He saw them as equal, but at the same time “culturally retarded.” This basically means that they could become like white men if they were brought out of their savage and uncivilized state. They just had to figure out how to work within American culture. This is where you can see the difference between acculturation and assimilation. In this case, acculturation occurs when individual cultures are allowed to exist within American culture. A man can be a proud American while still being proud of his ethnicity and original culture. It's as if a culture adapts to survive alongside American ideals by incorporating some of them. This is what John Ross fights for when he later fights in court against President Jackson's Indian Removal Act of 1830. Ross himself is a wonderful example of what acculturation looks like. Being a Cherokee chief and a lawyer, he is a combination of Native American and British culture. However, what Jefferson is really pushing for is assimilation which influences the view of the Indians from now on. This is where a culture is replaced, completely transforming into American culture. To see how this works just look at White Anglo-Saxon Protestants (WASPs). This is also how the descriptive term “melting pot” actually works. It's as if all the ethnic groups ended up in the pot and the one produced was American. An idea like this can be compared to that of “killing