Encyclopedia
Jefferson and Native Americans
A look at Jefferson's lifelong and fraught interest in -- and relationships with -- North American Indigenous Peoples.
Native Americans
“ I beleive the Indian then to be in body and mind equal to the whiteman.”
Jefferson's Views on Native Americans
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![A collection of recreated Native American artifacts, including round leather shields with images, pipes, leggings, a bow and arrows, and other various weapons.]()
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![Detail from an early 17th-century map of Virginia by Captain John Smith that shows the locations of Monacan and Mannahoack settlements along with a depiction of the Powahatan chief.]()
EncyclopediaJefferson's Excavation of a Native American Burial Mound
Thomas Jefferson once excavated an Indigenous Burial Mound near Monticello home, presaging modern archaeological methods, if not later ethical issues.
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![Notes on the State of Virginia, Query XI. Courtesy of the Coolidge Collection of Thomas Jefferson Manuscripts at the Massachusetts Historical Society.
https://www.masshist.org/thomasjeffersonpapers/notes/nsvviewer.php?page=54&nav=query&q=11&results=0page]()
PageQuery XI: Native Americans
Jefferson's lifelong fascination with Native Americans is recorded in this section of Notes. It provides a comprehensive overview of Indigenous people and their cultures as seen through white European eyes, and includes a detailed description of his excavation of a Native American burial mound.
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.
Encounters with Native Americans by Lewis & Clark
“ 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
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![A collection of recreated Native American artifacts, including round leather shields with images, pipes, leggings, a bow and arrows, and other various weapons.]()
PageFraming the West at Monticello
Learn how Thomas Jefferson used Monticello to frame how visitors viewed Louisiana and the western part of the North American continent.
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![Silhouette believed to be of Tahawarra of the Otoe-Missouri Tribe]()
EncyclopediaNative American Silhouettes
Learn more about the delegation of Native Americans who visited Washington, DC, in the wake of the Lewis and Clark Expedition.
Indigenous Peoples Removal
“ 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
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