1829 Andrew Jackson - To Preserve This Much-Injured Race

Was Andrew Jackson the "Father of Genocide"?  History has not judged President Jackson kindly regarding Indian Removal, nor did some of his contemporaries like Henry Clay and Daniel Webster, but here in his first State of the Union we find Andrew Jackson appealing to the greater sense of Congress to do whatever they could to save "this much-injured race".  Perhaps, these are just words, but in 1829 we find Andrew Jackson expressing his concerns that it may be too late to find a way to change the fate of the Indians unless Congress intercedes. 

In the 1600's, a dispute erupted among the Connecticut Pequot Indians, and Uncas and his followers left and called themselves Mohegan or Wolf people.  The Mohegan favored collaboration with the English, and when war broke out against the Pequot tribe, they befriended the Europeans and fought alongside to defeat the Pequot.  In the 1700's the tribe's new head chief Samson Occum was an ordained Christian Indian Minister who raised money for a New England Christian Indian School but disappointed his tribe when the Connecticut Colony ruled that the Mohegans would receive no compensation for the land the colony purchased. Eventually, the school moved to Hanover, New Hampshire, where it became Dartmouth College.   By 1775, Occum and the Mohegans had become so  disenchanted with the European socio-economy that they joined with tribesman from the Peqout, Narragansett, Montauk and others in a plan to build a Indian Utopia far away from the European invaders.  They planed an expedition to Brothertown, New York, but the outbreak of the American Revolution in 1776 halted the group's exodus as they joined the joined the Colonists against the King. 

After the war, the Mohegans once again wanted to escape to Brothertown. This time for social and economic reasons.  The Mohegan were seeing their native lifestyle changed dramatically as traditional Buckskin garments were being replaced with the bright colors of wool and cotton and their beads of shell and wood now being replaced with European glass.  They feared their whole way of life would change as their hunting and corn-growing was being replaced by fenced in crops and domesticated animals.  Despite assisting the Colony of Connecticut in American Revolution and every war prior, the tribe became destitute and relied on petitioning the Colony for assistance.  They complained that there hunting, and fowling and fishing was entirely gone, and they were forced to work the land, keep horses, cattle and hogs and fence in their crops.  It was a foreign way of life for them, and they were unable to provide for the tribe as they once did when an abundance of nuts, wild fruits and ground beans filled the land. 

As of 1790, the Mohegans held only about 2,700 acres of land and despite federal law that forbade Indian land sales without federal permission , the State of Connecticut chose to allow purchase of the land to suit its own interests.  Despite what some historians describe as "state land theft", the Mohegans remained in Connecticut.  They resisted any Federal relocation efforts by claiming to already be "civilized" and "Christianized", even going as far as building a Christian church and school on their reservation in 1831.  The Mohegans may have been civilized and working their own farms, but they were a destitute tribe relying on the assistance of the United States Federal government.  This fact did not escape President Andrew Jackson during his first State of the Union address.  Andrew Jackson was a man of the frontier and did not fail to notice the hypocrisy of the Northeast when it came to their condemnation of how the western states were dealing with the Indian tribes.   In the months before the Indian Removal Act would begin the forced relocation of the Cherokee and Creek tribes from Georgia and Alabama, Jackson took the time to point out the sad fate of the great tribes of the Northeast that went before them.  Their anger and rage at what Georgia and Alabama were doing to "Choctaw, the Cherokee, and the Creek" was no different than the fate that the "Mohegan, the Narragansett, and the Delaware faced" at their own hands. 

With the fate of these tribes in mind, Jackson used his first State of the Union Address to urge Congress to act to "avert so great a calamity". Jackson lamented, "By persuasion and force they have been made to retire from river to river and from mountain to mountain, until some of the tribes have become extinct and others have left but remnants to preserve for a while their once terrible names."  (the term terrible was not derogatory, but rather it referred to great power and might).   By his own words, Jackson was not on a genocidal mission, but rather he was pleading with Congress to make one last effort to save these great nations.  "That this fate surely awaits them if they remain within the limits of the States does not admit of a doubt".   There was nothing the federal government could do to stop them, "That step can not be retraced".  Each state had the constitutional power to control their own land and require any inhabitants to follow their laws or emigrate to new lands.  Unless the federal government interceded, Jackson believed the fate of the Indian tribes were sealed, and he reached out to the humanity and national Honor of America to make every effort "to preserve this much-injured race". Jackson's words cannot change history nor the judgement of his actions, but we may learn from them nevertheless.

"Our conduct toward these people is deeply interesting to our national character. Their present condition, contrasted with what they once were, makes a most powerful appeal to our sympathies. Our ancestors found them the uncontrolled possessors of these vast regions. By persuasion and force they have been made to retire from river to river and from mountain to mountain, until some of the tribes have become extinct and others have left but remnants to preserve for a while their once terrible names. Surrounded by the whites with their arts of civilization, which by destroying the resources of the savage doom him to weakness and decay, the fate of the Mohegan, the Narragansett, and the Delaware is fast over-taking the Choctaw, the Cherokee, and the Creek. That this fate surely awaits them if they remain within the limits of the States does not admit of a doubt. Humanity and national honor demand that every effort should be made to avert so great a calamity. It is too late to inquire whether it was just in the United States to include them and their territory within the bounds of new States, whose limits they could control. That step can not be retraced. A State can not be dismembered by Congress or restricted in the exercise of her constitutional power. But the people of those States and of every State, actuated by feelings of justice and a regard for our national honor, submit to you the interesting question whether something can not be done, consistently with the rights of the States, to preserve this much-injured race."

What Jackson had in mind, was to allow the Indians to have land of their own where they could live and govern as they wish.   In my next post, I will share his plan for a voluntary emigration to lands west of the Mississippi, and what eventually became the "trail of tears". 

References

Presidency.ucsb.edu. (2018). First Annual Message | The American Presidency Project. [online] Available at: https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/first-annual-message-3 [Accessed 13 Nov. 2018].

Fawcett, M. (1995). The Lasting of The Mohegans. Uncasville, Connecticut: The Mohegan Tribe, pp.16-20.

Mohegan.nsn.us. (2018). Our History | Mohegan Tribe History | The Mohegan Tribe. [online] Available at: https://www.mohegan.nsn.us/explore/heritage/our-history [Accessed 16 Nov. 2018].


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