Jefferson and the Indians: The Tragic Fate of the First Americans.

Carson, James Taylor

Jefferson and the Indians: The Tragic Fate of the First Americans. By Anthony F. C. Wallace. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999. ix, 394 pp.

From his political writings to his relationships with slaves, Thomas Jefferson was a complex and often contradictory person. As Anthony F. C. Wallace argues in Jefferson and the Indians, the third president was equally inconsistent in his ideas about American Indians. Although Jefferson was a devoted student of native languages and cultures, he nevertheless considered them to be a doomed people who would perish without the timely intervention of the federal government.

Jefferson's book, Notes on the State of Virginia (1787), serves as a departure point from which Wallace assesses the Virginian's opinions about Native Americans. Notes was, on the surface at least, a scientific compilation of information about the Old Dominion. In his treatment of Indians, however, Jefferson underreported tribal populations and ignored the impressive ceremonial mounds and earthworks built by native people across the region. Such omissions buttressed the popular notion that the Indians were vanishing and that they were incapable of anything beyond hunting and gathering.

Although he only visited one or two reservations during his lifetime, Jefferson came into contact with Indians in a variety of ways. As governor of Virginia and as president he regularly met native delegations. Their gifts as well as items procured by explorers like Lewis and Clarke contributed to his vast collection of native artwork. As part of his cultural studies, Jefferson assembled several vocabulary lists for a study of the origins of native languages. Unfortunately, a thief rifled through his ethnographic papers and, finding nothing of value, scattered them into the James River. Such scholarly work informed his presidential policy toward Indians. He advocated the "civilization" program begun by George Washington and Henry Knox because he believed that natives would not survive unless they abandoned their cultures and adopted Anglo-American ways of life.

Occasionally, Wallace goes beyond Jefferson's publications and correspondence for deeper insights into his views of Indians. The results are unsatisfying. Too often the author's interpretations hinge on speculation. "[Jefferson] must have been made aware of border warfare from an early age," Wallace assumes as he grapples with an explanation of Jefferson's interpretation of Lord Dunmore's War (p. 50). Jefferson, Wallace believes, also "should have" known of numerous mound sites in the Ohio River Valley when he failed to report them in his Notes (p. 133). Grounding an interpretation in various "must haves" and "should haves" weakens Wallace's otherwise close reading of Jefferson's work.

At times, Wallace slips into the language of his subject, which leads him to make some dubious assertions. For example, he lauds the "successes" of the federal "civilization" program in reference to the Cherokees, Creeks, Iroquois, and Delawares. Few students of native history would frame their interpretation in such terms. Other astounding conclusions, however, compound what might have been an unfortunate turn of a phrase. "Of all the tribes in Indiana," Wallace writes, "the Shawnees were probably most in need of the blessings of civilization" (p. 294). Most objectionable of all is his description of Indian views of private property. Wallace characterizes natives who valued sharing over accumulation as "communitarian savages" (p. 299). When Wallace's sentiments parallel Jefferson's so closely, his critical voice gets lost.

The problem of language is exacerbated by gaps in the secondary research. When Wallace examines the impact of Jeffersonian policy on various tribes, he does so only from Jefferson's perspective. What is missing from his analysis is the substantial outpouring of ethnohistoric scholarship that has occurred in the past fifteen years. Without examining recent monographs on either the Cherokees or the Creeks, for example, it is impossible to arrive at a reasonably balanced understanding of the "civilization" program and its impact.

Setting aside such problems, Jefferson and the Indians is nevertheless a useful book. Anthony E C. Wallace has traced the many contradictions of Jefferson's own mind into a subject that has been overlooked for far too long. Jefferson was an important architect in the formation of federal Indian policy. In his stirring conclusion, Wallace links the plight of today's reservations directly to Jefferson's self-serving understanding of American Indians. While Jefferson may have advocated liberty and limited government, he was incapable, Wallace concludes, of imagining a multicultural society, and everything he undertook in Indian affairs as president was aimed at erasing native cultures. The book will make an important contribution to the wide-ranging revision of Jefferson that is already ongoing.

Reference

Jefferson, Thomas. [1787] 1982. Notes on the state of Virginia. Reprint edited and introduction by William Peden. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

--James Taylor Carson Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario