Indian+Policy

Prior to the arrival of the Europeans, North American Indians had fought tremendous and bloody mourning wars to avenge the loss of life and people from individual tribes. The Iroquoian nations developed a tradition of torturing captives some mildly only to be reprieved and adopted others viciously to the death, and made war on each other until Deganawida and his disciple Hiawatha created the great league of the Iroquois--the Mohawk, Oneida, Onandoga, Cayuga, & Seneca The five tribes maintained peace with each other by ceremonies of mourning in which victims families were compensated. Without a political structure, the function of the league was to keep peace but in doing so made the Iroquois fearsome enemies. They had to find enemies far a way to provide training ground for the young men and captives to replace those who succumbed to the European diseases. The Montagnais &Algonkins we often the target. But Iroquoian speaking Huron were particular favorites of the Mohawks.
 * ~ Indian Policy ||~ Colonial & National ||

Although the Desoto had cut a swarth of destruction through the trans-Appalachian south early in the 16th century, the French undertaking a trading expedition on the St Lawrence River increased warfare among Indians. The French were expected to help their partners when the Huron came into conflict with the Iroquois near Lake Champlain in 1609. The introduction of guns tipped the balance in briefly against the Mohawks however very shortly thereafter the Dutch arrived up the Hudson and were able to supply the Mohawks with comparable weapons. The fur trade and competition for weapons made Indian warfare ever more deadly. While the wars between Indians made the colonizers able to play one group against another leaving more land available for settlers. The massacre at Martins hundred was one of several attacks that day in 1622 that resulted in the death of 1/3d of Virginia's colonists. 347 and provided the excuse for extermination of the **Powhatan**. In the next year 250 were poisoned at a peace treat party. The wars dragged on and the 80 year old chief Opechancanough captured and shot in 1644. Powhatan population from 24K to 2K 1607-1669 This was certainly the pattern in Massachusetts where Puritans used Wampanoag and Narragansetts to destroy Pequots at Mystick Connecticut. By 1775 all the New England Indians but those allies had been dispossessed and the Praying towns were favored over Metacomet and his few remaining Wampanoag. The destructive raids on 90 NE towns resulted in the destruction of 12 the captivity of many and the death of 1 in 5 NE fighting men. Mohegans under Uncas remained loyal to the Puritan New Englanders. Although victorious, New England paid a heavy price. With in a few years of **King Philip's war** the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico led by Popé revolted against the Spanish and the frontiersmen of Virginia rose up in response to conflicts over territory in the Piedmont Carolina's restoration colony was founded on the export of deer skins and Indian slaves to Barbados. The growing scarcity of each resulted in the rise of the rice culture with African slaves as the workforce. In Virginia freed indentured servants craving for land brought them in conflict with the western Indian tribes. Having armed them they became fearful opponents but Governor Berkeley's objective was peace and commerce rather than expansion.
 * [[image:hooperstudents/Powhatan.gif caption="Powhatan"]] ||  ||
 * [[image:hooperstudents/Pocahontas.gif]] || Romantic versions of Pocahontas Rebecca Rolfe ||
 * [[image:hooperstudents/Metacom.gif caption="Metacom "King Philip""]] || [[image:hooperstudents/Uncas.gif]] ||

