, in the main, does not present an appealing picture of the United States's or Jackson's treatment of the Southeast Indians. Jackson's Indian Wars and subsequent removal policy come in for strong criticism. Rogin has interesting things to say about the conflicted character of American attitudes to the Indians and how these attitudes were both reflected and created by Jackson. It is also interesting to approach Jacksonian democracy from the perspective of Indian affairs. Rogovin's book was among the first to focus on Jackson's Indian policy in an attempt to understand Jacksonian America. Rogovin's judgments both on Jackson and more broadly, on the growth of democracy and industrialization in the United States, seem to me overly harsh.

The book is seriously marred by its attempts at psychohistory. There is a lot of second and third hand reliance on works by Freud, Erickson, Melanie Klien and other founders of psychoanalysis and a lengthy, unconvincing, attempt to apply Rogin's understanding of psychoanalysis to Jackson and to the American experience. It didn't work for me, to say the least. The book's overreliance on questionable psychohistory does lead me to be skeptical about much of the argument and conclusion of the book. The book is good at relating the literature of the day to Jacksonian America with some insightful comments about the work of Herman Melville. (Rogovin has also written a book about Melville).

There is something here worth knowing and saying about Jackson. Our Indian policy was indeed tragic and exacted a great human toll. The book though doesn't appreciate the difficult pressures in foreign and domestic affairs facing a young America. It is overly angry with the United States and too dependent on questionable psychologizing. The book shouldn' be anybody's sole source of information about Jacksonian America or Indian policy.