Indians, Jeffersonian Ideals to Genocide

[54ball]

Hello,
This may be a good subject to ponder.
The relationship between Indians and Americans on the frontier usually ended in tragedy for one side or the other. Ultimatly it was the Indians who fared the worse.
The early U.S. policy was much different than say Phil Sherridans, " The only good indian is a dead indian." attitude.
The early policy was one of assimulation. The very early republic faced 2 paradoxes. The first was the issue of slavery the second was as the country grew,How do we deal with the aboriginal tribes? Both of these issues conflicted with American ideals of life liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
By the time Jefferson was president The Plan for Civilization was well under way in the frontier territories. President Washinton had appointed Benjamin Hawkins as the Indian Agent for the southwestern tribes in 1796. This area included TN.,GA.,AL.,SC.,NC.,MS.,VA.,KY., and points west. This was the western frontier at the time.
The plan was to educate the indians in new methods of farming. It was to teach the indians to manage their land.
It was to bring civil law and ownership as the Americans knew it to the indian. In theory eventually indian and white would work side by side each respecting the others rights.
This plan has been labled racist and such modern terms as culturally challanged have been applied to Jefferson's plan.
I think jefferson reconized the Indian could not stem the tide of western expansion. The indians themselves claimed vast plots of land. Much of these claimed lands were claimed by several different tribes sometimes many hundreds of miles away. The indians were always at war with one another over territory issues. The Creeks claimed hunting rights in the Cumberland River Valley of central Tennessee. This was also claimed by the Cherokees. The Creeks were known to kill white settlers and others they found on this land. The village these warriors came from would be 100-200 miles to the south. These happenings along the Cumberland did nothing to further the Indian and his place in the future. Andrew Jackson,William Blount and others lived in cental Tennessee.
Jefferson realized the 4 realistic options for the Indian. One, Educate the tribes and let them join American Society. Two,Reconize them as soverein nations and use the army to keep settlers out. No growth for the new nation.This was never an option. Three, Remove the Indian and strip him of his land.This was contrary to American ideals. Four, Exterminate the Indian. Not an option. A crime in the trueist sense. Ironically 2,3,and 4 wound up being the Indian policy of the mid to late 1800s
Hawkins devoted the last 20 years of his life to bring civilization to the Southern Indians. The indians resisted in some ways mainly on law issues such as blood revenge and cultural issues such as men farming. The indains looked as this as womens work. If a man wasnt a hunter or warrior What good is he? But slowly some progress was made such as mills and blacksmith shoppes in indian territory.The Cherokees more than any other took in the new ways.
The tragic event that changed U.S Indian policy forever was the massacre at Fort Mims Alabama. Some estimate as many as 750 some as low as 500 men women and children massared by Creek Redstick warriors. At any estimate it was the largest indian massacre in U.S. History. Many of those killed were Creeks who had adopted the ways of the white man. Brother slew brother. The Redsticks were encouraged to fight by the words of Techcumseh and his brother the Prophet. They said the Indian nations would all unite and our English Brothers would come to our aid and force the Americans off of Indian land forever. An eclipse of the sun ocurred durring this time and an earthquake was felt as far south as Florida. This was big medicine and a sign to go to war. The Mims victory was the beginning of the end for the Creeks and the Southeastern tribes. It brought Jackson and his volunteers down from Tennessee who soundly defeated all Redstick opposition. At the Treaty of Fort Jackson 3/4 of Creek land was signed away. Even the Creeks who sided with Jackson had their land stripped away. Hawkins was at awe of the severity of the treaty. He resigned as Indian Agent but died before his resignation took effect a year later.
The Mims Massacre was just the excuse needed to justify the removal of all indians in the South by 1836. It also was used to justify the extermination that would follow later in the century. If the civilization plan did not work for the 5 civilized tribes how could it work for the nomadic and war like Plains Indians. The tragic figure in this story are the tribes like the Cherokee, Chickisaw and Choctaw who tried to live in peace with the whites and adopt his ways. Ironically the plan in the South worked better than most realize. Many indians claimed themselves as white and were not removed. I say 9 out of 10 southerners will claim indian ancestry some where in their background. This is almost impossible to prove because census records list these people as white.
After indian removal you have examples of extermination and exploitation in later years. This is a big What if. What if Jefferson's plan suceeded. The southern indians lived on their farms along with whites. Smaller tracts of land were governed by them as sacred ground that only they had authority but also they had full rights like other citizens? Would the trageties in the West have happened?

 

Except that removal was the plan from the get go. One of Jefferson's justifications for the Lousianna Purchase was to provide a haven for the eastern Indians, so they could be removed to the west, away from the"polluting" influnce of the poor white trash that was the first european contact they normally had.

The 18th century was the development period for the idea of the natural man, the noble savage. The idea continued into the mid 19th century, as long as it was the eastern agricultural and matrilinial Indian cultures they were dealing with. Clay, Webster, Calhoon, Jefferson all encouraged the idea of removing the Indians for their own benefit, away from the evil europeans into the land of promise, Oklahoma, Iowa, the Indian Territories.

Protecting the noble savage was the accepted government stand until they actually began meeting the carnivorous, womanizing plains tribes in regular combat. By that time the population was already moving across the plains, filling the land much faster than expected.

The vast emptiness that Jefferson expected to fill for 500 years became populated in less than 100. By 1898, prof. F.J. Turner had declared the frontier era closed. No state in our nation was below the 2 people per square mile requirement needed for consideration as a frontier. Only Alaska meets it now.

Now we have found, after 150 years of experimenting with the plains environment, that the land should have been left to the elk, grizzly and buffalo. Perhaps the Indians should have been left alone too.

The eastern tribes could assimilate into the european culture with their agriculture based economy. It was rights to the fur hunting lands they were disputing, while 80% of their food came from the fields the women tilled. They would have completely evolved into the farmers Jefferson based his political dreams around.

The western tribes, with their horse culture based on warfare, raiding, and most important, a carniverous diet of meat from the nomadic heards, had no agricultural bonds to a land that would not support crops. The heards of buffalo, the Indians' food source, had to go so that crops of the europeans could prosper. Crops that could not endure and would leave a dust bowl in their wake.

Perhaps, in time, the plains tribes would have become the herdsmen for the nation, providing low cost, low colestrol meat for the tables of America. Herdsmen on horseback and ATV, tending heards of millions on vast streaches of tribal land. The noble savage, with ATV and in-line ML rifle!

But the western phylosophy has no place for the heardsman in its social order. Even the european heardsman of the plains, the cowboy, was a fleeting, tempory persona. He was held in low reguard in his own time, a drifter, saddle tramp, one with no roots, in love with only his freedom. We do not herd cattle, we raise cattle. We own the land, the feed lots. We restrict the movements, rearrenge the genes to suit our fancy and "produce" cattle.

But we still have not produced cattle that can live on the available range grass, on scant water, with no antibiotics or medical care, through harsh winters with no forage and survive, even increase in numbers, like the buffalo did.

:m2c: :yakyak: :yakyak:

 

The problem with that line is many nations already had plantations, slaves and all had governments that the US/colonial Government treated with and thus recognized there soveranty not only by creating such treaties but also by the wording.

We also have to remember that Andrew Jackson had a great hand in much on the Native American problems; to include the red stick war you speak of, winning that from trickery and bribes that were never paid.
You speak of Tecumseh, before him however was a relative of mine