8409. TERRITORY, Purchases of Indian.—[further continued].
As a means of increasing
the security, and providing a protection for our
lower possessions on the Mississippi, I think it
also all important to press on the Indians, as
steadily and strenuously as they can bear, the
extension of our purchases on the Mississippi
from the Yazoo upwards; and to encourage a
settlement along the whole length of that river,
that it may possess on its own banks the means
of defending itself, and presenting as strong
a frontier on our western as we have on our
eastern border. We have, therefore, recommended
to Governor Dickinson taking, on the
Tombigbee, only as much as will cover our
actual settlements, to transfer the purchase from
the Choctaws to their lands westward of the
Big Black, rather than the fork of Tombigbee
and Alabama, which has been offered by them in
order to pay their debt to Ponton and Leslie.
I have confident expectations of purchasing this
summer a good breadth on the Mississippi, from
the mouth of the Illinois down to the mouth of
the Ohio, which would settle immediately and
thickly; and we should then have between that
settlement and the lower one, only the uninhabited
lands of the Chickasaws on the Mississippi;
on which we could be working at both
ends. You will be sensible that the preceding
views, as well those which respect the European
powers as the Indians, are such as should
not be formally declared, but be held as a rule
of action to govern the conduct of those within
whose agency they lie; and it is for this reason
that instead of having it said to you in an official
letter, committed to records which are
open to many, I have thought it better that
you should learn my views from a private and
confidential letter, and be enabled to act upon
them yourself, and guide others into them.—
To Governor Claiborne. Washington ed. iv, 487.
(W.
May. 1803)
