John Tawse Quotes
I saw their fields under very respectable cultivation, and bearing good crops. They had exchanged their original rude wigwams for comfortable houses, with barns and offices attached to them, scarcely if at all inferior to those of the whites, and some of the houses have little plots or gardens in front kept in good order… All these marks of improvement surprised us; we did not expect to meet with a state of such high comparative civilization.
Given the description and the time, the report probably was based on the Iroquois Indians in New York State. In 2000, while Native Americans had the lowest income and standard of living of any minority group in America. However, that year, in New York State, the average annual income of Indians was the same as that of whites.
John Tawse, ?-1843, Scottish Secretary of the Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge, Report on American Indians to the Society in Scotland for propagating Christian Knowledge
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Like many of Jefferson’s ideas, this one had great merit but could not be enforced. The idea was to establish “trading houses” amongst the Indians which would operate on a NON PROFIT basis. However, fraud and corruption on the part of the managers of these trading houses in most cases left the Indians with far less than the fair market value of their goods and the “white” commodities were sold at inflated prices. Jefferson also believed in minimal government so he never set up any kind of audit mechanism or supervisory system of the “trading houses” and instead of helping the Indians often cheated them even more than private traders would.
The reason for the secrecy was that he was informing Congress of the Lewis & Clark Expedition. Potentially, the Spanish, English or French might try to interfere with the expedition which was the precursor to American domination of the entire continent. Unfortunately, Jefferson’s plan for the Indians was not supported by many other Americans with the exception of New York State and the Iroquois remaining after many left after supporting the British in the Revolution. But the Iroquois who remained were already farmers in fixed communities and were experienced traders. Further, they had a complex governmental structure with many elements of democracy, and several had already succeeded in European educational settings. Their successful integration with the rest of New York can be demonstrated by the fact that New York is the only state where the average Native American Income is the same as the average white income, and there is no Indian gaming in New York. Jefferson’s vision, unfortunately, was never implemented in early the Westward Expansion.
After Turkey’s defeat in WWI, some Turkish leaders like Riza Nur wanted Turkey to become a colony of America. This they believed would hasten Turkey’s development and modernization.
Executed by the English for his part in the Easter Uprising. This was a creative idea to being technology to bear on small farms. America was exploring cooperatives and other devices of trying to allow people who were not rich and had little or not capital, to utilize the emerging technology that would be so important.
Commenting on the status of the Cherokee Indians.
Curtis was part Kaw Indian brought up on the Reservation. He never hid the fact that he was part Indian and that didn’t seem to have affected his brilliant career.
Cahokia was a very large Native American city just across the Mississippi River from St. Louis. In 1250, its population was about 15,000, comparable to that of London or Paris during the same period. At the time of the American Revolution, it was larger than New York, Boston of Philadelphia having 40,000 inhabitants at its peak. Tiahuanaco was a large city—30,000 at its peak—in Bolivia. The very ability to create and sustain such large communities shows that the Indians of the Americas were not simply hunter-gatherers but were very sophisticated in manipulating their environment and organizing large numbers of people.
Tibet and some other ethnic enclaves of China have been almost impervious to the general improvement in the standard of living that China accomplished at the end of the 20th century and beginning of the 21st. China is not the only nation to have this difficulty. Some would argue that America still has it with some of its Native American nations. The great challenge is trying to develop and modernize a culture that does not want to be modernized at the moment but still wants many of the benefits of modernization.
