The Correspondence of Thomas Jefferson
By Subject
INDIGENOUS AMERICAN TRIBES / CHEROKEES
Having now finished our business and finished it I hope to mutual
satisfaction, I cannot take leave of you without expressing the
satisfaction I have received from your visit. I see with my own eyes
that the endeavors we have been making to encourage and lead you in
the way of improving your situation have not been unsuccessful; it has
been like grain sown in good ground, producing abundantly. You are
becoming farmers, learning the use of the plough and the hoe,
enclosing your grounds and employing that labor in their cultivation
which you formerly employed in hunting and in war; and I see handsome
specimens of cotton cloth raised, spun and wove by yourselves. You are
also raising cattle and hogs for your food, and horses to assist your
labors. Go on, my children, in the same way and be assured the further
you advance in it the happier and more respectable you will be.
Our brethren, whom you have happened to meet here from the West and
Northwest, have enabled you to compare your situation now with what it
was formerly. They also make the comparison, and they see how far you
are ahead of them, and seeing what you are they are encouraged to do
as you have done. You will find your next wants to be mills to grind
your corn, which "by relieving your women from the loss of time
in beating it into meal, will enable them to spin and weave more. When
a man has enclosed and improved his farm, builds a good house on it
and raised plentiful stocks of animals, he will wish when he dies that
these things shall go to his wife and children, whom he loves more
than he does his other relations, and for whom he will work with
pleasure during his life. You will, therefore, find it necessary to
establish laws for this. When a man has property, earned by his own
labor, he will not like to see another come and take it from him
because he happens to be stronger, or else to defen& it by
spilling blood. You will find it necessary then to appoint good men,
as judges, to decide contests between man and man, according to reason
and to the rules you shall establish. If you wish to be aided by our
counsel and experience in these things we shall always be ready to
assist you with our advice.
My children, it is unnecessary for mc to advise you against spending
all your time and labor in warring with and destroying your
fellow-men, and wasting your own members. You already see the folly
and iniquity of it. Your young men, however, are not yet sufficiently
sensible of it. Some of them cross the Mississippi to go and destroy
people who have neVer done them an injury. My children, this is wrong
and must not be; if we permit them to cross the Mississippi to war
with the Indians on the other side of that river, we must let those
Indians cross the river to take revenge on you. I say again, this must
not be. The Mississippi now belongs to us. It must not be a river of
blood. It is now the water-path along which all our people of Natchez,
St. Louis, Indiana, Ohio, Tennessee, Kentucky and the western parts of
Pennsylvania and Virginia are constantly passing with their property,
to and from New Orleans. Young men going to war are not easily
restrained. Finding our people on the river they will rob them,
perhaps kill them. This would bring on a war between us and you. It is
better to stop this in time by forbidding your young men to go across
the river to make war. If they go to visit or to live with the
Cherokees on the other side of the river we shall not object to that.
That country is ours. We will permit them to live in it.
My children, this is what I wished to say to you. To go on in
learning to cultivate the earth and to avoid war. If any of your
neighbors injure you, our beloved men whom we place with you will
endeavor to obtain justice for you and we will support them in it. If
any of your bad people injure your neighbors, be ready to acknowledge
it and to do them justice. It is more honorable to repair a wrong than
to persist in it. Tell all your chiefs, your men, women and children,
that I take them by the hand and hold it fast. That I am their father,
wish their happiness and well-being, and am always ready to promote
their good.
My children, I thank you for your visit and pray to the Great Spirit
who made us all and planted us all in this land to live together like
brothers that He will conduct you safely to your homes, and grant you
to find your families and your friends in good health.
an Address to the Cherokee Nation, 10 January 1806
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