1765. The French exciting the Indians against the English.

103

the river. The Kicapoos and Musquattimes whose warriors had taken us, live nigh the fort, on the same side of the river, where they have two villages; and the Ouicatanons have a village on the south side of the river. At our arrival at this post, several of the Wawcottonans, (or Ouicatonans) with whom I had been formerly acquainted, came to visit me, and seemed greatly concerned at what had happened. They went immediately to the Kicapoos and Musquattimes, and charged them to take the greatest care of us, till their chiefs should arrive from the Illinois, where they were gone to meet me some time ago, and who were entirely ignorant of this affair, and said the French had spirited up this party to go and strike us.

The French have a great influence over these Indians, and never fail in telling them many lies to the prejudice of his majesty's interest, by making the English nation odious and hateful to them. I had the greatest difficulties in removing these prejudices. As these Indians are a weak, foolish, and credulous people, they are easily imposed on by a designing people, who have led them hitherto as they pleased. The French told them that as the southern Indians had for two years past made war on them, it must have been at the instigation of the English, who are a bad people. However I have been fortunate enough to remove their prejudice, and in a great measure, their suspicions against the English. The country hereabouts is exceedingly pleasant, being open and clear for many miles; the soil very rich and well watered; all plants have a quick vegetation, and the climate very temperate through the winter. This post has always been a very considerable trading place. The great plenty of furs taken in this country, induced the French to establish this post, which was the first on the Ouabache, and by a very advantageous trade they have been richly recompensed for their labor.

August 1st. The Twightwee village is situated on both sides of a river, called St. Joseph. This river, where it falls into the Miame* river, about a quarter of a mile from this place, is one hundred yards wide, on the east side of which stands a stockade fort, somewhat ruinous.

The Indian village consists of about forty or fifty cabins, besides nine or ten French houses, a runaway colony from Detroit, during the late Indian war; they were concerned in it, and being afraid of punishment, came to this post, where ever since they have spirited up the Indians against the English. All the French residing here are a lazy, indolent people, fond of breeding mischief, and spiriting up the Indians against the English, and should by no means be suffered to remain here. The country is pleasant, the soil rich and well watered. After several con

* Miami of the Lake, or Maumee.

104

French and Indian Settlements.

1765.

conferences with these Indians, and their delivering me up all the English prisoners they had,

On the 6th of August we set out for Detroit, down the Miames river in a canoe.

August 17th. In the morning we arrived at the fort, which is a large stockade, inclosing about eighty houses, it stands close on the north side of the river, on a high bank, commands a very pleasant prospect for nine miles above, and nine miles below the fort; the country is thick settled with French, their plantations are generally laid out about three or four acres in breadth on the river, and eighty acres in depth; the soil is good, producing plenty of grain. All the people here are generally poor wretches, and consist of three or four hundred French families, a lazy, idle people, depending chiefly on the savages for their subsistence; though the land, with little labor, produces plenty of grain, they scarcely raise as much as will supply their wants, in imitation of the Indians, whose manners and customs they have entirely adopted, and cannot subsist without them. The men, women, and children speak the Indian tongue perfectly well. In the last Indian war the most part of the French were concerned in it, (although the whole settlement had taken the oath of allegiance to his Britanic Majesty) they have, therefore, great reason to be thankful to the English clemency in not bringing them to deserved punishment. Before the late Indian war there resided three nations of Indians at this place: the Putawatimes, whose village was on the west side of the river, about one mile below the fort; the Ottawas, on the east side, about three miles above the fort; and the Wyandotts, whose village lies on the east side, about two miles below the fort. The former two nations have removed to a considerable distance, and the latter still remain where they were, and are remarkable for their good sense and hospitality. They have a particular attachment to the Roman Catholic religion, the French, by their priests, having taken uncommon pains to instruct them.t

So stood matters in the West during this year, 1765. All beyond the Alleghanies, with the exception of a few forts, was a wilderness until the Wabash was reached, where dwelt a few French, with some fellow countrymen, not far from them upon the Illinois and Kaskaskia. The Indians, a few years since undisputed owners of the prairies and broad vales, now held them by sufferance, having been twice conquered by the arms of England. They, of course, felt both hatred and fear; and, while they despaired of holding their lands, and looked forward to unknown

Detroit.

+ Butler's History of Kentucky, from p. 465, to 470.

1766.

The Indian tribes not paid for their Lands

105

evils, the deepest and most abiding spirit of revenge was roused within them. They had seen the British coming to take their hunting-grounds upon the strength of a treaty they knew not of. They had been forced to admit British troops into their country; and, though now nominally protected from settlers, that promised protection would be but an incentive to passion, in case it was not in good faith extended to them.

And it was not in good faith extended to them by either individuals or governments. During the year that succeeded the treaty of German Flats, settlers crossed the mountains and took possession of lands in western Virginia, and along the Monongahela. The Indians, having received no pay for these lands, murmured, and once more a border war was feared. General Gage, commander of the King's forces, was applied to, probably through Sir William Johnson, and issued his orders for the removal of the settlers; but they defied his commands and his power, and remained where they were.* And not only were frontier men thus passing the line tacitly agreed on, but Sir William himself was even then meditating a step which would have produced, had it been taken, a general Indian war again. This was the purchase and settlement of an immense tract south of the Ohio river, where an independent colony was to be formed. How early this plan was conceived we do not learn, but, from Franklin's letters, we find that it was in contemplation in the spring of 1766.† At this time Franklin was in London, and was written to by his son, Governor Franklin, of New Jersey, with regard to the proposed colony. The plan seems to have been, to buy of the Six Nations the lands south of the Ohio, a purchase which it was not doubted Sir William might make, and then to procure from the King a grant of as much territory as the Company, which it was intended to form, would require. Governor Franklin, accordingly, forwarded to his father an application for a grant, together with a letter from Sir William, recommending the plan to the ministry; all of which was duly communieated to the proper department. But at that time there were various interests bearing upon this plan of Franklin. The old Ohio Company was still suing, through its agent Colonel George Mercer, for a perfection of the original grant. The soldiers claiming under Dinwiddie's proclamation had their tale of rights and grievances. Individuals, to Plain Facts, p, 65.

