The 5 "Indian" Policies of the US

I did a show last week on those 5 policies. Thomas Jefferson, who is considered the most enlightened political philosopher of all US presidents, captures the intent and strategy of the US from its start in the paragraph below. Assimilation, Removal, Termination and Extermination are laid out in a single statement. His comments show his deceit and his utter lack of honor or integrity. Enlightened; my ass.

Jack Ahasteen captures the US concept of Self Determination in the cartoon below that.

"To promote this disposition to exchange lands, which they have to spare and we want, for necessaries, which we have to spare and they want, we shall push our trading uses, and be glad to see the good and influential individuals among them run in debt, because we observe that when these debts get beyond what the individuals can pay, they become willing to lop them off by a cession of lands.... In this way our settlements will gradually circumscribe and approach the Indians, and they will in time either incorporate with us as citizens of the United States, or remove beyond the Mississippi. The former is certainly the termination of their history most happy for themselves; but, in the whole course of this, it is essential to cultivate their love. As to their fear, we presume that our strength and their weakness is now so visible that they must see we have only to shut our hand to crush them, and that all our liberalities to them proceed from motives of pure humanity only. Should any tribe be foolhardy enough to take up the hatchet at any time, the seizing the whole country of that tribe, and driving them across the Mississippi, as the only condition of peace, would be an example to others, and a furtherance of our final consolidation." - Thomas Jefferson.

Self Determination on a Chain

Cartoon by Jack Ahasteen