Essay 44: De Tocqueville: “A Few Remarks On The Present Day State And The Probable Future Of The Three Races Which Live In The Territory Of The United States” (Vol. 1 Pt. 2 Ch. 10, Subch. 1)
Essay Read by Constituting America Founder, Actress Janine Turner
The essays in our study reference the following edition of Democracy In America: University of Chicago Press – 1st edition translated by Harvey Mansfield and Delba Winthrop. Today’s essay references pages 302 (bottom half) – 325 of this edition of Democracy in America.
Democracy in America recounts Alexis de Tocqueville’s reflections on his extensive travels in America. In the chapter under discussion (Volume 1, Part Two, Chapter 10), he considers the present and probable futures of the three races [the white man, the Negro and the Indian] that inhabit the territory of the United States. De Tocqueville found the three races to be naturally distinct and inimical to each other. Fortune had gathered them together and mixed them without the ability to intermingle, to the end that each pursued its own destiny. My focus is De Tocqueville’s answer to the question, vis a vis the Indian, “What is to be the future of the Indians?” He saw it as bleak. Very bleak. To the point of extinction.
Before the arrival of the white man in North America, the Indians lived tranquilly in the woods. “The Europeans, after having dispersed the Indian tribes far into the wilderness, condemned them to a wandering and vagabond life full of inexpressible miseries” (305). The author laments that many of the Indian tribes that formerly inhabited New England no longer exist. As Indian nations were forced further into the interior of the continent, large populations of colonists grew in their place. Such dispersal obscured their traditions, interrupted their memories, changed their habits, and increased their needs beyond measure. They became “more disordered and less civilized than they already were” (305). When the Indians lived alone in the woods, they hunted or made what they needed. Such self-sufficiency could not last: hunting alone could no longer satisfy their needs. The more remote tribes living beyond the Mississippi could still hunt the buffalo herds whose migrations could be followed. Famine forced migration. Before them is war. Misery is everywhere.
In 1831, De Tocqueville found himself on the Mississippi River. He saw a large number of Choctaws arrive; they had left their country and sought to cross the Mississippi where they thought they would find the refuge that the American government promised them. Alas, the government very rarely kept them. Half-convinced and half-compelled, the Indians had to move again, and again, to inhabit new wildernesses, where the whites would hardly leave them in peace for ten years (312). Thus, North American Indians had only two options for salvation: war or civilization (312-3). In the South, the “Cherokees and the Creeks, have found themselves almost surrounded by Europeans who, disembarking on the shores of the ocean, descending the Ohio, and traversing the Mississippi, arrived all around them at the same time. They were not chased from place to place, as were the Northern tribes, but, little by little, they were pressed together within narrowing limits” (315). When the Indians succeeded at farming, their white neighbors offered them prices that seemed high to them, but they took the money and moved on.
“President Washington had said…We are more enlightened and more powerful than the Indian nations; it is to our honor to treat them with goodness and even with generosity.’ This noble and virtuous policy has not been followed. “The tyranny of the government is ordinarily added to the greed of the colonists” (320). For sure, many states failed to recognize Indian tribes as independent peoples. [A series of Supreme Court cases in the 1830’s confirms such conduct.]
Unable to protect the Indians, the Federal government transported them to other places and maintained them there; in territory that had already been guaranteed to them. Today [i.e., the 1830’s], the American government does not take their lands away from them, but it allows them to be invaded. In a few years, doubtless, the expanding white population will again be on their heels; then they will again meet the same ills without the same remedies. Thus, the states, by their tyranny, force the savages to flee; the Union, by its promises and with the aid of its resources, makes flight easy. These are different measures tending to the same end.
De Tocqueville opined that the Indians’ right to their lands was never ceded, nor forfeited. The author questions whether the tribes’ troubles began when they were hostile to the United States, and sided with Great Britain during the struggle for independence. [My note: in the Declaration of Independence, the last charge made against the English King recounts “the long train of abuses and usurpations” against the colonists. “He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions.”]
Pushed westward by the white man’s quest for more land and his increasingly frequent breaches of treaty after treaty, the Indians lost their culture, language, and security, their very way of life. De Tocqueville foresaw the inevitable: “the Indian race of North America is condemned to perish” (312).
Robert Pence is a Washington D.C. native who attended Maryland University as an undergrad, American University for J.D. and two M.A. degrees, and Yale University from which he received a M.Phil. degree in Italian Language and Literature. President Donald Trump appointed Bob to serve as the American ambassador to Finland; he served in Helsinki from May, 2018 until January, 2021. He served for years on various educational, artistic and philanthropic boards including The Kennedy Center, the Wolftrap Foundation, the World Affairs Council and American University. The is currently a member of boards of George Mason University (VA) and The Gary Sinise Foundation.
He is particularly proud to serve on Gary Sinise’s board where he joins with other equally committed citizens in support of the men and women of the Armed Forces of the United States, police, and first responders.
Mr. Pence’s wife Suzy serves on the National Advisory Board of Constituting America. The Pences are generous contributors to Constituting America, and their support has helped make our Online De Tocqueville Study possible. We thank you, Mr. Pence!
Click here to receive our Daily 90-Day Study Essay emailed directly to your inbox.
Click here for the essay schedule with today’s essay and previously published essays hyperlinked.
Hello! I’m Janine Turner, founder of Constituting America! “President Washington had said… ‘We are more enlightened and more powerful than the Indian nations; it is to our honor to treat them with goodness and even with generosity.’”
This topic, addressed brilliantly by both De Tocqueville and Bob Pence gives us pause, as do the words of Washington. Just like within our own individual character, we take inventory and try to acknowledge our wrongs. It is equally important to do this as citizens of a country. Washington’s words are an inspiration: with power comes responsibility, it should be our mandate to treat our fellow citizens and neighbors, with “goodness and even with generosity.” What are your thoughts?