Views On American Indians
While travelling overland throughout the American West, Jedediah's policy with the Native Americans was to maintain friendly relations with gifts and exchanges. However, if Jedediah felt Indians were being hostile to his party, he would make a demonstration by having one or two Natives killed with a rifle. This was done to discourage any further tribal aggression against him and his party. Smith punished his men for indiscriminately shooting Indians without any perceived threat to his party. Smith's reluctance to kill American Indians was due to his Methodist faith and training. Smith held contemporary beliefs that Native Americans were for the most part intellectually inferior to whites and considered untrustworthy. Smith stated that Indians were "children of nature"; a link between animals and humans.
Read more about this topic: Jedediah Smith
Famous quotes containing the words views, american and/or indians:
“No work of art ever puts forward views. Views belong to people who are not artists.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“One American said that the most interesting thing about Holy Ireland was that its people hate each other in the name of Jesus Christ. And they do!”
—Bernadette Devlin (b. 1947)
“It was very agreeable, as well as independent, thus lying in the open air, and the fire kept our uncovered extremities warm enough. The Jesuit missionaries used to say, that, in their journeys with the Indians in Canada, they lay on a bed which had never been shaken up since creation, unless by earthquakes.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)