Native American policy Monroe was the first president to visit the American West and entrusted Secretary of War Calhoun with departmental responsibility for this region. In order to prevent the relentless attacks on Native American settlements that accompanied the steadily advancing westward expansion, he advocated dividing up the areas between the federal territories and the Rocky Mountains and assigning them to different tribes for settlement. The districts were each to be given a civil government and a school system. In a speech to Congress on March 30, 1824, Monroe advocated the resettlement of Native Americans living within the territory of the United States to lands beyond the western frontier where they could continue their ancestral way of life. Nonetheless, he shared Jackson and Calhoun's concerns about sovereign Indian nations, believing they were an obstacle to the West's future development. Like Washington and Jefferson, he wished to present the Natives with the benefits of American culture and Western civilization for their own good, as well as to save them from extinction.
Native American policy Monroe was the first president to visit the American West and entrusted Secretary of War Calhoun with departmental responsibility for this region In order to prevent the relentless attacks on Native American settlements that accompanied the steadily advancing westward expansion he advocated dividing up the areas between the federal territories and the Rocky Mountains and assigning them to different tribes for settlement The districts were each to be given a civil government and a school system In a speech to Congress on March 30 1824 Monroe advocated the resettlement of Native Americans living within the territory of the United States to lands beyond the western frontier where they could continue their ancestral way of life Nonetheless he shared Jackson and Calhoun's concerns about sovereign Indian nations believing they were an obstacle to the West's future development Like Washington and Jefferson he wished to present the Natives with the benefits of American culture and Western civilization for their own good as well as to save them from extinction