II.

Western posts, the surrender of which had been stipu- CHAPTER lated by the treaty of peace, were still withheld. The question as to the negroes carried away by the evacuat- 1789. ing armies was also unsettled, and a new dispute began now to be added as to the identity of the River St. Croix, designated in the treaty of peace as forming in part the eastern boundary of the Union.

The return of Adams having left the United States without any representative at the British court, Washington authorized Gouverneur Morris, who was then in Europe, to ascertain whether, if another minister were appointed, the British government would reciprocate the compliment, and also what their views might be as to carrying into full execution the treaty of peace and entering into commercial arrangements. A promise to reciprocate the appointment of a minister was readily made, but on the other points Morris could obtain little satisfaction; nor was his pride altogether untouched at the indifference with which America and her claims seemed to be regarded in Great Britain.

Interesting as they might be, the relations of the United States with foreign nations were yet of less immediate and pressing importance than the state of affairs with the powerful Indian tribes along the Western and Southern frontier. Since the peace with Great Britain, treaties had been negotiated with most of the tribes which had taken part against the United States during the war; with the Six Nations at Fort Stanwix (Oct. 27, 1784), with the Wyandots, Delawares, Chippewas, and Ottawas at Fort M'Intosh (Jan. 21, 1785), and with the Cherokees at Hopewell (Nov. 28, 1785). Acting apparently upon the principle that by the cession of Great Britain the United States had obtained an absolute title to all the territory within their nominal lim

CHAPTER its, the American negotiators, in case of all these treaties, II. had undertaken to assign boundaries to the Indians, with1789. out giving them any consideration for the lands they were

thus required to relinquish. This departure from the uniform usage of the late colonies, and the established practice of the British Indian agents, had naturally enough given great dissatisfaction to the Indians—a feeling which had been strongly expressed in a speech or memorial from a confederate council held at the Huron village, near the entrance of the Detroit River into Lake Erie (Nov., 1786), at which were represented not only the tribes above named, but several others also of the more distant West. In consequence of their repreJan. 9. sentations, two new treaties had recently been held at

Fort Harmar, under the authority of the Continental Congress, one with the Six Nations, the other with the Wyandots, Delawares, Ottawas, Chippewas, Potawatomies, and Sacs, by which the former treaties had been confirmed with some new provisions; allowances, payable in goods, having also been made, to the Six Nations of $3000, to the other tribes of $6000, in consideration of their respective cessions.

But to these new treaties the tribes on the Wabash had not been parties; and they still kept up, by occasional expeditions, the hostilities so long carried on against the settlers in Kentucky. The parties of Kentuckians who crossed the Ohio to retaliate were apt to attack, without much discrimination, any Indians whom they might happen to meet; and some unfortunate instances had recently occurred in which Indian parties belonging to tribes at peace with the United States had been thus recklessly assailed; indeed, the danger was great that the whole body of the Northwestern Indians might thus be driven again to lift the hatchet.

II.

The number of warriors on the Wabash was estima- CHAPTER ted by the War Department at from fifteen hundred to two thousand; those in the whole region between the 1789. Ohio and the Lakes at five thousand; giving, according to the usual estimate of one warrior to four persons, a total Indian population in the territory northwest of the Ohio of twenty thousand. But the true number was considerably larger, perhaps nearly twice as many. This estimate did not include the Six Nations, with whom two particular treaties had recently been negotiated, one by Oliver Phelps as purchaser of the preemption right of Massachusetts, under the recent arrangement between that state and New York as to their mutual claims to lands west of the Delaware; the other by the State of New York itself, with the Onondagas and Oneidas. By these two treaties, in consideration of certain stipulated payments, large cessions had been made in the fertile district of Western New York, the Indians, however, still retaining extensive reservations. The tide of immigration, and its forerunner, the tide of speculation, were beginning to set strongly upon these lands, and the Indians were in danger of being stripped even of their reservations under color of leases which certain land speculators sought to obtain of them.

The Oneidas had given evidence of some advance in civilization by adopting a written form of government, founded in part on their ancient usages, but adopting many ideas from their white neighbors, among others, a partial distribution of the lands of the tribe among individuals, and the establishment of a school for instruction in English. The Stockbridge Indians, and some other fragments of the aboriginal tribes of New England, had been established on the Oneida reservation. The Cayugas and Oneidas had steadfastly adhered to the interests

CHAPTER of New York throughout the whole Revolutionary war,

II. in consequence of which they had been at one period 1789. driven from their homes by the British party among the Six Nations, and exposed thereby to great sufferings. The Mohawks, under the influence of the Johnsons, had emigrated to Canada early in the war; and, as they had always adhered to the British, their lands, including the whole region north of the Mohawk River, were regarded by the State of New York as conquered territory, though a portion of this region continued to be claimed by the Cagnawagas, or French Mohawks, who dwelt now in the neighborhood of St. Regis.

The Indians south of the Ohio, still more numerous, were hardly less formidable than those north of that river. The warriors of the four great southern confederaciesthe Cherokees, the Creeks, the Chickasaws, and the Choctaws-were estimated to amount to fourteen thousand, giving a total population of about seventy thousand. The Chickasaws, inhabiting that portion of the present state of Tennessee west of the Tennessee River, and the Choctaws, dwelling principally on the head waters of the Pearl and Pascagoula, and extending thence to the Mississippi, being too far removed from the frontiers to be exposed to collision with the back settlers, had always been on good terms with the Anglo-Americans, and the friendship established with those tribes by the treaties of Hopewell (1786, Jan. 3, June 12) still remained unbroken. The case was very different with the Cherokees and the Creeks, brought into immediate and irritating collision with the frontier settlers of the. Carolinas and Georgia. The Cherokees claimed the Cumberland River as their northern boundary, their territory embracing the larger portion of the present state of Tennessee, with parts also of the Carolinas and Georgia.

II.

In framing the treaty of Hopewell, the American com- CHAPTER missioners had gone as far, in curtailing the Indian limits, as any sense of justice would permit, and the Cher- 1789. okees had found themselves obliged to relinquish a considerable tract south of Nashville as far as Duck River, besides other districts on their eastern border. The Cherokees were greatly dissatisfied at these curtailments, while the backwoodsmen complained loudly at what they considered the unreasonable concessions made to the Indians. The agents of North Carolina and Georgia in attendance at Hopewell had protested against the treaty; nor had any regard whatever been paid to its provisions by the authorities of the insurrectionary state of Franklin or Frankland, embracing the settlements in the immediate neighborhood of the Cherokee country. In consequence of the many outrages committed by these wild backwoodsmen, a war had ensued (1787), in which Sevier, the fugitive governor of the expiring state of Frankland, had taken an active part. Worsted in this contest, their fields ravaged, their villages burned, some of their warriors entrapped by false pretenses and slain in cold blood, not even their women and children spared, the eastern clans of the Cherokees had been driven to seek shelter with the Creeks. The Continental Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the Southern Department had remonstrated against these outrages, as well with the governor of North Carolina as with the inhabitants on the frontier, and the Continental Congress had issued a proclamation (Sept. 1, 1788), one of the last, as it was among the most honorable official acts of that body, declaring their intention to protect the Cherokees in their rights; enjoining the intruders beyond the limits fixed by the treaty of Hopewell to retire; and directing the Secretary of War to hold in readiness a part of the Con