Nobody Remembers Benjamin Franklin and the Indians

Nobody Remembers

On May 9, 1754, a political cartoon in Benjamin Franklin’s Pennsylvania Gazette depicted a snake cut into eight pieces, each section representing a part of the American colonies; the caption read, “JOIN, or DIE.”

I wonder if Benjamin Franklin would have ever believed that his famous drawing would now be an icon on tee-shirts and flags, and sold in every Mall in the year 2013?

Benjamin Franklin was such an important part of our founding, it’s a wonder that more of his words are not taught in school. While John Adams once remarked that Ben Franklin never followed his own witty sayings, unless you are a historian, you probably missed some of his other opinions: Like the one he had on Indians.

Here’s’ some quotes from:The Futility of Educating the Indians, from a letter he wrote to Peter Collinson, on May 9, 1753.

The proneness of Human nature to a life of ease, of freedom from care and labor, appears strongly in the little success that has hitherto attended every attempt to civilize our American Indians. In their present way of living, almost all their wants are supplied by the spontaneous productions of nature with the addition of very little labor, if hunting and fishing may indeed be called labor, where game is so plenty. They visit us frequently and see the advantages that arts, sciences, and compact societies procure us. They are not deficient in natural understanding: and yet they have never shown any inclination to change their manner of life for ours to learn any of our arts.

He goes on to point out, that whenever the Indians lived among the whites, or even were educated at Harvard, they wanted to go back home and live out their lives as Indians. But when they did go home, the Chiefs thought their education was good for nothing, because they didn’t know how to survive.

His theory on why some cultures are superior to others was this:

So that I am apt to imagine that close societies, subsisting by labor and art, arose first, not from choice but from necessity, when numbers, being driven by war from their hunting grounds and prevented by seas, or by other nations for obtaining other hunting grounds were crowded together into some narrow territories, which without labor could not afford them food.

And he ends with this comment on ‘welfare’

They should, therefore have every encouragement we can invent, and not one motive to diligence subtracted, and the support of the poor should not be by maintaining them in idleness but by employing them in some kind of labor suited to their abilities of body as I am informed, begins to be of late the practice in many parts of England where workhouses are erected for that purpose. If these were general, I should think the poor world be more careful and work voluntarily to lay up something for themselves against a rainy day, rather then run the risk of being obliged to work at the pleasure of others for a bare subsistence and that too under confinement.

Ben tells us that the Indians, did not want to be Americans. Just like the Muslims don’t want to become Americanized.

Back in Franklins’ day, it was believed if you could work, you should. And that perhaps when forced to start working, you would then see that the future is much brighter than living off of welfare. Lessons that would be lost on ‘President’ Obama.

These are the lessons that should be taught in a history class.  A teacher could use Franklin’s words to start all kinds of lively discussions in the classroom about today’s world.

The great Thomas Sowell came to much the same conclusion as Franklin, the physical terrain where you’re people are from play a big part in the culture you grow up with.  The Indians didn’t want to become Europeans.  Go down this road and you open up a whole can of moral issues don’t you?

The elites of the world are still trying to make all the cultures ‘merge.” They are trying to stuff the round pegs into the square holes. History has shown that it usually doesn’t end well.

The Indians eventually lost their hunting grounds, because they didn’t have a Benjamin Franklin.

May 9, 2013 Posted by Joyanna Adams | American Culture, American History, Uncategorized | Ben Franklin, History, Indians | 3 Comments