On U.S. Indian Policy

On U.S. Indian Policy

"The utmost good faith shall always be observed towards Indians, their lands and property shall not be taken from them without their consent, and in their property rights and liberty, they shall never be invaded or disturbed." Thus Thomas Jefferson describes U.S. policy towards Native peoples concisely, and with the proper grace of a Virginian gentleman. No ambiguity or contradiction seems to exist in Jefferson's words, and nothing but good will towards Native-Americans seems to be instilled in Jefferson's rhetoric. But in observing Jefferson's curt follow-up to the statement above, "unless in just and lawful wars authorized by Congress," a turnabout appears, leaving one at a loss as to a tangible United States position towards Native peoples. American policy in regards to Indians has consistently been inconsistent. While evoking the inalienable rights of man, the American government spurned Native peoples right to their own land, their own culture, their very way of life. Whilst Jefferson lamented for the dying Indian race, he simultaneously spurned Indians who refused to assimilate into white society. Jefferson attempted to present a broad program advocating Indian assimilation into the greater American society, while forever keeping in mind the interests of the romanticized frontier farmer. Ultimately, the policy of the United States came to be a unilateral decision: Native peoples were in fact not worthy or able of assimilation into the white world, and were therefore, unacceptable. A policy of removal, condoned by President Andrew Jackson, would soon follow. To justify such a removal, the United States underscored the disparity between white society and Indian society, regardless of the Cherokee effort to delve into the American world as peers of the white man. Those whose minds were not clouded by greed and bias lamented over the Native struggle, yet they acknowledged the impossible situation at hand - Indians would never be broadly accepted and assimilated into American society, regardless of any Native effort.

The dawn of the new American republic saw also the birth of U.S. Indian policy. In observing the bureaucracy of the United States government, one could clearly note the American view of proper dealings with Native peoples. It was the official U.S. policy to deal with the Indian tribes as separate foreign entities, grouping Choctaws, Shawnee, Cherokee and Creek peoples with the Spaniards, English and French. Curiously enough, the Secretary of War, not the Secretary of State, became responsible for Indian affairs. Clearly, the United States saw the Indians as a threat, either real or potential. In addition, the United States saw the Indians as a barrier to new and prosperous lands in the Western territories. An unofficial policy of provocation emerged. Using a multi-pronged assault, Americans would often enter Indian land and commit a crime worthy of retaliation by native peoples. Such an event precipitated Lord Dunmore's War; John Logan, a prominent Indian favored by many white men, was horrified to find his family murdered by white intruders. Vowing revenge, Logan led an attack on white settlements and the event quickly escalated to a full-blown war between the Shawnee and the whites, culminating in an Indian defeat and a subsequent land session. Such tactics aimed at obtaining native land were denounced by the likes of Patrick Henry, who argued Lord Dunmore "was really pursuing this war in order to obtain by purchase or treaty from the Natives a tract of territory."

Later, a similar act of deception occurred when Governor Harrison of the western territories, shortly after the Greenville Treaty ending the Northwest Indian War, convinced a Delaware tribe to sign a treaty (purported to be a proclamation of goodwill) cheating the Indians out of their land. In his message to President Jefferson, Chief Patterson of the Delaware pleaded with the president, saying,

"You may judge how our chiefs returned home and found the Governor had been shutting their eyes and stopping their ears with his good words and got them to sign a deed for their lands without their knowledge...the chiefs of my nation now declare to you from the bottom of their hearts in the presence of God that they never sold Governor Harrison or the United States any land."

Assimilation into white society was another aspect of United States course of action towards Natives peoples. A strong advocate of assimilation, Thomas Jefferson felt it was necessary for Native peoples to immerse into American culture in order to save themselves from extinction. "In truth, the ultimate point of rest and happiness for them is to let our settlements and theirs meet and blend together, to intermix, and become one people." Jefferson saw the Indians as a dying race, and in some ways already considered them nearly extinct. In studying the history of the Indians, Jefferson became intrigued with the ways and culture of Native Americans. Observing Indian mounds constructed well before European contact, Jefferson made note of "a martial race of mankind" once inhabiting the western territories. In addition, Jefferson chose to excavate an Indian burial ground near his home, Monticello. With a seeming longing for an alternative to the extinction of the Indian race, Jefferson was willing to draw up a plan wherein schoolteachers, missionaries and farm workers would be sent into Indian tribes to teach them the ways of the whites in order to better facilitate a transition from a hunter-gatherer society to a more agriculture/farming lifestyle. Jefferson held a tragic view of Native peoples and as Joseph Ellis describes in his American Sphinx, "one senses in so many of Jefferson's observations on Indians an authentic admiration mingled with a truly poignant sense of tragedy about their fate as a people."

Yet Jefferson was also willing to put aside his scholarly research into the Indian ways. Jefferson was never willing to cast off his endearing belief in the American farmer. His trust in the future lay at the hands of the frontier settler, of an entire society of individualists who provided for themselves and were in very little want of a large government. With the interests of the white settler in mind, there began to grow the earliest seeds of a mass removal of Indians from their homelands. But before such a plan was thoroughly formed, a policy of widespread land-purchase from Native peoples went into effect. With the coming of the Trade and Intercourse Act, the federal government affirmed its power to make and enforce treaties made with Indian tribes. The law also provided for the licensing of traders with Indians and the authorization to the state government s to put on trial and convict those

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