Encyclopedia
Native Americans
“ I beleive the Indian then to be in body and mind equal to the whiteman.”
Jefferson's Views on Native Americans
Professor David Wilkins (Lumbee Nation) and Monticello's Brandon Dillard (Cherokee Nation) explore Jefferson's role in developing early U.S. policies towards Native Americans and how these complex legal decisions shaped later history.
“ In all your intercourse with the natives treat them in the most friendly & conciliatory manner which their own conduct will admit; allay all jealousies as to the object of your journey, satisfy them of it’s innocence.”
“ I am in fact preparing a kind of Indian Hall”
Images, Objects, and Art
“ Should they force us to war, it is to be considered whether we should ever cease it till the tribe be driven beyond the Mississippi as an example.”
Jefferson's 1803 letter to General Superintendent of Indian Affairs Benjamin Hawkins cogently sums up his paternalistic view that Native Americans had only one option: to assimilate into white culture.
In a confidential letter from 1803 to Governor of the Indiana Territory William Henry Harrison, Jefferson outlined his scheme to wrest control of Indigenous lands through purchase, driving Native Americans into debt, and war.
Jefferson's 1807 letter to Secretary of War Henry Dearborn envisioned a war of annihilation against Native Americans who did not submit to U.S. power.
“ I have therefore availed myself of every opportunity, which has offered to obtain vocabularies of such tribes as have been within my reach, corresponding to a list then formed of about 250.”
Jefferson and Native American languages
Next page in
Jefferson and . . .