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Jefferson, Thomas, 1743-1826.
Letters
"A more beautiful or precious morsel of ethics I have never
seen; it is a document in proof that I am a real Christian,
that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus ..."
MACHIAVELLIAN BENEVOLENCE AND THE INDIANS
To Governor William H. Harrison
Washington, February 27, 1803
1803022
DEAR SIR, -- While at Monticello in August last received your favor
of August 8th, and meant to have acknowledged it on my return to the seat of government at
the close of the ensuing month, but on my return I found that you were expected to be on
here in person, and this expectation continued till winter. I have since received your
favor of December 30th.
In the former you mentioned the plan of the town which you had done
me the honor to name after me, and to lay out according to an idea I had formerly
expressed to you. I am thoroughly persuaded that it will be found handsome and pleasant,
and I do believe it to be the best means of preserving the cities of America from the
scourge of the yellow fever, which being peculiar to our country, must be derived from
some peculiarity in it. That peculiarity I take to be our cloudless skies. In Europe,
where the sun does not shine more than half the number of days in the year which it does
in America, they can build their town in a solid block with impunity; buthere a constant
sun produces too great an accumulation ofheat to admit that. Ventilation is indispensably
necessary. Experience has taught us that in the open air of the country the yellow fever
is not only not generated,but ceases to be infectious. I cannot decidefrom the drawing you
sent me, whether you havelaid off streets round the squares thus: (Illustration omitted)
or only the diagonal streets therein marked. The former was my idea, and is, imagine, most
convenient.
You will receive herewith an answer to your letter as President of
the Convention; and from the Secretary of War you receive from time to time information
and instructions as to our Indian affairs. These communications being for the public
records, are restrained always to particular objects and occasions; but this letter being
unofficial and private, I may with safety give you a more extensive view of our policy
respecting the Indians, that you may the better comprehend the parts
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dealt out to you in detail through the official channel, and observing the system of which
they make a part, conduct yourself in unison with it in cases where you are obliged to act
without instruction. Our system is to live in perpetual peace with the Indians, to
cultivate an affectionate attachment from them, by everything just and liberal which we
can do for them within the bounds of reason, and by giving them effectual protection
against wrongs from our own people. The decrease of game rendering their subsistence by
hunting insufficient, we wish to draw them to agriculture, to spinning and weaving. The
latter branches they take up with great readiness, because they fall to the women, who
gain by quitting the labors of the field for those which are exercised within doors. When
they withdraw themselves to the culture of a small piece of land, they will perceive how
useless to them are their extensive forests, and will be willing to pare them off from
time to time in exchange for necessaries for their farms and families. To promote this
disposition to ex-change lands, which they have to spare and we want, for necessaries,
which we have to spare and they want, we shallpush our trading uses, and be glad to see
the good and influential individuals among them run in debt, because we ob-serve that when
these debts get beyond what the individuals can pay, they become willing to lop them off
by a cession of lands. At our trading houses, too, we mean to sell so low as merely to
repay us cost and charges, so as neither to lessen or enlarge our capital. This is what
private traders cannot do, for they must gain; they will consequently retire from the
competition, and we shall thus get clear of this pest without giving offence or umbrage to
the Indians. In this way our settlements will gradually circumscribe and approach the
Indians, and they will in time either incorporate with us as citizens of the United
States, or remove beyond the Mississippi. The former is certainly the termination of their
history most happy for themselves; but, in the whole course of this, it is essential to
cultivate their love. As to their fear, 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, and that
all our liberalities to them proceed from motives of pure humanity only. Should any tribe
be fool-hardy enough
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to take up the hatchet at any time, the seizing the whole country of that tribe, and
driving them across the Mississippi, as the only condition of peace, would be an example
to others, and a furtherance of our final consolidation.
Combined with these views, and to be prepared against the occupation
of Louisiana by a powerful and enterprising people, it is important that, setting less
value on interior extension of purchases from the Indians, we bend our whole views to the
purchase and settlement of the country on the Mississippi, from its mouth to its northern
regions, that we may be able to present as strong a front on our western as on our eastern
border, and plant on the Mississippi itself the means of its own defence. We now own from
31 to the Yazoo, and hope this summer to purchase what belongs to the Choctaws from the
Yazoo up to their boundary, supposed to be about opposite the mouth of Acanza. We wish at
the same time to begin in your quarter, for which there is at present a favorable opening.
The Cahokias extinct, we are entitled to their country by our paramount sovereignty. The
Piorias, we understand, have all been driven off from their country, and we might claim it
in the same way; but as we understand there is one chief remaining, who would, as the
survivor of the tribe, sell the right, it is better to give him such terms as will make
him easy for life, and take a conveyance from him. The Kaskaskias being reduced to a few
families, I presume we may purchase their whole country for what would place every
individual of them at his ease, and be a small price to us, -- say by laying off for each
family, whenever they would choose it, as much rich land as they could cultivate, adjacent
to each other, enclosing the whole in a single fence, and giving them such an annuity in
money or goods forever as would place them in happiness; and we might take them also under
the protection of the United States. Thus possessed of the rights of these tribes, we
should proceed to the settling their boundaries with the Poutewatamies and Kickapoos;
claiming all doubtful territory, but paying them a price for the relinquishment of their
concurrent claim, and even prevailing on them, if possible, to cede, for a price,
such of their own unquestioned territory as would give us a convenient northern boundary.
Before broaching this, and while we are bargaining
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with the Kaskaskies, the minds of the Poutewatamies and Kickapoos should be soothed and
conciliated by liberalities and sincere assurances of friendship. Perhaps by sending a
well-qualified character to stay some time in Decoigne's village, as if on other business,
and to sound him and introduce the subject by degrees to his mind and that of the other
heads of families, inculcating in the way of conversation, all those considerations which
prove the advantages they would receive by a cession on these terms, the object might be
more easily and effectually obtained than by abruptly proposing it to them at a formal
treaty. Of the means, however, of obtaining what we wish, you will be the best judge; and
I have given you this view of the system which we suppose will best promote the interests
of the Indians and ourselves, and finally consolidate our whole country to one nation
only; that you may be enabled the better to adapt your means to the object, for this
purpose we have given you a general commission for treating. The crisis is pressing:
whatever can now be obtained must be obtained quickly. The occupation of New Orleans,
hourly expected, by the French, is already felt like a light breeze by the Indians. You
know the sentiments they entertain of that nation; under the hope of their protection they
will immediately stiffen against cessions of lands to us. We had better, therefore, do at
once what can now be done.
I must repeat that this letter is to be considered as private and
friendly, and is not to control any particular instructions which you may receive through
official channel. You will also perceive how sacredly it must be kept within your own
breast, and especially how improper to be understood by the Indians. For their interests
and their tranquillity it is best they should see only the present age of their history. I
pray you to accept assurances of my esteem and high consideration.
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