48 Treaty of Lancaster. 1744. number of two hundred and fifty-two, with squaws and little children on horseback, and with their fire-arms, and bows, and arrows, and tomahawks, and, as they passed the coust-house, invited the white men with a song to renew their former treaties. On the outskirts of the town, vacant lots had been chosen for the savages to build their wigwams upon, and thither they marched on with Conrad Weiser, their friend and interpreter,* while the Virginians "drank the loyal healths," and finished their entertainment. After dinner they went out to look at their dark allies, who had few shirts among them, and those black from wear, and who were very ragged and shabby; at all which the well-clad and high-fed colonists bit their lips, but feared to laugh. That afternoon the chiefs and commissioners met at the court-house, "shaked hands," smoked a pipe, and drank "a good quantity of wine and punch." The next day, being Saturday, the English went "to the Dunkers' nunnery," and the Indians drank, and danced, and shrieked. Monday, the speaking began, to the satisfaction of all parties, and ended merrily with dancing, and music, and a great supper. On Tuesday and Wednesday, also, speeches were made, varied by dances, in which appeared some very disagreeable women, who "danced wilder time than any Indians." On Thursday the goods were opened, wherewith the Maryland people wished to buy the Indian claim to the lands on which settlements had been made. These goods were narrowly scanned by the red men, but at last taken for £220 Pennsylvania money, after which they drank punch. Friday, the Six Nations agreed to the grant desired by the Marylanders, and punch was drunk again; and, on Saturday, a dinner was given to the chiefs, "at which," says Marshe, "they fed lustily, drank heartily, and were very greasy before they finished." At this dinner, the Indians bestowed on the governor of Maryland the name of Tocaryhogon, meaning "Living in the honorable place." After this came much drinking, and when that had gone forward some time, the Indians were called on to sign the deed which had been drawn up, and the English again "put about the glass, pretty briskly." Next, the commissioners from Virginia, supported by a due quantity of wine and bumbo,† held their conference with the Indians, and received from them "a deed releasing their claim to a large quantity of *For some idea of Weiser, see Proud's History of Pennsylvania, vol. ii., p. 316, where a long letter by him is given. Day's Historical Collections of Pennsylvania, 134. + Rum and water. 1748. Ohio Company proposed. 49 land lying in that colony;" the Indians being persuaded to “recognise the king's right to all lands that are, or by his majesty's appointment shall be, within the colony of Virginia." For this they received £200 in gold, and a like sum in goods, with a promise that, as settlements increased, more should be paid, which promise was signed and sealed. We need make no comment upon this deed, nor speculate upon the probable amount of bumbo which produced it. The commissioners from Virginia, at this treaty of Lancaster, were Colonel Thomas Lee and Colonel William Beverly.* On the 5th of July, every thing having been settled satisfactorily, the commissioners left "the filthy town" of Lancaster, and took their homeward way, having suffered much from the vermin and the water, though when they used the latter would be a curious enquiry. Such was the treaty of Lancaster, upon which, as a corner-stone, the claim of the colonists to the west, by purchase, rested; and upon this, and the grant from the Six Nations, Great Britain relied in all subsequent steps. As settlements extended, and the Indians murmured, the promise of further pay was called to mind, and Weiser was sent across the Alleghanies to Logstown, in 1748,† with presents, to keep the Indians in good humor; and also to sound them, probably, as to their feeling with regard to large settlements in the west, which some Virginians, with Colonel Thomas Lee, the Lancaster commissioner, at their head, were then contemplating. The object of these proposed settlements was not the cultivation of the soil, but the monopoly of the Indian trade which, with all its profits, had till that time been in the hands of unprincipled men, half civilized, half savage, who, through the Iroquois, had from the earliest period penetrated to the lakes of Canada and com Plain Facts, being an Examination, &c., and a Vindication of the Grant from the Six United Nations of Indians to the Proprietors of Indiana vs. the Decision of the Legislature of Virginia. Pp. 29-39. Philadelphia: R. Aitken. 