Thomas
Jefferson Defines American Indian Policy
In
his First Annual Message to Congress, President Thomas Jefferson
spelled out the principles that he said would define his Indian
policy:
Among
our Indian neighbors, also, a spirit of peace and friendship
generally prevailing and I am happy to inform you that the
continued efforts to introduce among them the implements
and the practice
of husbandry, and of the household arts, have not been without
success; that they are becoming more and more sensible
of the
superiority of this dependence for clothing and subsistence
over the precarious resources of hunting and fishing;
and already
we are able to announce, that instead of that constant diminution
of their numbers, produced by their wars and their wants,
some
of them begin to experience an increase of population.
What
was the goal of Jefferson’s Indian policy?
In
an 1803 letter to William Henry Harrison, the governor of Indiana
Territory, Jefferson spelled out the objectives of his policy
in greater detail:
Read President
Thomas Jefferson letter to William Henry Harrison, Governor
of the Indiana Territory, 1803
|