Cultures in Contact
ANT 326L (30410) Spring, 2008
Samuel M. Wilson
The colonies' policies continued British policyColonial relations with Indians
• emphasis on obtaining Indian lands
• Royal Charters
• treaties and purchases
• wars to quell "conspiracies"
• taxation, "deed game", etc.
The Yamasee War (1715-1728)Revolution --
Colonial & British decisions
• Would the colonists seek Indian allies?
• Washington and Continental Congress originally opposed it
• as did British Indian superintendents
• policies varied greatly among the colonies and the diverse Indian groups
Role of Native Americans in the war
• mainly a pro-British response
• Cherokees went to war against the U.S. in 1776
• Stockbridge tribe joined Massachusetts minutemen
• Iroquois allegiances split, but U.S. attacked and they were then in the British camp
Native American dilemma...
• British pledged to stop land encroachment
• Americans appeared to have the upper hand
The Bad Start of U.S. Indian Policy
" The Indian tribes by joining the British in the Revolution had forfeited their rights to possession of lands within the United States; the new country would be justified in compelling the Indians to retire to Canada or to the unknown areas beyond the Mississippi river." --
U.S. Congress 1783-4
U.S. couldn't back it up
• no money
• small army
• Little cooperation among states
• Indians supported by British agents
Contradictory policy and the electorate
• policy had to please expansionist electorate
• had to pacify Indians, who distrusted the US
U.S. Expansion
• a demographic conquest
• Native American mortality
• U.S. population growth
Rapid change, 1775-1850
• Old Northwest
• 1805-1819
Northwest Ordinance of 1787
Henry Knox (Sec. of War) and George Washington's objectives
Knox in public: The Indians being the prior occupants, possess the right of soil. It cannot be taken from them unless by their free consent, or by the right of conquest in case of a just war. To dispossess them on any other principle, would be a gross violation of the fundamental laws of nature, and of that distributive justice which is the glory of a nation"
Washington and Knox's other aim...
Knox in private: wanted to find a policy that "would gradually obtain Indian land, would be as cheap as possible, would avoid war, would redound to the honor of the United states, and would benefit the Indians as well as the advancing frontiersmen"
Thomas Jefferson and the Indigenous People of North America