Page 8 - Were Native Americans the Victims of Genocide?

in nation building. However, his motives have fallen under criti-
cism in more recent times. For instance, Jefferson hoped America
would remain a land of farmers with a moral center that refl ected
ties to the soil and small government. In a confi dential letter to
Congress in 1803, Jefferson spoke of a desire to convert Indians
into farmers and raisers of livestock so that they would give up
their forests and extensive claims to land and allow more settle-
ment from the eastern states. He argued, “The extensive forests
necessary in the hunting life, will then become useless, and they
[the Native Americans] will see advantage in exchanging them
for the means of improving their farms, and of increasing their

Thomas Jefferson’s Views on Native Americans

The Enlightenment, an eighteenth-century philosophical movement based on reason,
in uenced Thomas Jefferson’s opinion of Native Americans. Leonard Sadosky of the
Manhattan Institute and Gaye Wilson of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation at Monticello
explain that Jefferson’s desire to “civilize” the Native Americans was rooted in the
Enlightenment theory of environmentalism, which held that people’s relationship to the
land and climate helped shape their culture, their politics, and even their appearance.

European naturalists used the theory of “environmentalism” to argue that plants,
animals, and the native peoples of America were inferior to that of Europe due to
climate and geography. Jefferson refuted these notions in his only book, Notes
on the State of Virginia, and defended American Indian culture…. “I believe the
Indian then to be in body and mind equal to the whiteman,” Jefferson wrote.
Only their environment needed to be changed to make them fully American in
Jefferson’s mind. Even though many American Indians lived in villages and many
engaged in agriculture, hunting was often still necessary for subsistence. It was
this semi-nomadic way of life that led Jefferson and others to consider Indians
as “savages.” Jefferson believed that if American Indians were made to adopt
European-style agriculture and live in European-style towns and villages, then
they would quickly “progress” from “savagery” to “civilization” and eventually be
equal, in his mind, to white men.

Leonard Sadosky and Gaye Wilson, “American Indians,” Monticello.org, 2003. www.monticello.org.