I’m on a mission to read one biography of every president, I’m well aware that the earlier ones do not hold up as models of modern ethics or inclusion, Jackson was not one of the better ones in that respect. I knew that going in. My objections are not with the subject, but with the author.

This book was written in 2005. That’s far too late for a lot of the things that were said. Jackson was described as a kind but firm master to the slaves he owned (I wonder if the slaves saw it that way?) he is described as being definitively not racist toward Native Americans because he adopted and raised a Native American boy (after slaughtering his entire village). Violence between Native Americans and white settlers are portrayed sheerly as aggression by savages toward peace loving civilized European settlers. Indigenous peoples are never - not once! - called Native American, usually Indians is used but once simply as red men. Distinctions between tribes are rarely made. The Trail of Tears is a page and a half followed by “but really he didn’t have any choice and anyway it’s not like it’s racism” for three pages. The best? A direct quote from a discussion of the black market in imported slaves “Purchasers got what they wanted: cheap slaves. Sellers got what they wanted: profits. No one suffered, except perhaps the slaves.”

PERHAPS??? EXCUSE ME???

Like I said, I’ve read lots of these now, Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe all owned slaves. Adams pere, while an abolitionist, didn’t come to that stance from a conviction of racial equality. Their biographers did the hard work of calling hypocrisy when needed, using the preferred terms for the subjugated peoples in question, and taking a nuanced look at the triumphs and moral failings of their subjects. This one.... didn’t.