Response To Thomas Jefferson

Response Paper #3

Do the primary sources provide evidence of Jefferson 's fears about the threat posed by blacks and Indians to the republic? What did he plan to do with each group?

Throughout Thomas Jefferson’s life time, he had owned hundreds of black slaves. He had obtained these slave through inheritance, trade, and in marriage by the year 1776 Jefferson had become one of the largest plantation owners in Virginia. Then in 1778, with Jefferson 's leadership, he had made slave importation banned in Virginia. It was one of the first jurisdictions in the world to ban the slave trade.

In the primary sources they tell us that Jefferson had wished to ended slavery. Jefferson felt slavery was a “crime” and he was also against the slave trade. At the time Jefferson was one of the few people to speak up against slavery. However, Jefferson biggest fear was that if the

When Jefferson became the president he tried to make these changes a reality. Jefferson 's expectation was that by assimilating the natives into a market-based, so they would be heavily dependent on trade with white Americans, then they would be more willing to sale their land. Jefferson believed that this strategy would "get rid of this pest, without giving offence or umbrage to the Indians" However, if they were to resisted the assimilation, Jefferson then believed that they should be forcefully removed from their land and sent west. His first promotions of Indian Removal were between 1776 and 1779, when he recommended forcing the Cherokee and Shawnee tribes to be driven out of their ancestral homelands to lands west of the Mississippi River. According to Jefferson, the Indian removal was the only way to ensure the survival of Native American