History

Answer each question separate paragraphs
1) How were Jefferson’s views about blacks and Native Americans related to his fears about the preservation of republican society?

2) Do the primary sources provide evidence of Jefferson’s fears about the threat posed by blacks and Indians to the republic?

3) What evidence do the primary sources provide that African Americans and Indians were influenced by ideas about race or equality in the early republic?

4) Do the primary sources indicate that racial prejudice became more or less rigid in this period?

Be sure to cite/quote specific sources in support of your argument.

ANSWER

Jeffersonian Ideas

Jefferson held that Republicanism required a homogenous population unless the ‘others’ could be converted into what was referred to as republican machines. Failure to this and the nation will break into anarchy. He recognized that enslaving the black person violated his right to liberty but did not want to let him go as he was heavily indebted. He also thought that the white man would never be happy as long as the black man was his slave, For the Indians, he wanted them either assimilated or civilized or removed from the republic or exterminated.

Jefferson was apprehensive of the black race. He was in a dilemma as he says that it was not easy to hold the black slave or safely let him go. The slave revolt in Santa Domingo that was brutally quelled is evidence of his fears. As for Indians, Jefferson wanted to convert them from their hunting way of life into farmers.

Jefferson believed that both blacks and Indians had a moral sense of right and wrong. The revolts and resistance orchestrated by black people and Indians against the white republican show that they were influenced by ideas about race or equality in the early republic. Republicans successfully defeated the British. This inspired Jefferson’s ideas on black colonization and Indian assimilation.

Although Jefferson is presented as understanding the plight of blacks and Indians, the brutal nature of repression against the two races does not change but becomes more rigid. Jefferson does not recognize the black person as his equal in terms of intelligence. He also continues enslaving black people for the rest of his life. He also believes that the Indian should be removed from the republic or exterminated if he refuses assimilation.