1781. Sparks' Washington, vol. ii. p. 480. Marshe's Journal. The whole proceedings may be found in Colden's History of the Iroquois, given with proper formal solemnity. + Plain Facts, pp. 40, 119, 120. Sparks' Washington, vol. ii. p. 478. Scarce any thing was known of the old Ohio Company, until Mr. Sparks' inquiries led to the note referred to; and even now so little is known, that we cannot but hope some Historical Society will prevail on Charles Fenton Mercer, formerly of Virginia, who holds the papers of that Company, to allow their publication. No full history of the West can be written, until the facts relative to the great land companies are better known. 50 Companies for Western Trade. 1749. peted everywhere with the French for skins and furs.* now proposed in Virginia to turn these fellows out of their good berth beyond the mountains, by means of a great company, which should hold lands and build trading-houses, import European goods regularly, and export the furs of the west in return to London. Accordingly, after Weiser's conference with the Indians at Logstown, which was favorable to their views, Thomas Lee, with twelve other Virginians, among whom were Lawrence and Augustine, brothers of George Washington, and also Mr. Hanbury of London, formed an association which they called the "Ohio Company," and in 1748, petitioned the king for a grant beyond the mountains. This petition was approved by the monarch, and the government of Virginia was ordered to grant to the petitioners half a million of acres within the bounds of that colony, beyond the Alleghanies, two hundred thousand of which were to be located at once. This portion was to be held for ten years free of quitrent, provided the company would put there one hundred families within seven years, and build a fort sufficient to protect the settlement; all which the company proposed, and prepared to do at once, and sent to London for a cargo suited to the Indian trade, which was to come out so as to arrive in November, 1749. Other companies were also formed about this time in Virginia, to colonize the west. Upon the 12th of June, 1749, a grant of 800,000 acres, from the line of Canada, north and west, was made to the Loyal Company; and, upon the 29th of October, '57, another, of 100,000 acres to the Greenbriar Company.t But the French were not blind all this while. They saw, that, if the British once obtained a strong-hold upon the Ohio, they might not only prevent their settlements upon it, but must at last come upon their lower posts, and so the battle be fought sooner or later. To the danger of the English possessions in the west, Vaudreuil, the French governor, had been long alive. Upon the 10th of May, 1744, he wrote home representing the consequences that must come from allowing the British to build a trading-house among the Creeks; and, in November, 1748, he anticipated their See Charlevoix, first and second vol. in many places; especially i. 502, 515, ii. 133, 269, 373. The English were at Mackinac as early as 1686. + Revised Statutes of Virginia, by B. W. Leigh, ii. 347. Pownall's Memorial on Service in America, as before quoted. Vaudreuil came out as Governor of Canada in 1755.-Massachusetts Historical Collections, vol. vii., p. 105. See also Holmes' Annals, vol. ii. p. 23. 1749. Celeron sent to Ohio. 51 seizure of Fort Prudhomme, which was upon the Mississippi below the Ohio. Nor was it for mere sickly missionary stations that the governor feared; for, in the year last-named, the Illinois settlements, few as they were, sent flour and corn, the hams of hogs and bears, pickled pork and beef, myrtle wax, cotton, tallow, leather, tobacco, lead, iron, copper, some little buffalo wool, venison, poultry, bear's grease, oil, skins, and coarse furs, to the New Orleans market. Even in 1746, from five to six hundred barrels of flour, according to one authority, and two thousand according to another, went thither from Illinois, convoys annually going down in December with the produce. Having these fears, and seeing the danger of the late movements of the British, Gallisoniere, then governor of Canada, determined to place, along the Ohio, evidences of the French claim to, and possession of, the country; and for that purpose, in the summer of 1749, sent Louis Celeron, with a party of soldiers, to place plates of lead, on which were written out the claims of France, in the mounds, and at the mouths of the rivers. Of this act, William Trent, who was sent out in 1752, by Virginia, to conciliate