CHAPTER XIII.

ENGLISH NEGOTIATIONS WITH THE WESTERN TRIBES-THE CLAIM TO KENTUCKY.

THE English government, as we have seen, never failed to assert the right of the New York tribes to treat the Ohio valley as their conquest, and before the cession by France in 1763, the English claim of sovereignty rested chiefly upon a series of treaties with the chiefs of the Six Nations in 1684, in 1701, and especially on the 14th of September, 1726, by which their lands were conveyed to England, in trust, "" to be protected and defended by his majesty, to and for the use of the grantors and their heirs."

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At Lancaster, in 1744, however, it was sought to obtain a different and far more important concession from these Indians. Deputies from Pennsylvania, Virginia and Maryland met the chiefs of the Six Nations, and after a scene of debauchery in the highest degree disgraceful to its English instigators, the Indians were persuaded to give a deed "recognizing the King's right to all lands that are, or by his Majesty's appointment shall be, within the colony of Virginia.”

Here was a claim to an indefinite extent of the Ohio valley by purchase, but it was very justly obnoxious to the Ohio Indians-to the Delawares and Shawanese especially, whose villages were within the nominal limits of the colony of Virginia, and who indignantly denied any proprietary right in the Indians of New York.

Nevertheless, on this unsubstantial basis rested the grant

of 1748 to the Ohio Company of five hundred thousand acres, to be principally located on the south side of the Ohio River, between the Monongahela and Kenhawa Rivers. The exploration of Gist, in 1750-1, and the mere designation of a road to the Monongahela seem to have been the only effective steps towards a realization of this design.

The Virginians were very sensible that some form of assent by the Ohio Indians was indispensable. Great efforts were therefore made to procure it, and at length representatives of the western tribes were assembled at Logstown, seventeen miles below Pittsburgh, on the 9th of June, 1752.

This was a favorable moment for the designs of the English colonists, since the savages, even to the remote Twightwees, were then inimical to the French and favorably disposed towards the English, but the Virginia commissioners, Messrs. Fry, Lomax and Patton, had no easy task. They produced the Lancaster Treaty, and insisted upon the right of the crown, under its grant, to sell the western lands; but "No," the chiefs said, "they had not heard of any sale west of the warriors' road, which ran at the foot of the Alleghany ridge." The commissioners then offered goods for a ratification of the Lancaster treaty; spoke of the proposed settlement by the Ohio Company; and used all their persuasions to secure the land wanted. Upon the 11th of June, the Indians replied. They recognized the treaty of Lancaster, and the authority of the Six Nations to make it, but denied that they had any knowledge of the western lands being conveyed to the English by said deed; and declined, upon the whole, having any thing to do with the treaty of 1744. They were willing to give special permission to erect a fort at the fork of the Ohio, "as the French have already struck the Twigtwees," but the Virginians wanted much more, and finally, by the influence

of Montour, the interpreter, who was probably bribed, the Indians united, on the 13th of June, in signing a deed confirming the Lancaster treaty in its full extent, and consenting to a settlement southeast of the Ohio.

The dissatisfaction of the Ohio savages with the proceedings at Logstown, is very apparent from the fact that in September, 1753, William Fairfax met their deputies at Winchester, Virginia, where he concluded a treaty, with the particulars of which we are unacquainted, but on which, it is stated, was an endorsement that he had not dared to mention to them either the Lancaster or Logstown treaty; a sad commentary upon the modes taken to obtain those grants.

All attempts to secure any practical results from those treaties were postponed by the outbreak and continuance of hostilities, and it was not until after the pacification of 1765, that the occupation of the lands west of the Alleghanies, otherwise than by the Indians, was agitated in any considerable degree.

The royal proclamation of October 7, 1763, our readers. have not forgotten, forbade all private settlement or purchase of lands west of the Alleghanies, but as soon as peace was restored by the treaty of German Flats, settlers crossed the mountains and took possession of lands in Western Virginia and along the Monongahela. The Indians remonstratedthe authorities issued proclamations warning off intrudersorders were forwarded by Gen. Gage to the garrison of Fort Pitt to dislodge the settlers at Redstone, but all was ineffectual. The adventurous spirits of the frontier were not alone in their designs upon the wilderness. The old Ohio Company sought a perfection of their grant-the Virginia volunteers of 1754, who had enlisted under a proclamation offering liberal bounties of lands, were also clamorous-individual

grants were urged-Sir William Johnson was ambitious of being the governor of an armed colony south of the Ohio, upon the model proposed by Franklin in 1754, and the plan of another company, led by Thomas Walpole, a London banker of eminence, was submitted to the English ministry.

Notwithstanding such a fever of land speculation, it was still felt, that a better muniment of title was requisite, than the obsolete pretensions of Lancaster and Logstown, and Gen. Gage having represented very emphatically the growing irritation of the Indians, Sir William Johnson was instructed to negotiate another treaty. Notice was given to the various colonial governments, to the Six Nations, the Delawares, and the Shawanese, and a Congress was appointed to meet at Fort Stanwix, now Rome, New York. It assembled on the 24th of October, 1768, 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 of 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 Kenhawa 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. There were also given two deeds of lands in Pennsylvania, one to Croghan, and the other to the proprietaries of that colony. These deeds were made upon the express agreement, that no claim should ever be based upon previous treaties, those of Lancaster, Logstown, &c.; and they were signed by the chiefs of the Six Nations, for themselves, their allies and dependents, the Shawanese, Delawares, Mingoes of Ohio, and others; but the Shawanese and Delaware deputies present, did not sign them.1

"Such," adds Perkins, "was the treaty of Stanwix, whereon rests the title by purchase to Kentucky, Western Virginia, and Pennsylvania. It was a better foundation, perhaps, than that given by previous treaties, but was essentially worthless; for the lands conveyed, were not occupied or hunted on by those conveying them. In truth, we cannot doubt that this immense grant was obtained by the influence of Sir William Johnson, in order that the new colony, of which he was to be governor, might be founded there. The fact that such an extent of country was ceded voluntarily-not after a war, not by hard persuasion, but at once, and willingly,-satisfies us that the whole affair had been previously settled with the New York savages, and that the Ohio Indians had no voice in the matter."

The efforts to organize an immense land company, which should include the old Ohio Company, and the more recent Walpole scheme, besides recognizing the bounties of the Virginia volunteers, were apparently successful by the royal sanction of August 14, 1774, but previously there were

1) Perkins' Writings, vol. ii., p. 232.