QUOTES: AMERICA'S PRESIDENTS

PROMOTE RACIAL HATRED TOWARD NATIVE AMERICANS


GEORGE WASHINGTON

Orders of George Washington to General John Sullivan, May 31, 1779

“The immediate objectives are the total destruction and devastation of their settlements and the capture of as many prisoners of every age and sex as possible. It will be essential to ruin their crops in the ground and prevent their planting more [1].”

Letter to James Duane, September 07, 1783. Washington compares Indians to animals.

Settlements will as certainly cause the Savage as the Wolf to retire; both being beasts of prey tho’ they differ in shape [2].


GOVERNOR OF INDIANA TERRITORY

Governor William Henry Harrison, of the Indiana Territory (1800-1812) while defending displacement of the Indians

“Is one of the fairest portions of the globe to remain in a state of nature, the haunt of a few wretched savages, when it seems destined by the Creator to give support to a large population and to be the seat of civilization [3]?”


THOMAS JEFFERSON

“If ever we are constrained to lift the hatchet against any tribe, we will never lay it down till that tribe is exterminated, or driven beyond the Mississippi… in war, they will kill some of us; we shall destroy them all [4].”

The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, December 29, 1813

“This unfortunate race, whom we had been taking so much pains to save and to civilize, have by their unexpected desertion and ferocious barbarities justified extermination and now await our decision on their fate [5].”


JAMES MONROE

In a letter to Andrew Jackson, October 5, 1817

“The hunter or savage state requires a greater extent of territory to sustain it, than is compatible with the progress and just claims of civilized life, and must yield to it. Nothing is more certain, than, if the Indian tribes do not abandon that state, and become civilized, that they will decline, and become extinct. The hunter state, tho maintain’d by warlike spirits, presents but a feeble resistance to the more dense, compact, and powerful population of civilized man [6].”


ANDREW JACKSON

First Annual Message to Congress, December 8, 1829 Jackson lays out his policy for relocating Indians of the east to territories west of the Mississippi. This policy becomes law as the Indian Removal Act by his next annual address. An excerpt from the speech:

"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 of the 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." To read the rest of Jackson's speeches on the Indian Removal Act,go to this page.

The Indian Removal Act of 1830 (Library of Congress)

Andrew Jackson Quote From the Journal of the U.S. Senate. First Session of the 23rd Congress.

“My original convictions upon this subject have been confirmed by the course of events for several years, and experience is every day adding to their strength. That those tribes cannot exist surrounded by our settlements and in continual contact with our citizens is certain. They have neither the intelligence, the industry, the moral habits, nor the desire of improvement which are essential to any favorable change in their condition. Established in the midst of another and a superior race, and without appreciating the causes of their inferiority or seeking to control them, they must necessarily yield to the force of circumstances and ere long disappear [7].”


ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Abraham Lincoln's Order of December 6, 1862, Authorizing the Execution of Thirty-Eight Sioux Indians

“Ordered that of the Indians and Half-breeds sentenced to be hanged by the military commission, composed of Colonel Crooks, Lt. Colonel Marshall, Captain Grant, Captain Bailey, and Lieutenant Olin, and lately sitting in Minnesota, you cause to be executed on Friday the nineteenth day of December, instant, the following names, to wit [8]."

Lincoln defends Andrew Jackson in "Speech at Peoria, September 17, 1852"

“Is it true that the noble hearted man and Christian gentleman who as the agent of a democratic administration, removed the Cherokee Indians from their homes to the west of the Mississippi in such a manner as to gain the applause of the great and good of the land, is a fool [9]?”

Lincoln in Seventh and Last Joint Debate at Alton, Illinois, October 15, 1858: In response to the statement in the Declaration of Independence that "All men were created equal."

“I think the authors of that notable instrument intended to include all men, but they did not intend to declare all men equal in all respects. They did not mean to say that all men were equal in color, size, intellect, moral development, or social capacity [10]

Lincoln in Lecture on Discoveries, Inventions, and Improvements, Springfield, Illinois, February 22, 1860

“why did Yankees almost instantly discover gold in California, which had been trodden upon and overlooked by Indians and Mexican greasers for centuries [11]?”

The U.S. Homestead Act of 1862 (The National Archives). This act, signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln, opened up the West to be farmed by whites and freed slaves. This act had the effect of removing Native Americans from their ancestral lands and replacing them mostly with white settlers.


THEODORE ROOSEVELT

“I don’t go so far as to think that the only good Indians are dead Indians, but I believe nine out of ten are, and I shouldn’t like to inquire too closely into the case of the tenth [12].”


QUOTE SOURCES:

[1] Fitzpatrick, John C (1931–1944). "Instructions to Major General John Sullivan". The writings of George Washington from the original manuscript sources, 1745–1799. Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library. Retrieved 2007-11-14.

[2] George Washington. Letter to James Duane. Rocky Hill. September, 07, 1783

[3] Jacques Semelin, Purify and Destroy. The Political Uses of Massacre and Genocide (Columbia University Press, 2007) pp. 335

[4] Carl Benn, Native Memoirs from the War of 1812: Black Hawk and William Apess (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013) pp. 127

[5] J.Jefferson Looney, The Papers of Thomas Jefferson (Princeton University Press, 2010) pp. 91

[6] Wayne Moquin and Charles Van Doren, Great Documents in American Indian History. (New York Praeger, 1973) pp. 109

[7] Journal of the Senate of the United States of America. First Session of the Twenty Third Congress (Washington DC) December 2, 1838. pp. 18

[8] Lincoln's Order of December 6, 1862 to General Sibley, Authorizing the Execution of Thirty Eight Sioux Indians

[9] Lincoln, Abraham. “Speech at Peoria, September 17, 1852,” in Basler, Roy P. (Ed.), The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, v.2. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1953.

[10] Lincoln, Abraham. “Lecture on Discoveries, Inventions, and Improvements, Springfield, Illinois, February 22, 1860” in Nicolay, John G., and Hay, John 
(Ed.s), The Complete Works of Abraham Lincoln, v. 5. New York: Francis D. Tandy Company, 1894.

[11] Lincoln, Abraham. “Third Joint Debate at Jonesboro, Illinois, September 15, 1858” in Nicolay, John G., and Hay, John (Ed.s), The Complete Works of Abraham Lincoln, v. 5. New York: Francis D. Tandy Company, 1894.

[12] Hermann Hagedorn (1921). Roosevelt in the Bad Lands. Houghton Mifflin. p. 355.