the Indians, heard while upon the Ohio, and mentioned it in his Journal; and, within a few years, one of the plates, with the inscription partly defaced, has been found near the mouth of the Muskingum. Of this plate, the date upon which is August 16th, 1749, a particular account was sent, by De Witt Clinton, to the American Antiquarian Society, in whose second volume (p. 535-541) the inscription may be found at length. By this step, the French, perhaps, hoped to quiet the title to the river, "Oyo"; but it produced not the least result. In that very year, we are told, a trading-house was built by the English, upon the Great Miami, at the spot since called Loramie's Store ;|| while, from another source we learn, that two Pownall's Memorial. +Ibid. Representations to Earl of Hillsborough, 1770, quoted in Filson's Kentucky, 1784: also, in Hutchins' Geographical Description, p. 15. Sparks' Washington, vol. ii. p. 430.-Atwater's History of Ohio, first edition, p. 109. -Transactions of the American Antiquarian Society, vol. ii. pp. 535-541. De Witt Clinton received the plate mentioned in the text from Mr. Atwater, who says it was found at the mouth of the Muskingum, though marked as having been placed at the mouth of the Venango (Yenangue) River, (French Creek, we presume.) Celeron wrote from an old Shawanee town on the Ohio, to Governor Hamilton of Pennsylvania, respecting the intrusion of traders from that colony into the French dominions.-Minutes of the Council of Pennsylvania, quoted in Dillon's History of Indiana, i. 66. Contest in America, by an Impartial Hand. Once this writes speaks of this post as upon the Wabash, but he doubtless meant that on the Miami. 52 Gist visits Twigtwees. 1751. traders were, in 1749, seized by the French upon the Maumee. At any rate, the storm was gathering; the English company was determined to carry out its plan, and the French were determined to oppose them. During 1750, we hear of no step, by either party; but in February, 1751, we find Christopher Gist, the agent who had been appointed by the Ohio Company to examine the western lands, upon a visit to the Twigtwees or Tuigtuis, who lived upon the Miami River, one hundred and fifty miles from its mouth.* In speaking of this tribe, Mr. Gist says nothing of a trading-house among them, (at least in the passage from his Journal quoted by Mr. Sparks,) but he tells us, they left the Wabash for the sake of trading with the English; and we have no doubt, that the spot which he visited was at the mouth of Loraime's Creek, where, as we have said, a trading-house was built about or before this time. Gist says, the Twigtwees were a very numerous people, much superior to the Six Nations, and that they were formerly in the French interest. Wynne speaks of them as the same with the Ottowas; but Gist undoubtedly meant the great Miamis confederacy; for he says that they are not one tribe, but " tribes, under the same form of government," Gist went as far down the Ohio as the Falls, and was gone seven months, though the particulars of his tour are yet unknown to us; his Journal, with the exception of one or two passages published by Mr. Sparks, and some given in the notes to Imlay and Pownall's account of the West, still resting in manuscript.‡ many different Upon this journey Having thus generally examined the land upon the Ohio, in November Gist commenced a thorough survey of the tract south See Harrison's Discourse, already quoted.-Franklin, following a Twigtwee chief present at Carlisle, in 1753, (Minutes of that Council, p. 7. Sparks' Franklin, vol. iv. p. 71,) speaks of the Piankeshaws, a tribe of the Twigtwees; and again, of the Miamis or Twigtwees (ibid. vol. iii. p. 72.) The name is spelt in the Minutes of the Provincial Council of Pennsylvania, Twechtwese, and they are described as those Indians, called by the French, Miamis, (iii. 470) On Evans' map, of 1755, they are called Tawixtwi, and are mentioned among the confederated nations, of the west.-See also General Harrison's letter of March 22, 1814, in McAfee, p. 43. Pownall's typography is in Imlay, edition of 1797, London, from p. 82 to 129. From Evans' map, first published in 1755, and republished in 1776, we learn that Gist crossed the mountains near the heads of the Cumberland, went down the Kentucky River some distance, thence crossed to the mouth of the Scioto, which stream he followed up, and afterwards turning east, went across the Muskingum to Fort Pitt: the year in which he did this is not given, nor do we know whether the route is laid down in Evans' first edition of 1755. |