General Statement of Indian Policy

As President George Washington’s Secretary of War, Henry Knox was responsible for Indian affairs. During the first year of Washington’s presidency, Know wrote a letter to the president in which he described in some detail his views on Indian policy. Written in January 1790, this document is the closest thing we have to a comprensive statement of the early Indian policies of Knox and Washington.

Knox discusses the cost of war and peace with the Indian Nations along the Southwestern frontier. He speculates on the size of an army necessary to engage hostile Indians along this vast expanse of territory. He concludes that peace and diplomacy are much less costly than war: “A comparative view of the expenses of a hostile or conciliatory system towards the Indians, will evince the infinite economy of the latter over the former.” (In an earlier letter, Knox had made the same claim, only in more specific terms: “…the expence of managing the said Indians and attaching them to the United States for the ensuing period of fifty years may on average cost 15,000 dollars annually. A system of coercion and oppression for the same period…would probably amount to a much greater sum of money.”)

He references the practice of providing gifts to subjugated people by European nations which he believes to be the safest way to manage Indians: “It seems to have been the custom of barbarous nations, in all ages, to expect and receive presents from the more civilized, and custom seems confirmed by modern Europe, with respect to Morocco, Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli.” In this instance, the “barbarous nations” are the Indian tribes and the “more civilized” is the United States. He worries that if the U.S. does not provide the presents, they will be provided by the Europeans to the detriment of American interests. “Is the situation of the United States such, with respect to the neighboring European colonies, as to render it good policy at this time to annihilate the Indian customs, and expectations of receiving presents, and thereby disgusting them in such a manner as to induce them to connect themselves more closely with the said colonies?”

He declares that Native Americans, like all peoples, possess the natural rights of man that “ought not wantonly to be divested thereof.” Regarding the crucial question of Indian land, he asserts that the land is theirs unless legally acquired by the United States under the auspices of the federal government. No state may purchase Indian land without the permission of the federal government: “Should any State, having the right of preemption, desire to purchase territory, which the Indians should be willing to relinquish, it would have to request the General Government to direct a treaty for that purpose, at the expense, however, of the individual State requesting the same.”