With the glorious revolution of 1688 there began a series of wars for colonies that in the New World were fought largely by the Indian clients of the European powers. King William's war, English succession; Queen Anne's War Spanish Succession, King George's War Austrian Succession, & The French and Indian War Seven Years War. Possessions were traded back and forth in the Caribbean, Europe, India, and Asia but for the inhabitants of N. A. War was a tomahawk in the night. The expansion of colonial settlements forced the Tuscarora in NC into conflict. They destroyed a village of German immigrants. In retaliation SC aided by Yamasee, Muskogee, & Cherokee raided the principal village enslave the women and children killed men unsuitable for slavery. The remnant to move across the Appalachians and were allowed to join the Iroquois confederation. The Yamasee & Catawba were themselves were soon on the auction block. At each stage of the colonial wars the Northern Indians found themselves weakened. The Mohawks like Joseph Brant (hero of Montreal) chose the winning side through the seven years war, but That did not mean that they prospered. Treaties of Fort Stanwix 1768 cost the Indians much of the Ohio Valley which was confirmed by the 1784 treaty of Fort Stanwix. The Shawnee were valuable allies of the British in the revolution but were not even present when George Rogers Clark achieved his victories. Little Turtle had significant victories early in the Indian wars of Washington's administration, but in 1793 after the Battle of the fallen timbers (where In the south the Chickamauga wars lasted until the triumph of Mad Anthony Wayne over Blue Jacket) the Treaty of Grenville ceded the rest of the Ohio valley to the United States It was during this time that the nation's strategy for extirpating the Indians developed. In the American version of the enlightenment the "noble savage could not exist in parallel with 19th century society. In //Notes on VA// 1785 Jefferson recounts Logan’s lament:
 * [[image:hooperstudents/Little-Turtle.gif caption="Little Turtle"]] || [[image:hooperstudents/Washington_Presenting_Red_Jacket_medal_.jpg caption="GW & Blue Jacket"]] ||
 * || [[image:hooperstudents/wayne.jpg caption="Mad Anthony Wayne"]] ||
 * [[image:hooperstudents/180px-Logan_8547.JPG caption="Logan"]] || I appeal to any white man to say, if ever he entered Logan’s cabin hungry, and he gave him not meat; if ever he came cold and naked, and he clothed him not. During the course of the last long and bloody war [the French and Indian War, 1755-1763], Logan remained idle in his cabin, an advocate for peace. Such was my love for the whites, that my countrymen pointed as they passed, and said, “Logan is the friend of white men.” I had even thought to have lived with you, but for the injuries of one man. Col. Cresap, the last spring, in cold blood, and unprovoked, murdered all the relations of Logan, not sparing even my women and children. There runs not a drop of my blood in the veins of any living creature. This called on me for revenge. I have sought it: I have killed many: I have fully glutted my vengeance. For my country, I rejoice at the beams of peace. But do not harbour a thought that mine is the joy of fear. Logan never felt fear. He will not turn on his heel to save his life. Who is there to mourn for Logan?—Not one. (Wallace I) ||

“Ultimately in Jefferson’s view the Indian nations would be either civilized and incorporated into mainstream American society or, failing this”—as in the prototypical case of Logan’s family—exterminated.”(Wallace 11)

The concept of savagism and inferiority did not imply racism, that is, a belief that the Indian was an inherently different kind of being incapable of rising out to an inferior condition. …Nor was color an obstacle, for the brownness or tawny complexion of the Indians was considered to be the result of conditioning by the elements or by the use of cosmetics on persons born basically white. Not until the very end of the seventeenth century was there any reference to Indians as red, and then the term may have had a symbolic meaning or arisen from the use of war paint. (Craven in Prucha //Great// 8) Writing to General Castellux a few years later (in 1785), he declared that he had “seen some thousands [of Indians] myself, and conversed much with them, and have found in them a masculine, sound understanding. . . I believe the Indian to be in body and mind equal to the white man. (Wallace 77)
 * [[image:hooperstudents/Alexander-McGillvray.gif caption="Muskogee Alexander McGillvray"]] ||  ||
 * The great distinguishing feature of English relations with the Indians groups was replacement of the Indians on the land by white settlers, not conversion and assimilation of the Indians into European colonial society (as was the case with the Spanish in central and South America). … An underlying condition of English settlement was the depopulation that had previously occurred among the Indian tribes with whom the first Englishmen had come in contact. … Large areas were stripped of once heavy populations, and the cleared fields of the former inhabitants were taken over by white settlers, who often saw the hand of Providence in their good fortune. (Prucha //Great// 11-12) ||  ||

[In Colonial times] regulation of trade was critical in the case of two items—firearms and liquor—because of their explosive potentialities. Just as the colonists were forbidden to buy land from the Indians, so were the restricted in the sale of arms and rum…. The unscrupulous merchant did not hesitate to debauch the Indian with liquor in order to cheat him out of his furs. And the Indians’ revenge more often than not was taken out indiscriminately upon the settlers close at hand. (Prucha //Great// 19-20)
 * [[image:hooperstudents/Dragging-Canoe.gif caption="Dragging Canoe"]] ||  ||


