Conclusion
At issue in the relations between the Indians and the white population was a continuous conflict of cultures. Throughout the processes of negotiating treaties and formulating Indian policies, the United States government espoused certain assumptions about the character of the Indians which affected the nature of the proceedings. Americans generally believed that the Indians were racially inferior, even while they whole-heartedly urged the Indians to become civilized and to adopt the ways of the white man. President Jefferson criticized the Indians' use of land as being unproductive, and he implored them to become "yeoman farmers." Few Americans understood that Indians had no concept of private land ownership, though the Indians did recognize territorial claims for settlement and hunting. The federal government assumed a benevolent-paternalistic role in seeking to raise the Indians from a position of inferiority to some semblance of civility. Ironically, the Indians' brief encounter with civilization brought disaster upon them – drunkenness, disease, and intertribal warfare. Seeing the futility of trying to civilize the Native Americans, the government adopted new Indian policies – removal and confinement. In the meantime, the westward-moving settlers, following their expansionist desires, continued to look over the next hill and across the prairies stretching before them in hopes of ridding the land of hindrances to further development of their civilization. Consequently, the government implemented policies to alleviate the existing problems. As the white settlers gazed over those lands before them, they could probably see the remnants of the Indian nations vacating their lands and moving further west. Speckled Snake, a Creek chief, expressed the sentiments of many Indians when he said, "I have listened to great many talks from our great father (President). But they always began and ended in this - `Get a little further; you are too close to me.'"
Additional Readings:
I. Tribes
Anson, Bert, The Miami Indians, University of Oklahoma Press, 1970.
Edmunds, R. David, The Potawatomies: Keepers of the Fire, University of Oklahoma Press, 1978.
Rafert, Stewart, The Miami Indians of Indiana, Indianan University Press, 1996.
Swanton, John R., The Indian Tribes of North America, Washington D.C., 1953.
Weslager, C.A.,The Delaware Indians: A History, Rutgers University Press, 1972.
Weslager, C.A., The Delaware Indian Westward Migration, Middle Atlantic Press, 1978.
II. Policies and Treaties
Kappler, Charles J., ed.,Indian Affairs: Laws and Treaties, Washington D.C., 1904.
Prucha, Francis P., American Indian Policy in the Formative Years, University of Nebraska Press.
Prucha, Francis P., Documents of United States Indian Policy, University of Nebraska Press, 1975.
Satz, Ronald, American Indian Policy in the Jacksonian Era; University of Nebraska Press, 1975.
White, Richard, The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 164-1815, Cambridge University Press, New York, 1991.
III. Indiana
Esarey, Logan, History of Indiana, Hoosier Heritage Press, 1970.
Gipson, Lawrence H., Moravian Indian Mission on the White River, Indiana Historical Bureau.
Hicks, Ronald, Native American Cultures in Indiana, Minnetrista Cultural Center, Muncie, 1992.
Messages and Papers of the Governors of Indiana, Indiana Historical Bureau.
John Tipton Papers, Indiana Historical Bureau, 1942; Gayle Thornbrough, ed.
Letter Book of the Indian Agency at Fort Wayne, 1809-1815, Indiana Historical Bureau, 1961.
Rafert, Stewart, The Miami Indians of Indiana, Indianan University Press, 1996.