34 The convenience of this philosophy for American expansionists is evident in the
writings of western leaders, especially on the heels of the aggressive policies of the
Jefferson administrations. Tennessee governor Willie Blount, in discussing claims on
Cherokee and Chickasaw lands in Tennessee, frankly stated to Andrew Jackson in 1809
that "we really do own the lands claimed by those nations within our limits, the
uncontrolled jurisdiction over it we must sooner or later have and exercise." The
following year, William Henry Harrison asked the Indiana territorial legislature: "Is one
of the fairest portions of the globe to remain in a state of nature, the haunt of a few
wretched savages, when it seems destined by the Creator to give support to a large
population, and to be the seat of civilization, of science and true religion?" And what
God could not accomplish, man could: an 1813 petition to the Tennessee legislature
seeking a road from southern Tennessee to the Mobile region indicated that the proposed
route would not encroach on any Indian settlements but "even if it should, the sacrifice is
so essential to the future opulence and political prosperity of this section of the country as
in the opinion of the undersigned as to justify its forcible accomplishment if necessary."
At the conclusion of the Creek War, land-thirsty speculators and settlers were licking their lips over Creek territory and looking forward to a time when the conquered land
"will flourish under the vivifying auspices of civilization & industry, and enrich the
inhabitants of the South and West."l3
"Willie Blount to Andrew Jackson, 28 December 1809, in Harold D. Moser and Sharon Macpherson, eds., Papers of Andrew Jackson,. Volume IL !804-1813 (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1984),226-227. Hamson quoted ill Joyce Appleby, Lynn Hunt, and Margaret Jacob, Telling the Truth About History (New York: Norton, 1994), 114. Legislative Petitions, Record Group 60 (TSLA), 1813, Folder 33-3. Clarion, 7 June 1814.