Indians in the Curriculum:
20 Handouts for Middle and High School
History and Social Studies
By Kerry Dunne

Handout 3 Resources: Report to President Washington, 1789

Background:

By Secretary of War Henry Knox, June 15, 1789, quoted in Ronald N. Satz, “Chippewa Treaty Rights: The Reserved Rights of Wisconsin’s Chippewa Indians in Historical Perspective,” Wisconsin Academy of Science, Arts, and Letters, 1991, p. 5, and reprinted in Classroom Activities on Chippewa Treaty Rights, compiled by Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, 1991.

Report of Secretary Knox to President Washington, June 15, 1789

It is highly probable, that, by a conciliatory system, the expense of managing the said Indians, and attaching them to the United States for the next ensuing period of fifty years, may, on an average, cost 15,000 dollars annually.

A system of coercion and oppression, pursued from time to time, for the same period, as the convenience of the United States might dictate, would probably amount to a much greater sum of money ... but the blood and injustice which would stain the character of the nation, would be beyond all pecuniary calculation.

As the settlements of the whites shall approach near to the Indian boundaries established by treaties, the game will be diminished, and the lands being valuable to the Indians only as hunting grounds, they will be willing to sell further tracts for small considerations. By the expiration, therefore, of the above period, it is most probable that the Indians will, by the invariable operation of the cause which have hitherto existed in their intercourse with the whites, be reduced to a very small number.

Activities 3: Report to President Washington, 1789