Tocqueville examines the predicament of the native inhabitants of America, identifying four major causes of their decline and suffering: malicious settler governments, the customs of the natives themselves, the vast gap between the ways of life of settlers and natives, and the natural and unintended consequences of settlement on the availability of game.

 

While Tocqueville recognizes the impacts of the dishonest and inadequate treatment by settler governments of the native inhabitants, such as moving them to a far-off territory for their preservation only to fail to preserve them in this new territory when white settlement eventually reaches this territory, he is more impressed by the negative impacts which occur despite any ill will on the part of the settlers or their governments.

 

He outlines how when the boundaries of white settlement are pushed further out, the game in the surrounding areas for as much as 600 miles is scared away. Without food to hunt anymore, the natives follow the game away, or start to starve. This leaves new territory for hundreds of miles to appear “empty” to the settlers, who eventually push out further still. Tocqueville remarks of this phenomenon: “Their influence is thus exerted over tribes whose name is unknown to them; and who suffer the evils of usurpation long before they are acquainted with the authors of their distress (p.391).” He concludes: “Properly speaking, therefore, it is not the Europeans who drive away the native inhabitants of America; it is famine which compels them to recede; a happy distinction which had escaped the casuists of former times, and for which we are indebted to modern discovery (p. 392)!” This sounds very similar to the impact that smallpox and other diseases had on the natives in North America, which made it appear that much of the continent was virtually uninhabited.

 

Given this phenomenon, Tocqueville argues that the natives had but two choices, fight or assimilate. He notes that some resistance was offered in the beginning, but without an imperative, at that time, for all tribes to work together, there was no lasting military success and that, now, with the increased numbers of settlers, there would be no chance for military success going forward. This left only assimilation as an option; but Tocqueville identifies a number of features that made adoption of this option unlikely, including the customs of the natives themselves and the great differences between the two groups.

 

First, Tocqueville reports that: “The native of North America retains his opinions and the most insignificant of his habits with a degree of tenacity which has no parallel in history. For more than two hundred years the wandering tribes of North America have had daily intercourse with the whites, and they have never derived from them either a custom or an idea (p. 387 footnote).” He states further: “The Indian, on the contrary, has his imagination inflated with the pretended nobility of his origin, and lives and dies in the midst of these dreams of pride. Far from desiring to conform his habits to ours, he loves his savage life as the distinguishing mark of his race, and he repels every advance to civilization, less perhaps from the hatred which he entertains for it, than from a dread of resembling the Europeans (p.387).” He provides some explanation for this. “Of all nations, those submit to civilization with the most difficulty which habitually live by the chase (p. 396).” He even notes that this reluctance to pick up the plow applies to whites who get a taste of a freer way of life: “Men who have once abandoned themselves to the restless and adventurous life of the hunter, feel an insurmountable disgust for the constant and regular labour which tillage requires (p. 397).” Even more strongly is this felt, Tocqueville argues, for those who have been steeped in this culture by birth. So adopting the practices of Europeans was a particularly steep challenge for the natives, whose culture was adamantly opposed to such a way of life, not to mention the pride in their and, only their, culture as worthy of a human being. As Tocqueville says: “Not that he is devoid of admiration for the power and intellectual greatness of the whites; but… he still believes in his superiority. War and hunting are the only pursuits which appear to him worthy to be the occupations of a man (p. 397).”

 

In addition to this, however, Tocqueville surmises that even if the natives were inclined to quit the chase, joining European civilization would prove daunting. He provides a few examples to show how the English (whom he considers the most advanced nation in Europe), competing against either the French or the Mexicans (Spanish), end up being the “masters of commerce and manufacture” among the competing groups. This leads him to remark: “If the different degrees – comparatively so slight – which exist in European civilization produce results of such magnitude, the consequences which must ensue from the collision of the most perfect European civilization with Indian savages may readily be conceived (p. 403 footnote).” Indeed, he points to the experience of native agriculture and finds the following: “When the Indians undertake to imitate their European neighbors, and to till the earth like the settlers, they are immediately exposed to a very formidable competition. The white man is skilled in the craft of agriculture; the Indian is a rough beginner in an art with which he is unacquainted. The former reaps abundant crops without difficulty, the latter meets with a thousand obstacles in raising the fruits of the earth (p. 402).” So even if the natives were inclined to give up their way of life and become agriculturists, they would struggle to be successful in such a competitive environment. This leaves them in a position of either being in the lowest rungs of society and prosperity, or deciding to go back to the way of life they knew, in which they could at least have an element of pride.

 

Finally, Tocqueville comments on the role the settler governments played in helping or hindering the advancement of the natives. It is not a favourable account. As I referenced in the beginning of this post, governments (particularly the federal government), not always maliciously it sounds like, took the approach of offering to move natives to areas free from settlers. This, unfortunately, was often as a result of the poor treatment at the hands of the State governments (particularly in the South) who, it would appear, tried to make life difficult for the tribes that remained and had committed to farming (anyone calling themselves “chief,” for example, faced a large fine and a year’s imprisonment under Mississippi law, according to Tocqueville). Tocqueville says bluntly: “If we consider the tyrannical measures which have been adopted by the legislatures of the Southern States, the conduct of their Governors, and the decrees of their courts of justice, we shall be convinced that the entire expulsion of the Indians is the final result to which the efforts of their policy are directed (p. 405).”

 

The federal government was more sympathetic, but its inability, it would appear, to follow through on its commitments to the natives meant that its policies were just as damaging. Tocqueville points out how the fragility of the Union often meant that the federal government was reluctant to oppose the state governments as vigorously as it would have needed to do to protect the natives. In addition, it was simply too weak to actually provide the military protection that would have been needed to uphold their commitments. The result, Tocqueville notes, is that despite laws and commitments to protect the natives, in reality the two governments ended up acting in concert to oppress them. Worse, it was like a bad cop, good cop situation, in which the states made life unbearable for the natives (bad cop), and the federal government provided a promise of relief (good cop), which led the natives to abandon their lands which they may not otherwise have done in the absence of the federal government’s promise. In short, Tocqueville says: “… the two governments are alike destitute of good faith (p. 407).”

 

In conclusion, Tocqueville does not have high hopes for the prospects of the native inhabitants of America. Between the practices of the governments, the workings of settlers inadvertently scaring game from hundreds of miles away, and the natural reluctance and inherent challenges of natives adopting European ways of life, Tocqueville sees only continued destruction. In situations where two civilizations or groups come into contact, says Tocqueville, one of which is more powerful militarily and the other of which is more intellectually advanced, the two sides can come to benefit and grow from each other. However, Tocqueville notes, foreseeing the future: “But when the side on which the physical force lies, also possesses an intellectual preponderance, the conquered party seldom become civilized; it retreats, or is destroyed (p. 400).”