Editing Five Civilized Tribes (section)

===18th century===
[[File:Trails of Tears en.png|thumb|Routes of [[Southern United States|southern]] removals to the first Indian Territory of the Five Civilized Tribes]]

President [[George Washington]] and [[Henry Knox]], the first [[Secretary of War]], implemented a policy of cultural transformation in relation to Native Americans.{{Citation needed|date=January 2025}} The Cherokee and Choctaw tended, in turn, to adopt and appropriate certain cultural aspects of the federation of colonies.

In 1776, assembled in [[Philadelphia]], the [[Second Continental Congress]] unanimously adopted the [[United States Declaration of Independence|Declaration of Independence]], which was largely written by [[Thomas Jefferson]]. American independence was subsequently achieved by the victory of the [[Continental Army]], led by [[George Washington]], in the [[American Revolutionary War]] and codified in the [[Treaty of Paris (1783)|Treaty of Paris]] in 1784.

The Five Tribes generally adopted cultural practices from Americans that they found useful. Tribal groups who had towns or villages closer to European-descendant Americans, or interacted more with them through trading or intermarriage, took up more of such new practices. Those towns that were more isolated tended to maintain their traditional cultures.<ref name=perdue>{{cite book|last=Perdue|first=Theda|title=Mixed Blood Indians: Racial Construction in the Early South|year=2003|publisher=The University of Georgia Press|chapter=Chapter 2 "Both White and Red"|page=51|isbn=0-8203-2731-X}}</ref> George Washington promulgated a doctrine that held that Indian Americans were biologically equals, but that their societies were inferior. He formulated and implemented a policy to encourage civilizing them, which [[Thomas Jefferson]] continued and expanded.<ref name=remini_reform_begins>{{cite book |last = Remini |first = Robert |title = Andrew Jackson |orig-date = 1977|year=1998 |publisher=History Book Club |chapter = The Reform Begins |page = 201 |id = {{Listed Invalid ISBN|0-9650631-0-7}} }}</ref> Historian [[Robert Remini]] wrote that the American leaders "presumed that once the Indians adopted the practice of [[private property]], built homes, farmed, educated their children, and embraced [[Christianity]], these Native Americans would win acceptance from Americans of European descent.<ref name="remini_reform_begins" />

George Washington's six-point plan included: regulating the buying of Indian lands, promoting commerce with the tribes, promoting experiments to civilize or improve Indian society, authorizing [[President of the United States|presidential]] authority to bestow presents on the tribes, and punish those who violated Indian rights.<ref name=eric_miller>{{cite web |url = http://www.dreric.org/library/northwest.shtml |title = George Washington And Indians |access-date = 2 May 2008 |last = Miller |first = Eric |year = 1994| publisher=Eric Miller}}</ref>

The [[Federal government of the United States|US government]] appointed Indian agents, such as [[Benjamin Hawkins]] in the [[Southeastern United States|Southeast]], to live among Indians and to encourage them, through example and instruction, to assimilate and adopt the lifestyle of White settlers.<ref name="perdue"/> The tribes of the Southeast adopted Washington's policy as they established schools, took up yeoman farming practices, converted to [[Christianity]], and built homes similar to those of their colonial neighbors.<ref name=eric_miller /> These five tribes also adopted the practice of chattel slavery: holding enslaved African Americans as forced workers.<ref name="Smith"/>

{{Quote|How different would be the sensation of a philosophic mind to reflect that instead of exterminating a part of the human race by our modes of population that we had persevered through all difficulties and at last had imparted our Knowledge of cultivating and the arts, to the Aboriginals of the Country by which the source of future life and happiness had been preserved and extended. But it has been conceived to be impracticable to civilize the Indians of North America – This opinion is probably more convenient than just. |[[Henry Knox]] letter to [[George Washington]], July 7, 1789<ref>[https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/05-03-02-0067 "To George Washington from Henry Knox, 7 July 1789," National Archives]</ref>}}

Following the establishment of independence following the American Revolutionary War, Americans pushed into the interior and into the Deep South, areas that were still largely dominated by Native Americans. The invention of the [[cotton gin]] made cultivation of short-staple cotton profitable in the interior, and settlers encroached on Native American lands in the Upper South, including western [[Georgia (U.S. state)|Georgia]], and the future states of [[Alabama]], [[Louisiana]], and [[Mississippi]]. They demanded the chance to cultivate these lands for agriculture. Armed conflicts occurred between some of the tribes and the settlers, who kept pushing west and [[Territorial evolution of the United States|acquired additional territories]] through negotiated treaties with European colonial powers and sometimes by force.