The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. 8 (of 9): Being His Autobiography, Correspondence, Reports, Messages, Addresses, and Other Writings, Official and PrivateJefferson, Thomas
History
The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. 8 (of 9): Being His Autobiography, Correspondence, Reports, Messages, Addresses, and Other Writings, Official and Private
Jefferson, Thomas
United States -- Politics and government -- 1775-1783; United States -- Politics and government -- 1783-1865
we wish to be forced to spill it with our own hands. You have
travelled through our country from the lakes to the tide waters.
You have seen our numbers in that direction, and were you to
pass along the sea shore you would find them much greater.
You know the English numbers, their scattered forts and string
of people, along the borders of the lakes and the St. Lawrence,
how long do you think it will take us to sweep them out of the
country? and when they are swept away, what is to become of
those who join them in their war against us? My children, if
you love the land in which you were born, if you wish to inhabit
the earth which covers the bones of your fathers, take no part
in the war between the English and us, if we should have war.
Never will we do an unjust act towards you. On the contrary,
we wish to befriend you in every possible way; but the tribe
which shall begin an unprovoked war against us, we will extirpate
from the earth, or drive to such a distance as that they shall
never again be able to strike us. I tell you these things my
children, not to make you afraid. I know you are brave men
and therefore cannot fear. But you are also wise men and prudent
men. I say it, therefore, that, in your wisdom and prudence,
you may look forward. That you may go to the graves
of your fathers and say, "fathers, shall we abandon you?" That
you may look in the faces of your wives and children and ask,
"shall we expose these our own flesh and blood to perish from
want in a distant country and have our race and name extinguished
from the face of the earth?" Think of these things,
my children, as wise men, and as men loving their fathers, their
wives and children, and the name and memory of their nation.
I repeat, that we will never do an unjust act towards you. On
the contrary, we wish you to live in peace, to increase in numbers,
to learn to labor as we do, and furnish food for your increasing
numbers, when the game shall have left you. We wish
to see you possessed of property, and protecting it by regular
laws. In time, you will be as we are; you will become one
people with us. Your blood will mix with ours; and will spread,
with ours, over this great island. Hold fast then, my children,
the chain of friendship which binds us together, and join us in
keeping it forever bright and unbroken.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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