Indian Removal
With good intentions, McCoy began in 1823 to advocate that the Indian nations of the East be moved west “beyond the frontiers of the White settlement.” He believed that getting the tribes to their own, isolated places, away from the reach of those white men that were exploiting them, would give them a better chance of surviving — and becoming good Christians. McCoy’s ideas for removal of the Indians were not new, but he promoted successfully the new idea that the U.S. government should fund “civilization programs” to educate the Indians and make of them farmers and Christians. McCoy expanded his concept later to propose the creation of an Indian state making up most of the land area of Kansas, Oklahoma, and Nebraska.
Although McCoy thought of himself as the future leader of Indian Canaan (as he called it) he had little confidence in his fellow missionaries. They never accomplished more than ‘to soften the pillows of the dying’ and had “too recently been transplanted from the sterile plains of religious bigotry, to expand with liberal views of the character, and of the just rights of man.” Rather he placed his faith in the government to create for the Indians “a country of their own” where they could “feel their importance, where they can hope to enjoy, unmolested, the fruits of their labours, and their national recovery need not be doubted.” His proposed Indian colony, to become subsequently a Territory and then a State within the United States, would be guided by a benign U.S. government and missionaries with whiskey dealers and dishonest merchants banned.
What McCoy failed to foresee was that the frontier of White settlement was expanding so rapidly that his Indian Canaan would be overrun by White settlers before Indians could enjoy “unmolested, the fruits of their labours.” Moreover, he overestimated the good will and capacity of the government. During the great Indian Removal forced on the Indians by the U.S. government in the 1830s and later, thousands of Indians would die of neglect and arrive at their new homes impoverished and starving, such as those on the Trail of Tears.
Read more about this topic: Isaac Mc Coy
Famous quotes containing the words indian and/or removal:
“Land of opportunity, land for the huddled masses—where would the opportunity have been without the genocide of those Old Guard, bristling Indian tribes?”
—Edward Hoagland (b. 1932)
“Many a reformer perishes in his removal of rubbish,—and that makes the offensiveness of the class. They are partial; they are not equal to the work they pretend. They lose their way; in the assault on the kingdom of darkness, they expend all their energy on some accidental evil, and lose their sanity and power of benefit.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)