Indian Policy Quotes
While Jefferson was clear on this point, there were other forces and points of view that did not recognize Indian rights and were prepared to use force to obtain Indian lands. These, together with some Indians who made bad and sometimes corrupt bargains and treaties ceding land, produced the loss of most of the Indian land in America.
With different concepts of land ownership Europeans and Indians were at odds over purchases from the earliest times. This was the first of the many efforts to eliminate problems of contention with Native Americans over land.
This is a particularly good historical quotation describing the state of the Native Americans and the different policies that had been adopted before and after the American Revolution. The President candidly admits there were unexpected consequences to American efforts after the Revolution and that some of the original objectives for the Indians had not been successful. He states some of the problems and notes the challenge ahead to resolve them equitably. After Adams was succeeded by Andrew Jackson, the new President and the forces he represented decided that the land and sovereignty over the land for America was more important than the other objectives which had not been successfully met very often. The age of rank discrimination and Indian removal began.
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.
In 1830, President Andrew Jackson, institution one of the most unjust, immoral and outrageous policies in all of American history. He ordered that all the Indians of the Southeast, be forcibly evicted from their lands—including those protected by treaties—and at gunpoint marched by the military to the Oklahoma territory, where they were in effect jailed in reservations that were generally far inferior to the lands from which they were forced. No sooner had the ethnic cleasing of the South East been complete, than the whites took the Indian lands without paying the Indian owners at all.
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.
The first Native American to become a General Officer. Appointed by President Grant in 1869
This law governed the territories outside of the original 13 colonies. The intentions of the founding fathers and the first Congress to the Indians was fair and honorable. However, there was no practical way that the new Federal Government could enforce this principle in the territories. A single greedy land speculator or trader could abuse a group of Indians and start a small war. The vast cultural differences between Indians and whites tended to polarize all violent conflicts regardless of who was at fault. The different perceptions of cruelty and atrocities further pushed the government to defend whites violating national policy and there was sufficient corruption and money to be made on Indian land and trading and things went downhill fast.
Jefferson probably had the most enlightened policy towards the Native Americans and did not see them as a people apart from Americans. His phrase “we consider them as part of ourselves” would not be concurred with by another American President for over 100 years. Unfortunately, there were many American whites who did not have Jefferson’s view, and there was no practical way the Federal Government at the time could enforce benign and equality policies. Relations with most Indian tribes went down hill and may have reached the lowest point under the Administration of Andrew Jackson.
This is one of the first Policy Statements of the new Republic about the Indians. Essentially, although the government policy was reasonable and fair, public opinion was totally different and the leadership could not persuade the people on this point. One complicating factor was the fact that most of the Indian tribes had overtly or covertly sided with the British in the Civil War. Many Indians were exiled to Canada. Even the Indians who were American allies, had their lands encroached upon however.