 * JEFFERSON’S PLAN FOR INDIAN LAND ACQUISITION: ||
 * 1. Run Indians into debt and threaten to end supplies unless debts cleared by land cession. ||
 * 2. Bribe influential chiefs with money and private reservations. ||
 * 3. Invite friendly leaders to Washington to be over-awed. ||
 * 4. Threaten trade embargo or war. ||
 * War threat: ||
 * 1. Settler encroachment and atrocity. ||
 * 2. Indian retaliation. ||
 * 3. Military invasion. ||
 * 4. Peace treaty including land cession. (Wallace 19-20) ||

…the Indian and the white systems of land tenure were quite different. The Indians had a notion of communal ownership of land, The English one of individual ownership in fee simple; neither fully understood the concept of the other. (Prucha 15)

In his biography of Meriwether Lewis Jefferson wrote: Nicolas Lewis, the second of his father's brothers, commanded a regiment of militia in the successful expedition of 1776, against the Cherokee Indians, who, seduced by agents of the British government to take up the hatchet against us, had committed great havoc on our southern frontier, by murdering an scalping helpless women and children according to heir cruel and cowardly principles of warfare. The chastisement they then received closed the history of their wars, prepared them for receiving the elements of civilization, which zealously cultivated by the present government of the United States, have rendered them a industrious, peaceable and happy people. (Wallace

Merrill Peterson, succinctly put it: “Divide and rule, aid the friendly in peace, exterminate the incorrigibles—this was Jefferson’s Indian policy.” (Wallace 59)

Jefferson wrote to du Coigne a chief at Kaskaskia, “You ask us to send schoolmasters to educate your son and the sons of your people. We desire above all things, brother, to instruct you in whatever we know ourselves. We wish to learn you all our arts and to make you wise and wealthy. As soon as there is peace we shall be able to send you the best of school-masters; but while the war is raging, I am afraid it will not be practicable. It shall be done, however, before your son is of an age to receive instruction. (Wallace 73)

HENRY KNOX’S POLICY OF PURCHASING INDIAN LAND It would reflect honor on the new Government, and be attended with happy effects, were a declarative law to be passed, that the Indian tribes possess the right of the soil of all lands within their limits, respectively, and the they are not to be divested thereof, but in consequence of fair and bonafide purchases, made under the authority, or with the express approbation, of the United States. As the great source of all Indian wars are disputes about their boundaries, and as the Untied Stases are from the nature of the government, liable to be involved in every war that shall happen on this or any other account, it is highly proper that their authority and consent should be considered as essentially necessary to all measures for the consequences of which they are responsible.

No individual State could, with propriety, complain of invasion of its territorial rights. The independent nations and tribes of Indians ought to be considered as foreign nations, and as the subjects of any particular State. Each individual State, indeed, will retain the right of pre-emption of all lands within its limits, which will not be abridge; but the general sovereignty must possess the right of making all treaties, on the execution or violation which depend peace or war.…

Although the disposition of the people of the States, to emigrate in the Indian country, cannot be effectually prevented, it may be restrained and regulated.

It may be restrained, by postponing new purchases of Indian territory, and by prohibiting the citizens from intruding on the Indian Lands. It may be regulated, by forming colonies, under the direction of Government, and by posting a body of troops to execute their orders. (Wallace 167)

HENRY KNOX’S CIVILIZATION POLICY As population shall increase, and approach the Indian boundaries, game will be diminished, and new purchases may be made for small considerations. This has been, and probably will be, the inevitable consequence of cultivations. It is, however, painful to consider, that all the Indian tribes, once existing in those States now the best cultivated and most populous, have become extinct. If the same causes continue, the same effects will happen: and in a short period, the idea of an Indian on this side of the Mississippi will only be found in the pages of the historical. How different would be the sensation of a philosophic mind to reflect, that, instead of exterminating a part of the human race by our modes of population, we had persevered, through all difficulties, and a t last had imparted our knowledge of cultivation and the arts to the aboriginals of the country, by which the source of future life and happiness had been preserved and extended. Bit it has been conceive to be impracticable to civilize the Indians of North America. This opinion is probably more convenient than just. That the civilization of the Indians would be an operation of complicated difficulty; that it would require the highest knowledge of the human character, and a steady perseverance in a wise system for a series of years, cannot be doubted. But to deny that, under a course of favorable circumstances, it could not be accomplished, is to suppose the human character under the influence of such stubborn habits as to be incapable of melioration or change—a supposition entirely contradicted by the progress of society, from the barbarous ages to its present degree of perfection. . .(Wallace )
 * || [[image:hooperstudents/Joseph-Brant.gif caption="Joseph Brant"]] ||

