Thomas Jefferson said it would take a thousand years to settle the Mississippi Valley
the verdict
CONTESTED
contested - evenly split
refutedsupported
the weight of evidence
1 source for · 1 against
AS REPORTEDno primary record reached; this is what the reporting says
Historical inquiries and reference discussions explore whether Thomas Jefferson made the statement, while source notes suggest differing accounts of his views on the Mississippi Valley.
... Thomas Jefferson believed in a policy called Indian Removal. This meant moving all Indians to Indian Territory, the lands west of the Mississippi River. Jefferson thought this policy would ... said it would take a thousand years for ...
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# Did Thomas Jefferson say it would take "a thousand years" to settle the Mississippi Valley?
Tags: united-states, quotes
- Score: 17
- Views: 2531
- Answers: 1
- Answered: yes
- Asked by: reschultzed (173 rep)
- Asked: 2016-10-09
- Edited: 2016-10-09
- Site: skeptics
## Question
The earliest source I can find for this claim through Google Books is a 1910 geography textbook, which gives a date for the quotation (1803), but no further sources for it.
A social studies journal at the University of Minnesota published the same quote in 1915, this time going further to state that he was referring to the area between the Mississippi and Ohio rivers (modern-day Illinois and Indiana), which seems absurd considering that both of these became states within his lifetime.
It crops up again in the 1920 World Book encyclopedia and a report on the 1960 United States Census, both times without citing any of it.
There are plenty of articles, both in print and online that make the same claim, but none of them cite any of Jefferson's speeches or writings, or even each other. Can anyone corroborate this?
## Answers
### Answer by DavePhD (score: 8 [ACCEPTED])
An earlier source is the 1889 His