Interpreting Quotes from Native Americans and European Americans (1790s-1820s)

Lesson Plan on Race in America

Directions: One aspect of the War of 1812 was the tension between Native Americans and European Americans. Below are a series of quotations from Native Americans (Atiatoharongwen and Tecumseh) and European Americans (Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson) from the time period of the 1790s to 1820s.   Read the quotations, discuss them in your group, and then answer the writing prompts.

Atiatoharongwen

Introduction: The following quotes come from the Treaty of 1796 meeting in New York City between the state of New York and Kanienkehaka (Mohawk) leaders Atiatoharongwen, Ohnawiio, and Teholagwanegen. The treaty sold most of the Mohawk lands in northern New York to the state of New York. Atiatoharongwen fought for France in the French and Indian War and for America in the Revolutionary War. He also fought for America in the War of 1812 and died in that war in 1814.

“Formerly we enjoyed the privilege we expect is now called freedom and liberty; but since the acquaintance with our brother white people, that which we call freedom and liberty becomes an entire stranger to us; and in place of that comes in flattery and deceit, to deprive poor…people of their properties, and bring them to poverty, and, at last, to become beggars and laughing stocks to the world”.

—Atiatoharongwen, Ohnawiio, and Teholagwanegen (Mohawk)

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“At our meeting last fall, at Fort George, you…desired us to point out the land we claimed in this State….You then brought in several objections against our claim, but we could not find either of them to be reasonable…. If we had ever sold any of our lands, either to the King of France or Britain or either of the United States, we should of course have signed our names to the agreements…but, we did so far from any thing of this kind, that we bid defiance to the world to produce any deed, or sale, or gift, or lease, of any of the lands in question, or any part of them…to either the King of France or Britain, or to either of the United States, or to any individual….

“You produced us a copy of a deed from several Mohawks, for eight hundred thousand acres of land, which those Mohawks had as good a right to sell as they have to come and dispose of the city of New York…you at the treaty of last fall, pointed those people out to us to be too just a people, you thought, to do a thing of the kind; but what makes them just in your eyes, we expect, is because they stole from us, and sold to you. This is what makes them a just people….

“Had we, several years ago, done as those have, whom you call a just people, that is, had we sold off all our lands, then underhandedly sold our brother's, then fled our country, took up arms, and come and killed men, women, and children indiscriminately burnt houses, and committed every other act of devastation; and in short, done every thing we could against our once nearest friends, then, according to what you say of those Mohawks, you could have esteemed us a just people, and therefore would not have disputed our claim….

“It seems that before a nation can get justice of another, they must first go to war, and spill one another's blood:   but brothers, we do not like this mode of settling differences; we wish justice to be done without….”

—Atiatoharongwen, Ohnawiio, and Teholagwanegen (Mohawk)

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Tecumseh

Introduction: Tecumseh, a Shawnee leader, made the following speech to Governor William Henry Harrison of Indiana Territory in 1810. Tecumseh was talking about the Treaty of Fort Wayne, a treaty that sold three million acres of Native lands. Tecumseh was not present at that treaty signing. Tecumseh would fight for Great Britain in the War of 1812 and die in that war.   Governor Harrison served as a U.S. general during the War of 1812.

“I would not then come to Governor Harrison to ask him to tear the treaty and to obliterate the landmark.   But I should say to him:   Sir, you have liberty to return to your own country.

“The Being within, communing with past ages, tells me that…until lately there was no white man on this continent; that it then all belonged to red men, children of the same parents, placed on it by the Great Spirit that made them, to keep it, to traverse it, to enjoy its productions, and to fill it with the same race—once a happy race, since made miserable by the white people, who are never contented, but always encroaching. The way—and the only way—to check and to stop this evil is for all the red men to unite in claiming a common equal right in the land, as it was at first, and should be yet. For it never was divided, but belongs to all for the use of each. That no part has a right to sell, even to each other, much less to strangers, those who want all, and will not do with less.

