Remarks on Thomas Jefferson’s Draft of an Address to the Indians, [13 March 1793]
Remarks on Thomas Jefferson’s Draft of
an Address to the Indians
[Philadelphia, March 13, 1793.] “Recd. from … [the Secretary of State] a draft of an Assurance of friendship & protection & an Extract from the law regulating trade & intercourse with the Indian Tribes,1 proposed to be given to the several Indian Tribes.… The drafts intended for the Indians, mentioned above, were put into the hands of the Secry of the Treasury for his opinion; who thought the extract from the laws might be given them in the way proposed without any inconvenience; but doubted whether the promise of protection &c. might not at some time produce inconveniencies.”
, 75.
1. The draft of this proclamation and the extracts may be found in the Thomas Jefferson Papers, Library of Congress. The extracts consist of Sections 4, 5, 8, and 10 of “An Act to regulate Trade and Intercourse with the Indian Tribes” ( 329–32 [March 1, 1793]). The proclamation provided that the Indian tribe to which it was issued was “under the Protection of the United States of America: And all Persons citizens of the United States and others of whatever country or condition are hereby warned not to commit any Injury, Trespass or Molestation whatever on the persons, lands, Hunting-grounds, or other Rights or Property of the said Indians.”