Jan. 18th, 1803.
Gentlemen of the Senate, and of the House of Representatives:
As the continuance of the act for establishing trading houses with the Indian tribes will be under the consideration of the Legislature at its present session, I think [will talk about that now].
The Indian tribes residing within the limits of the United States, have, for a considerable time, been growing more and more uneasy at the constant [shrinking] of the territory they occupy, although effected by their own voluntary sales: and the policy has long been gaining strength with them, of refusing absolutely all further sale … _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
In order peaceably to counteract [their] policy [of not selling their land], and to provide an extension of territory which the rapid increase of our numbers will call for, two measures are deemed expedient. First: to encourage them to abandon hunting, to apply to the raising [live] stock, to agriculture and domestic manufacture, and thereby prove to themselves that less land and labor will maintain them in this, better than in their former mode of living. The extensive forests necessary in the hunting life, will then become useless, and they will see advantage in exchanging them for the means of improving their farms, and of increasing their domestic comforts. _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Secondly: to multiply trading houses among them, and place within their reach those things which will contribute more to their domestic comfort, than the possession of extensive, but uncultivated wilds. [Over time, they will learn to] exchange what they can spare and we want, for what we can spare and they want. In [doing this] I trust and believe we are acting for their greatest good.
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An intelligent officer, with ten or twelve chosen men, fit for the enterprise, and willing to undertake it, taken from our posts, where they may be spared without inconvenience, might explore the whole line, even to the Western Ocean, have conferences with the natives on the subject of commercial intercourse, get admission among them for our traders, as others are admitted, agree on convenient deposits for an interchange of articles, and return with the information acquired, in the course of two summers. Their arms and accoutrements, some instruments of observation, and light and cheap presents for the Indians, would be all the apparatus they could carry, and with an expectation of a soldier's portion of land on their return, would constitute the whole expense. Their pay would be going on, whether here or there.
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Our nation seems to owe to the same
object, as well as to its own interests, to explore this, the only line of easy
communication across the continent, and so directly traversing our own part of
it. The interests of commerce place the principal object within the
constitutional powers and care of Congress, and that it should [accidentally]
advance the geographical knowledge of our own continent, cannot be but an
additional gratification. The nation claiming the territory, regarding this as
a literary pursuit, which is in the habit of permitting within its dominions,
would not be disposed to view it with jealousy, even if the expiring state of
its interests there did not render it a matter of indifference. The
appropriation of two thousand five hundred dollars, "for the purpose of
extending the external commerce of the
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