“The white people have no right to take the land from the Indian, because they had it first.   It is theirs.   They may sell, but all must join. Any sale not made by all is not valid. The late sale is bad.   It was made by a part only. Part do not know how to sell.   It requires all to make a bargain for all. All red men have equal rights to the unoccupied land. The right of occupancy is as good in one place as in another. There cannot be two occupations in the same place. The first excludes all others. It is not so in hunting or traveling; for there the same ground will serve many, as they may follow each other all day. But the camp is stationary, and that is occupancy. It belongs to the first who sits down on his blanket or skins which he has thrown upon the ground; and till he leaves it no other has a right.”

—Tecumseh (Shawnee)

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Thomas Jefferson

Introduction: Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States, wrote the following in a letter during the early 1800s.

“The plan of civilizing the Indians is undoubtedly a great improvement on the ancient and totally ineffectual one of beginning with religious missionaries.   Our experience has shown that this must be the last step of the process.   The following is what has been successful:   1 st , to raise cattle, etc., and thereby acquire a knowledge of the value of property; 2 nd , arithmetic, to calculate that value; 3 rd , writing, to keep accounts, and here they begin to enclose farms, and the men labor, the women spin and weave; 4 th , to read Aesop's Fables and Robinson Crusoe are their first delight.   The Creeks and Cherokees are advanced thus far, and the Cherokees are now instituting a regular government.”

—Thomas Jefferson (Third President of the United States)

Andrew Jackson

Introduction: Andrew Jackson, the seventh President of the United States, made the following speech during his first annual message to Congress in 1829. Andrew Jackson wanted Congress to consider the Indian Removal Bill. Jackson was a U.S. general in the War of 1812 and the celebrated hero of the Battle of New Orleans (1814-1815).

“The condition and ulterior destiny of the Indian tribes within the limits of some of the states have become objects of much interest and importance. It has long been the policy of government to introduce among them the arts of civilization, in the hope of gradually reclaiming them from a wandering life. This policy has, however, been coupled with another wholly incompatible with its success. Professing a desire to civilize and settle them, we have at the same time lost no opportunity to purchase their lands and thrust them farther into the wilderness. By this means they have not only been kept in a wandering state, but been led to look upon us as unjust and indifferent to their fate…

“Our conduct toward these people is deeply interesting to our national character. Their present condition, contrasted with what they once were, makes a most powerful appeal to our sympathies. Our ancestors found them the uncontrolled possessors of these vast regions. By persuasion and force they have been made to retire from river to river and from mountain to mountain, until some tribes have become extinct and others have left but remnants to preserve for awhile their once terrible names. Surrounded by the whites with their arts of civilization, which by destroying the resources of the savage, doom him to weakness and decay, the fate of the Mohegan, the Narragansett, and the Delaware is fast overtaking the Choctaw, the Cherokee, and the Creek. That this fate surely awaits them if they remain within the limits of the states does not admit of a doubt.  Humanity and national honor demand that every effort should be made to avert so great a calamity….

“As a means of effecting this end, I suggest for your consideration the propriety of setting apart an ample district west of the Mississippi, and within (outside) the limits of any state or territory now formed, to be guaranteed to the Indian tribes as long as they shall occupy it, each tribe having a distinct control over the portion designated for its use. There they may be secured in the enjoyment of governments of their own choice, subject to no other control from the United States than such as may be necessary to preserve peace on the frontier and between the several tribes. There the benevolent may endeavor to teach them the arts of civilization, and, by promoting union and harmony among them, to raise up an interesting commonwealth, destined to perpetuate the race and to attest the humanity and justice of this government.

“This emigration should be voluntary, for it would be as cruel as unjust to compel the aborigines to abandon the graves of their fathers and seek a home in a distant land. But they should be distinctly informed that if they remain within the limits of the states they must be subject to their laws”.

—Andrew Jackson (Seventh President of the United States)