Missionaries, of excellent moral character, should be appointed to reside in their nation, who should be well supplied with all the implements of husbandry, and the necessary stock for a farm. These men should be made the instruments to work on the Indians; presents should commonly pass through their hands, or by their recommendations. They should, in no degree, be concerned in trade, or the purchase of lands, to rouse the jealousy of the Indians. They should be their friends and fathers. Such a plan although it might no fully effect the civilization of the Indians, would most probably be attend with the salutary effect of attaching them to the interest of the Untied States. (Wallace 167)

Writing to Andrew Jackson in 1803 Jefferson said, “On keeping agents among the Indians. Two objects are principally in view: 1. The preservation of peace; 2. The obtaining lands. (Wallace 221)

JEFFERSON’S POLICY OF CIVILIZATION & ASSIMILATION

I consider the business of hunting as already become insufficient to furnish clothing and subsistence to the Indians. The promotion of agriculture, therefore, and household manufacture, are essential in their preservations, and I am disposed to aid and encourage it liberally. This will enable them to live on much smaller portions of land, and, indeed, will render their vast forests useless but for the range of cattle; for which purpose, also, as they become better farmers, they will be found useless, and even disadvantageous. While they are learning to do better on less land, our increasing numbers will be calling for more land, and thus a coincidence of interests will be produced between those who have land to spare, and want other necessaries, and those who have such necessaries to spare, and want lands. This commerce, then, will be for the good of both, and those who are friends to both ought to encourage it. . . 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.

Incorporating themselves with us a citizens of the United States, this is what the natural progress of things will, of course, bring on, and it will be better to promote than to retard it. Surely it will be b better for them to be identified with us, and preserved in the occupation of their lands, than be exposed to the many casualties, which may endanger them while a separate people. I have little doubt, but that your reflections must have led you to view the various ways in which their history may terminate, and to see that this is the one most for their happiness. And we have already had an application from a settlement of Indians to become citizens of the United States. It is possible, perhaps probable; that this idea ma be so novel at that it might shock the Indians, were it even hinted to them. Of course, you will keep it for your own reflection; but, convinced of its soundness, I fee it consistent with pure morality to lead them towards it, to familiarize them to the idea that it is for their interest to cede lands at times to the United States, and for us thus to procure gratifications to our citizens, from time t time by new acquisitions of land. (Wallace 223)

Jefferson to William Henry Harrison 27 February 1803: “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.” (Prucha //American// 6)

JEFFERSON’S MATURE INDIAN POLICY OF 1803


 * 1. Maintain peace with the Indians, using a limited system of forts garrisoned by regular army troops to try to prevent white encroachment and other abuses, which might provoke border warfare, and to suppress incipient Indian uprisings. ||
 * 2. Use a nonprofit, whiskey-free chain of publicly supported fur trade factories to counter the influence of foreign (primarily British) traders and to get leading Indians so far into debt that they would be willing to sell land to pay off their obligations. ||
 * 3. Employ the Indian superintendents and agents under the direction of the War Department to keep the tribes from alliances with encircling, hostile foreign powers (at one time and in on place or another, Britain, Spain, and France) and to persuade them to sell land. ||
 * 4. Encircle the eastern tribes by first acquiring the land on the east bank of the Mississippi, compressing them into a vast but ever shrinking enclave between the Mississippi and the Appalachian mountains. ||
 * 5. As game diminishes in the eastern enclave, offer the tribes the capital goods and education needed for survival as European-style agriculturalists and citizens of the republic in exchange for their lands. ||
 * 6. For those who reject the offer of “civilization” as the sole alternative to their extinction, removal into the Louisiana Purchase, which will become the next native enclave, where refugees and aboriginal residents can freely hunt for skins and firs and trade to mutual profit with the United States and her citizens, until such time as the land is needed for white settlement. ||
 * 7. When border trouble escalates to the point of threatened or actual war, obtain Indian lands as the price of peace. ||
 * (Wallace 225) ||

