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Dec. 2nd, 2006 04:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
zaichikarkyjust posting this here cause this computer makes it too difficult for me to e-mail my essay to myself.
Part C Question 3
Why do Indians pose a problem in the United States? What was Thomas Jefferson’s solution to solve it as discussed by Wallace in his book Jefferson and the Indians. Be specific.
It is obvious why Native Americans always posted a problem to the United States. Before America became America, the American Indians lived in this land in relative harmony. Throughout the Americas, these people inhabited the lands and often each tribe differed from each other in many ways. When the colonizers came, they looked down at these people with contempt and pity. After the initial period of religious conversion, and sometimes brutal murder, the founding fathers of this nation had to decide how to deal with the indigenous peoples in a better manner.
Many people, including Thomas Jefferson, pitied the Native Americans. They viewed their cultures with ethnocentricity by labeling them as “savage”. Figureheads who observed Native Americans strongly encouraged government officials to change the Native Peoples’ lifestyles. Prucha describes early American attitudes towards Native Americans as “Paternalism”. Government officials as well as missionaries viewed the Native Americans as their children with whom they must direct. Suddenly, the colonial powers took it upon themselves to do what they thought was best for the Native Americans. The “parents’” goal was to eventually completely annihilate Native American culture by completely integrating them into Western Society.(Prucha,10)
Jefferson, unlike Jackson, tried very hard not to resort to cruel means to accomplish his assimilation plan. His ultimate goal was to have Native Americans become Yeoman farmers instead of hunter gatherers.(Prucha,11). However, the larger goal of taking their land always overshadowed his assimilation efforts. Jefferson wanted America to gain all land east of the Mississippi. By the end of his presidency, though land cessions made by treaties with the Native Americas, Jefferson acquired a lot of land in what were then the Louisiana, Indiana, and Mississippi territories. His goal was for white settlers to occupy these regions, pushing the Native Americans out and ultimately forcing them to either die or lead a sedentary lifestyle.
Wallace summarized Jefferson’s extensive plan to accomplish this goal on page 225 of Jefferson and the Indians. Even for those days, the plan employed shady means to accomplish Jefferson’s goals of acquiring lands from the Indians. Jefferson outlined 7 elements with which he employed to disempower the Native Americans so they would be more likely to give up their land by signing treaties. I was most surprised about the second element which said
Use a nonprofit, whiskey-free chain of publicity 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
-Wallace, 225
To me, a parent wouldn’t want to push their children into poverty just so they could live the kind of life the parent wanted. Perhaps in those days, parental control was much more profound than what it is in modern American society. Jefferson and his appointees to the Indian Affairs Bureau thought that the Native American way of life was completely inferior to the Westerners and the only way for them to survive would be
Part C Question 3
Why do Indians pose a problem in the United States? What was Thomas Jefferson’s solution to solve it as discussed by Wallace in his book Jefferson and the Indians. Be specific.
It is obvious why Native Americans always posted a problem to the United States. Before America became America, the American Indians lived in this land in relative harmony. Throughout the Americas, these people inhabited the lands and often each tribe differed from each other in many ways. When the colonizers came, they looked down at these people with contempt and pity. After the initial period of religious conversion, and sometimes brutal murder, the founding fathers of this nation had to decide how to deal with the indigenous peoples in a better manner.
Many people, including Thomas Jefferson, pitied the Native Americans. They viewed their cultures with ethnocentricity by labeling them as “savage”. Figureheads who observed Native Americans strongly encouraged government officials to change the Native Peoples’ lifestyles. Prucha describes early American attitudes towards Native Americans as “Paternalism”. Government officials as well as missionaries viewed the Native Americans as their children with whom they must direct. Suddenly, the colonial powers took it upon themselves to do what they thought was best for the Native Americans. The “parents’” goal was to eventually completely annihilate Native American culture by completely integrating them into Western Society.(Prucha,10)
Jefferson, unlike Jackson, tried very hard not to resort to cruel means to accomplish his assimilation plan. His ultimate goal was to have Native Americans become Yeoman farmers instead of hunter gatherers.(Prucha,11). However, the larger goal of taking their land always overshadowed his assimilation efforts. Jefferson wanted America to gain all land east of the Mississippi. By the end of his presidency, though land cessions made by treaties with the Native Americas, Jefferson acquired a lot of land in what were then the Louisiana, Indiana, and Mississippi territories. His goal was for white settlers to occupy these regions, pushing the Native Americans out and ultimately forcing them to either die or lead a sedentary lifestyle.
Wallace summarized Jefferson’s extensive plan to accomplish this goal on page 225 of Jefferson and the Indians. Even for those days, the plan employed shady means to accomplish Jefferson’s goals of acquiring lands from the Indians. Jefferson outlined 7 elements with which he employed to disempower the Native Americans so they would be more likely to give up their land by signing treaties. I was most surprised about the second element which said
Use a nonprofit, whiskey-free chain of publicity 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
-Wallace, 225
To me, a parent wouldn’t want to push their children into poverty just so they could live the kind of life the parent wanted. Perhaps in those days, parental control was much more profound than what it is in modern American society. Jefferson and his appointees to the Indian Affairs Bureau thought that the Native American way of life was completely inferior to the Westerners and the only way for them to survive would be
