Thomas Jefferson: Difference between revisions - Wikipedia
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Line 429: ==Native American policy== Jefferson was the first President to propose the idea of a formal [[Indian Removal]] plan.<ref name="miller">{{cite book|last=Miller|first=Robert|title=Native America, Discovered and Conquered: : Thomas Jefferson, Lewis & Clark, and Manifest Destiny|publisher=Bison Books|date=July 1, 2008|page=90|isbn=978-0803215986}}</ref><ref name="drinnon">{{cite book|last=Drinnon|first=Richard|title=Facing West: The Metaphysics of Indian-Hating and Empire-Building|publisher=University of Oklahoma Press|date=March 1997|isbn=978-0806129280}}</ref> The Indian removal was suggested by Thomas Jefferson as the only way to ensure the survival of Native American [[culture]]s.<ref>"[http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/article_display.cfm?HHID=638 Indian Removal]". Digital History.</ref> Also, as the [[Demographic history of the United States|U.S. population grew]] from 3.9 million in 1790 to 7.2 million in 1810,<ref>"[http://www.census.gov/population/censusdata/table-4.pdf Population: 1790 to 1990]". U.S. Census Bureau</ref> there were more people who hoped to improve their lot by moving westward.<ref>"[http://countrystudies.us/united-states/geography-7.htm United States Geography - Settlement Patterns]". [[Library of Congress Country Studies]]</ref> [[Andrew Jackson]] is often erroneously credited with initiating Indian Removal, because Congress passed the [[Indian Removal Act]] in 1830, during his presidency, and also because of his personal involvement in the forceful extermination and removal of many Eastern tribes.<ref name=miller/> But Jackson was merely legalizing and implementing a plan laid out by Jefferson in a series of private letters that began in 1803 (for example, see letter to William Henry Harrison below).<ref name=miller/> Line 436: His first such act as president, was to make a deal with the state of [[Georgia (U.S. state)|Georgia]] that if Georgia were to release its legal claims to discovery in lands to the west, then the U.S. military would help forcefully expel the Cherokee people from Georgia. At the time, the Cherokee had a treaty with the United States government which guaranteed them the right to their lands, which was violated in Jefferson's deal with Georgia.<ref name=miller/> Lewis and Clark Expedition established relations with many indigenous nations. In his instructions to Lewis, Jefferson emphasized the necessity for treating all Indian tribes in the most conciliatory manner.<ref>Elin Woodger, Brandon Toropov (2004). "''[http://books.google.com/books?id=8vYA0zDFy_IC&pg=PA174&dq&hl=en#v=onepage&q=&f=false Encyclopedia of the Lewis and Clark Expedition]''". Infobase Publishing. p.174. ISBN 0816047812</ref> ''"Treat them in the most friendly and conciliatory manner"'', he admonished, and learn all you can about them.<ref>Harry W. Fritz (2004). "''[http://books.google.com/books?id=GFFHn18Z7ywC&pg=PA13&dq&hl=en#v=onepage&q=&f=false The Lewis and Clark Expedition]''". Greenwood Publishing Group. p.13. ISBN 0313316619</ref> ===Acculturation and assimilation=== Jefferson's original plan was for Natives to give up their own cultures, religions, and lifestyles in favor of western European culture, [[Christian]] religion, and a sedentary [[intensive agriculture|agricultural]] lifestyle.<ref name=miller/><ref name=drinnon/> Jefferson's expectation was that by assimilating them into an agricultural lifestyle and stripping them of [[self-sufficiency]], they would become economically dependent on trade with white Americans, and would thereby be willing to give up land that they would otherwise not part with, in exchange for trade goods or to resolve unpaid debts. :To promote this disposition to exchange lands, which they have to spare and we want, for necessaries, which we have to spare and they want, we shall push our trading uses, and be glad to see the good and influential individuals among them run in debt, because we observe that when these debts get beyond what the individuals can pay, they become willing to lop them off by a cession of lands.... In this way our settlements will gradually circumscribe and approach the Indians, and they will in time either incorporate with us a citizens or the United States, or remove beyond the Mississippi. The former is certainly the termination of their history most happy for themselves; but, in the whole course of this, it is essential to cultivate their love. As to their fear, we presume that our strength and their weakness is now so visible that they must see we have only to shut our hand to crush them, and that all our liberalities to them proceed from motives of pure humanity only. Should any tribe be foolhardy enough to take up the hatchet at any time, the seizing the whole country of that tribe, and driving them across the Mississippi, as the only condition of peace, would be an example to others, and a furtherance of our final consolidation. === In cases where Native tribes resisted assimilation, Jefferson believed that they should be forcefully removed from their land and sent west.<ref name=miller/> As Jefferson put it in a letter to Alexander von Humboldt in 1813: Line 450 ⟶ 452: Jefferson believed assimilation was best for Indians; second best was removal to the west. The worst possible outcome would happen if Indians attacked the whites.<ref>Bernard W. Sheehan, ''Seeds of extinction: Jeffersonian philanthropy and the American Indian'' (1974) pp 120–21</ref> He told his [[Secretary of War]], General [[Henry Dearborn]] (who was the primary government official responsible for Indian affairs): "if we are constrained to lift the hatchet against any tribe, we will never lay it down until that tribe is exterminated, or driven beyond the Mississipi."<ref>James P. Ronda, ''Thomas Jefferson and the changing West: from conquest to conservation'' (1997) p. 10; text in {{cite book|last=Moore|first=MariJo|title=Eating Fire, Tasting Blood: An Anthology of the American Indian Holocaust|publisher=Running Press|isbn=978-1560258384| url=http://books.google.com/?id=3oNPH4-ovFcC&pg=PA208&lpg=PA208&dq=Thomas+Jefferson+dearborn+hatchet|year=2006}}</ref> ¡ ==Slavery== | |||