By 1830 these measures were essential elements of US Indian Policy necessary to hold back unruly frontiersmen and uphold the honor of the nation:


 * 1. Protection of Indian rights to land by setting definite boundaries of the Indian country, prohibiting whites for entering the area except und certain controls, and removing illegal intruders. ||
 * 2. Control of the disposition of Indian Lands by denying the right of private individuals or local governments to acquire land from the Indians by purchase or any other means ||
 * 3. Regulation of Indian trade by determining the conditions under which individuals might engage in the trade, prohibition of certain classes of traders, and competition with private traders it the form of government trading houses. ||
 * 4. Control of the liquor traffic by regulating the flow of intoxicating liquor into the Indian country and later prohibiting it altogether. ||
 * 5. Provision for the punishment of crimes committed by members of on race against the other and compensation for damages suffered by one group a the hands of the other, in order to remove the occasions for private retaliation. (Prucha. //Great// 30) ||

William Clark, Indian Superintendent at St. Louis wrote in 1826 of Indians as a once “formidable and terrible enemy,” whose “power has been broken, their warlike spirit subdued and themselves sunk into objects of pity and commiseration.” (House Report Mar. 1, 1826 in Prucha //American// 6) The war of 1812 brought and end to a certain chapter of Indian white relations. With Harrison and Jackson's decisive victories over powerful indian opposition, the tremendous expansion of the period, it became clear that even well organized resistance was no match for American Arms. Tecumseh and the Prophet were the last successful organizers of the back to our origins school of opposition to the white man. Handsome Lake the Seneca had won a reserve but Tecumseh was a greater threat. After the destruction of Tippecanoe by Harrison the Shawnee leader fought valiantly for the Brits at the battle of the Thames but was abandoned. Similarly Jackson was able to use Cherokee and Upper Creeks to defeat the Lower Creek who were prompted to action by agents of the British. After his victories at Horshoe Bend, Jackson gathered his indian allies and had them sign a treaty which stripped them of there lands. His administration removed the five civilized tribes west of the Mississippi and most of the Tribes in the old north west. He did this by fighting only two wars the Black Hawk War and the Seminole War. Although the United States would continue to negotiate treaties with indian nations of the plains until the 1870s, the reality was that the Indians were treated as subservient peoples no longer to be subject of negotiation but of fiat backed by power. The bureau of Indian Affairs was moved from the War department to the department of the Interior.
 * [[image:hooperstudents/tippecanoe.jpg caption="William Henry Harrison"]] || [[image:hooperstudents/Horseshoe-Bend.gif caption="Horseshoe Bend"]] ||
 * [[image:hooperstudents/Tenskwatawa_The_Shawnee_Prophet_copy.jpg caption="Tenskwatawa"]] || [[image:hooperstudents/tecumseh.jpg caption="Tecumseh"]] ||
 * [[image:hooperstudents/Tenskwatawa_The_Shawnee_Prophet_copy.jpg caption="Tenskwatawa"]] || [[image:hooperstudents/tecumseh.jpg caption="Tecumseh"]] ||
 * ||~ Works Cited ||


 * Craven, Wesley Frank. //White, Red, and Black: The Seventeenth Century Virginian//. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1971. ||
 * Peterson, Merrill. Ed. //Thomas Jefferson: Writings//. New York: Library of America, 1984. ||
 * Prucha, S.J., Francis Paul. //American Indian Treaties: the History of a Political Anomaly.// Berkley: University of California Press, 1994. ||
 * //. The Great Father: The// //United States// //Government and the American Indians.// Lincoln, NE: university of Nebraska Press, 1984 ||
 * Richter, Daniel K. //Facing East from Indian Countery: a Native history of Early// //America//. Cambridge, MA: Harvard U. P., 2001. ||
 * Taylor, Alan. //American Colonies: the settling of North America//. New York: Penguin Books, 2001. ||
 * Wallace, Anthony F. C. //Jefferson and the Indians: The Tragic Fate of the First Americans//. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999. ||

Type in the content of your page here.