Thomas Jefferson Quotes
Towards the attainment of our two objects of peace and lands, it is essential that our agent acquire that sort of influence over the Indians which rests on confidence.
The central Indian policy problem for Jefferson’s Administration was the fact that most Indians hunted for subsistence and the amount of land needed to support a hunting society was per capita much greater than an agricultural and especially an industrial one. Jefferson had no personal animosity against the Indians as many in his day did. But he perceived the need to obtain Indian lands for white agricultural use.
Thomas Jefferson, 1743-1826, 3rd President of the United States (Democratic Republican, VA), Letter to Andrew Jackson, 1803
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Gladstone received a telegram from Queen Victoria asking him to form a government and become Prime Minister:
He was wrong and the Boer War resulted
This is one of the earliest instances in which formal American foreign policy called for aggressively preventing other nations from war. This speech was audio recorded -- quite unusual for the time -- and can be heard to this day.
Despite Jefferson’s reasonable intentions towards the Indians, all the boundaries never did get fixed and existing agreements and treaties were abrogated usually by whites acting illegally but then were supported by their state government and if serious hostilities broke out, the Federal government usually entered the fray to defend the whites regardless of whether or not they abrogated the treaties. Some Indian nations complicated the situation by having a tradition of raiding neighbors and stealing horses or other goods. Whites, insisting on then rather severe “English type” law enforcement often inadvertently, started an Indian war with the Federal soldiers almost always defeating the Indians leading to yet another treaty by which the Indians were pushed from their land, Further, many whites “bought” lands from Indians in good faith while the Indians did not own the lands, thought that they were selling hunting rights as they had no tradition of property ownership. The consequence was tragic history which Jefferson and his successors failed to manage well.
Thomas Jefferson was an American statesman, diplomat, lawyer, architect, philosopher, and Founding Father who served as the third president of the United States from 1801 to 1809. He had previously served as the second vice president of the United States under John Adams between 1797 and 1801. The principal author of the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson was a proponent of democracy, republicanism, and individual rights, motivating American colonists to break from the Kingdom of Great Britain and form a new nation; he produced formative documents and decisions at both the state and national levels.