+ Sparks' Franklin, vol. iv. p. 233, et seq,

106

Walpole Company Organized.

1767.

whom grants had been made by Virginia, wished them completed. General Lyman, from Connecticut we believe, was soliciting a new grant similar to that now asked by Franklin; and the ministers themselves were divided as to the policy and propriety of establishing any settlements so far in the interior,- Shelburne being in favor of the new colony,- Hillsborough opposed to it.

The Company was organized, however, and the nominally leading man therein being Mr. Thomas Walpole, a London banker of eminence, it was known as the Walpole Company. Franklin continued privately to make friends among the ministry, and to press upon them the policy of making large settlements in the West; and, as the old way of managing the Indians by superintendents was just then in bad odor in consequence of the expense attending it, the cabinet council so far approved the new plan as to present it for examination to the Board of Trade, with members of which Franklin had also been privately conversing.

This was in the autumn of 1767. But, before any conclusion was come to, it was necessary to arrange definitely that boundary line, which had been vaguely talked of in 1765, and with respect to which Sir William Johnson had written to the ministry, who had mislaid his letters, and given him no instructions. The necessity of arranging this boundary was also kept in mind by the continued and growing irritation of the Indians, who found themselves invaded from every side. This irritation became so great during the autumn of 1767, that Gage wrote to the Governor of Pennsylvania on the subject. The Governor communicated his letter to the Assembly on the 5th of January, 1768, and representations were at once sent to England, expressing the necessity of having the Indian line fixed. Franklin, the father, all this time, was urging the same necessity upon the ministers in England; and about Christmas of 1767, Sir William's letters on the subject having been found, orders were sent him to complete the proposed purchase from the Six Nations, and settle all differences. But the project for a colony was for the time dropped, a new administration coming in which was not that way disposed.

Sir William Johnson having received early in the spring, the orders from England relative to a new treaty with the Indians, at once took steps to secure a full attendance.* Notice was given

to the various colonial governments, to the Six Nations, the Dela

* For an account of this long-lost treaty see Plain Facts, pp. 65-104, or Butler's Kentucky, 2nd edition, pp. 472–488.

1768.

Treaty at Fort Stanwix.

107

wares, and the Shawanese, and a congress was appointed to meet at Fort Stanwix during the following October (1768). It met upon the 24th of that month, and was attended by representatives from New Jersey, Virginia, and Pennsylvania; by Sir William and his deputies; by the agents of those traders who had suffered in the war of 1763; and by deputies from all the Six Nations, the Delawares and the Shawanese. The first point to be settled was the boundary line which was to determine the Indian lands of the West from that time forward; and this line the Indians, upon the 1st of November, stated should begin on the Ohio, at the mouth of the Cherokee (or Tennessee) river; thence go up the Ohio and Alleghany to Kittaning; thence across to the Susquehannah, &c.; whereby the whole country south of the Ohio and Alleghany, to which the Six Nations had any claim, was transferred to the British. One deed for a part of this land, was made on the 3d of November to William Trent, attorney for twenty-two traders, whose goods had been destroyed by the Indians in 1763. The tract conveyed by this was between the Kenawha and Monongahela, and was by the traders named Indiana. Two days afterwards, a deed for the remaining western lands was made to the King, and the price agreed on paid down.* These deeds were made upon the express

There was also given two deeds of lands in the interior of Pennsylvania, one to Croghan, and the other to the proprietaries of that colony.

Filson (London edition, 1793, p. 10) speaks of two other deeds given by the Iroquois at Fort Stanwix, but mentions no year; one was to Col. Donaldson for the lands from the Kentucky to the Great Kenhawa. Col. D. ran the line from six miles above Long Island in Holsten to the mouth of the Gt. Kenhawa, in 1770-1; (see post ;) and his deed seems to have been after this, from Filson's account. The other deed was to Dr. Walker and Gen. Lewis. (Thomas Walker was commissioner for Virginia at the Stanwix treaty of 1768— was this Dr. Walker? His name was Thomas. Holmes' Annals, ii. 304, note.) Dr. Walker and Colonel Lewis, in 1769, were employed to convince the superintendent of the southern Indians, Mr. Stewart, that the claim of the Iroquois extended to Kentucky. (Butler, 2d edition, 14.) Marshal (i. 15) refers to Donaldson's deed, but we find no confirmation of Filson's statement that it was given by the Iroquois. (See Butler, 2nd edition, 14.) We presume the true explanation of the whole matter is that given by Judge Hall, in his Sketches, vol. i. p. 248, which we extract.

"John Donaldson, the surveyor who traced this line [that from the Holston from six miles above Big Island to the Kenawha, under the treaty of Lochaber] by an appointment from the president and council of Virginia, states, in a manuscript affidavit which we have seen, that, in the progress of the work, they came to the head of Louisa, now Kentucky river, when the Little Carpenter (a Cherokee Chief) observed that his nation delighted in having their lands marked out by natural bounderies; and proposed that, instead of the line agreed upon at Lochaber as aforesaid, it should break off at the head of Louisa river, and run thence to the mouth thereof, and thence up the Ohio to the mouth of the Great Kenhawa.' This boundary was accordingly agreed to by the surveyor. It is further stated, by the same authority, that leave having been granted, by the king of Great Britain, to treat with the Cherokees for a more extensive boundary than that which had been established at the treaty of Hard Labour, provided the Virginians