[Looking at why our area has its unique political and religious attitudes.]

Why is Thomas Jefferson significant as a friend of Native Americans?

We tend to think of history as a sequence of unrelated events, but it is the confluence of numerous parallel ventures. Most unconsciously think that history began the day they were born, so prior events are reserved for games of Jeopardy or Trivial Pursuit.

The Founding Fathers were far from a consensus of thinking. They had a common enemy, the foreign British King’s imposition. Past that, the acrimony, harsh words, and outright vindictiveness of some makes the infamous Bush-Gore election appear as training wheels in politics.

Two fundamental approaches to life drove the young men who were the Founding Young Adults. On one side were those who advocated “individual-rights” as the basis of decisions. The other side advocated “common-good” where individual rights are sacrificed on the altar for strong government control.

Which do you suppose wanted to reaffirm a loyalty with Great Britain? Which do you suppose wanted to maintain slavery? Which do you suppose was responsible for the coercion of the Native Americans? Common-good.

Which do you suppose were strong supporters for broad, classical education for European, African, and Native Americans? Which do you suppose advocated using well-educated preachers for teachers and settler-leaders? Individual-rights.

Just like today, the Founders struggled between the two world views. An intriguing study through the almost 250-year history of our nation yields a fascinating result. The at-the-time, emotionally-stimulated “common-good” also called “public-good” actions of previous generations receive almost universal castigation by later analysis.

All this was happening around 1800, when Samuel Austin Worcester, a New England Puritan (Congregationalist), and Elias Boudinot, born Galigena “the Buck” Uwati, a frontier Native American, came on the scene.

John Adams, the second President of the nascent country, was responsible for the 1798 Treaty of Tellico, forcing Native Americans to begin migration from Tennessee to Alabama or to the south and west. The ancestral occupants had already been expunged from the states to the east. Adams advocated “common-good”.

Thomas Jefferson narrowly lost to Adams in 1796, like most elections. Then Jefferson became the third Chief Executive (1801-1809). Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), one of the Founding Fathers who crafted the Declaration of Independence, was a polymath with skills as a statesman, diplomat, lawyer, and architect, as well as studied in philosophy, history, religion, science, and mathematics including calculus. Jefferson, the founder and architect of the University of Virginia, was an eloquent proponent of individual freedom, excellent violinist, self-taught engineer, obsessive student, articulate in at least five languages (Greek, Latin, French, English and multiple American Indian languages) and surprisingly very shy.

By 17, young Tom befriended several American Indians, including the Cherokee Chief, Ontassete. His administration continued as a friend and ally of Native Americans, telling his agents to never coerce Indian Nations to sell lands and providing support to preacher-teachers including Rev. Dr. Gideon Blackburn at Chickamauga.

Other than the Native American matter, the greatest difference in the policy of “individual-freedom” and “common-good” was the issue of slavery. Contrary to popular opinion, there was no consensus.

Jefferson, the “individual-rights” leader, at age 33 penned the immortal words:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

Like Washington and others of the time, Jefferson was dragged into a slavery society. He made numerous proposals including in the Declaration to stop slave trade and toward emancipation. He believed he and his slaves were victims of history’s failure of enlightenment.

When he became President, Jefferson proposed a transition to eliminate all slavery, in a process which would educate the former slaves and protect the agrarian economy. In his December 2, 1806, message to Congress, President Jefferson advocated the need.

“I congratulate you, fellow-citizens, on the approach of the period at which you may interpose your authority constitutionally, to withdraw the citizens of the United States from all further participation in those violations of human rights which have been so long continued on the unoffending inhabitants of Africa, and which the morality, the reputation, and the best interests of our country, have long been eager to proscribe.î

In 1807, Jefferson did not get everything he advocated, but did get importation of slaves as a Federal crime. The law was enacted on the first day it was allowed under an arcane section of the Constitution, which he was the author.

Politics being what they are, slavery and expulsion of Native Americans held sway with the “common-good” crowd over impassioned objections.

History, politics, and particularly philosophy are best understood in the context of the philosopher. Similarly, the world-view of the historian can skew the understanding, particularly if the historian has a different view.

Jefferson had more to say and do, specifically for our neck of the woods.

Think about the differences in what we “hear and know” about someone and what their own words say.

Excerpts from our books:

No Man’s Land Pioneers, Louisiana’s Wild, Wild West, ISBN: 9781694632128.

Separatists, Spinoza, & Scientists, The Mavericks of Intellectual Freedom, ISBN: 9781797744827