I was recently reading about President Thomas Jefferson’s treatment of Native Americans who resided west of the Appalachians. Quite frankly, he was rather ruthless in his treatment of them as he desired their land for the sake of American expansion. In effect, he basically made them an offer they couldn’t refuse. Steven Charleston explains Jefferson’s plan well writing,
“It moved according to the Jeffersonian model: to manipulate a handful of collaborators to cede land, whether it was theirs or not, through the use of alcohol and bribes; to force individual Native people into debt to the company store, so their land could be seized in payment; and to physically attack any who resisted and force them out of the United States, so their land would be taken by conquest and so their peers were cowed into submission (54).”
Much ink and coverage have been spilled about Thomas Jefferson being against slavery, but still owning slaves, as well as his relationship with Sally Hemings. Yet, I must confess I was not aware of the details of this part of his presidency concerning the Northwest territories of what is today Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. Being a history major in college, I was well aware of his role as a founding father, his Virginian sensibilities, and his concern for states’ rights. Yet, this I somehow overlooked or forgot. Reading his words to Governor Harrison about what he was going to do to the indigenous peoples of that area can also be read as the words of a sociopath or megalomaniac. Of course, this is not how Thomas Jefferson is remembered, and understandably so. We human beings are complicated after all. However, when compared to many other “great” leaders, whether George Washington, Octavian Caesar, or Charlemagne, there is a consistent pattern of viciousness or ruthlessness in getting what they want that certainly wouldn’t be considered ethical or moral on a less grander scale.
Thinking about these things I couldn’t help but recall the words of Charles Bukowski that I recently came across, “your best men die in alleys under a sheet of paper while your worst men get statues in parks for pigeons to shit upon for centuries.” I can’t say I was mildly surprised to learn of what President Jefferson did to various Native American tribes. This is largely due not just to my own historical knowledge but also my own experience with those in positions of leadership, however limited it might be. Over the past decade, I have been afforded certain experiences that have created within me an automatic hermeneutic of suspicion when it comes to the actions of those in charge, whether religious or political. It is hard for me to believe that someone can get to the top of an organization by being honest and a person of integrity. This is why I resonate so much with Bukowski’s words. We are not simply talking of character flaws so much as a deep-seated habitus and way of being in the world that can be rather ruthless. As Game of Thrones’ Sansa Stark said of the terrible King Joffrey as he was going off to battle, “The bad ones always come back.”
Yet, all too often, it is the bad ones that we revere, praise, and look to for leadership. We seem to never learn. We lack the ability to imagine a different world, failing to recognize that this inability is the result of living in a world where “alphas” reign supreme, thereby dictating the terms. Thus, operating in their world for so long, it’s hard to imagine a different world. Instead of doing a fierce moral inventory on ourselves, we continue projecting our strengths (and weaknesses) outward. We look for that quick fix that comes in the form of inspiring rhetoric, emotional comfort, and the miraculous in the form of worldly success. We confess the cross, we even wear it around our necks, rightfully believing it to be the means of our salvation, but not as the thing we must carry in all its scandal and ugliness. How might our perceptions be different if we also viewed the world through this same scandalous cross and its ugliness? Recalling that those we so quickly revere and look to lead us are like the ones who put Jesus to death?
Quote taken from Steven Charleston, We Survived the End of the World: Lessons From Native America On Apocalypse and Hope, (Minneapolis: Broadleaf, 2023), 54.
A Foolish Way 