The Correspondence of Thomas Jefferson
By Subject
INDIGENOUS AMERICAN TRIBES
I am safe in affirming, that the proofs of genius given by the
Indians of North America place them on a level with whites in the same
uncultivated state. The North of Europe furnishes subjects enough for
comparison with them, and for a proof of their equality. I have seen
some thousands myself, and conversed much with them, and have found in
them a masculine, sound understanding. I have had much information
from men who had lived among them, and whose veracity and good sense
were so far known to me, as to establish a reliance on their
information. They have all agreed in bearing witness in favor of the
genius of this people. As to their bodily strength, their manners
rendering it disgraceful to labor, those muscles employed in labor
will be weaker with them, than with the European laborer; but those
which are exerted in the chase, and those faculties which are employed
in the tracing an enemy or a wild beast, in contriving ambuscades for
him, and in carrying them through their execution, are much stronger
than with us, because they are more exercised. I believe the Indian,
then, to be, in body and mind, equal to the white man. I have supposed
the black man, in his present state, might not be so; but it would be
hazardous to affirm, that, equally cultivated for a few generations,
he would not become so.
to Chastellus (Marquis de), 7 June 1785
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