Excerpt from Thomas Jefferson’s Secret Message to Congress, January 18, 1803
The Indian tribes residing within the limits of the United States, have, for a considerable time, been growing more and more uneasy at the constant diminution of the territory they occupy, although effected by their own voluntary sales: and the policy has long been gaining strength with them, of refusing absolutely all further sale, on any conditions; . . . A very few tribes only are not yet obstinately in these dispositions. In order peaceably to counteract this policy of theirs, and to provide an extension of territory which the rapid increase of our numbers will call for, two measures are deemed expedient. First: to encourage them to abandon hunting, to apply to the raising stock, to agriculture and domestic manufacture, and thereby prove to themselves that less land and labor will maintain them in this, better than in their former mode of living. The extensive forests necessary in the hunting life, will then become useless, and they will see advantage in exchanging them for the means of improving their farms, and of increasing their domestic comforts. Secondly: to multiply trading houses among them, and place within their reach those things which will contribute more to their domestic comfort, than the possession of extensive, but uncultivated wilds. . . . In leading them to agriculture, to manufactures, and civilization; in bringing together their and our settlements, and in preparing them ultimately to participate in the benefits of our governments, I trust and believe we are acting for their greatest good. . . .
Use the excerpt from Thomas Jefferson’s secret message to Congress to answer the question.
What does Jefferson suggest is the solution to the resistance Native Americans are putting up to continued settlement in the West?
A.
to turn them into small farmers connected to the nation’s markets
B.
to have them abandon their lands for the safety of the Mississippi River
C.
to expand trade with currently unknown Native Americans groups in the West
D.
to make them citizens of the new country and have them abandon their traditions