Serihowane's Address on the Treaty of Ft. Stanwix
Despite the goal of Royal Proclamation of 1763 to reduce tensions between colonists and American Indians by establishing clear territorial boundaries, settlers continued to pour westward. Rather than policing them, the British sought another diplomatic approach. Sir William Johnson, superintendent of Indian affairs in New York, and George Croghan, the deputy Indian agent in the Ohio region, were tapped to negotiate a treaty with Native American nations. Both men had strong ties with the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy, a group composed of the Mohawk, Oneida, Tuscarora, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca, and as was so often the case, the representatives of the United States stood to reap enormous riches from the agreement.
Their efforts led to the Treaty of Fort Stanwix, signed in 1768. To protect their interests, the Haudenosaunee nations gave up land that they neither owned nor, for the most part, inhabited–—it belonged to Shawnee, Delaware, Mingo, and other nations. The treaty set the western limit of colonial expansion far beyond the proclamation line–—and four hundred miles west of the limit the British king had commanded Johnson and Croghan to honor. It made no difference. Settlers crossed the new treaty lines by the thousands. Colonial authorities had few illusions. They knew that settlers paid no attention to the boundaries set by the treaties. Henry Knox wrote in a 1789 letter to George Washington, “The disposition of the people of the States to emigrate into the Indian country cannot be effectually prevented.”
In 1774, during a meeting with Johnson, the lone voice of Seneca leader Serihowane registered the desperate protest of Indian nations.
Source: John Romeyn Brodhead, Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New
York, ed. E. B. O’Callaghan, vol. 8 (Albany: Weed, Parsons and Company, 1857), 476.
York, ed. E. B. O’Callaghan, vol. 8 (Albany: Weed, Parsons and Company, 1857), 476.
Brother,
We are sorry to observe to you that your People are as ungovernable, or rather more so, than ours. You must remember that it was most solemnly, and publicly settled, and agreed to at the General Congress held at Fort Stanwix … that the Line then pointed out and fixed between the Whites and Indians should forever after be looked upon as a barrier between us, and that the White People were not to go beyond it.
It seems, Brother, that your People entirely disregard, and despise the settlement agreed upon by their Supervisors and us; for we find that they, notwithstanding that settlement, are come in vast numbers to the Ohio, and gave our people to understand that they wou’d settle wherever they pleas’d. If this is the case we must look upon every engagement you made with us as void and of no effect.
We are sorry to observe to you that your People are as ungovernable, or rather more so, than ours. You must remember that it was most solemnly, and publicly settled, and agreed to at the General Congress held at Fort Stanwix … that the Line then pointed out and fixed between the Whites and Indians should forever after be looked upon as a barrier between us, and that the White People were not to go beyond it.
It seems, Brother, that your People entirely disregard, and despise the settlement agreed upon by their Supervisors and us; for we find that they, notwithstanding that settlement, are come in vast numbers to the Ohio, and gave our people to understand that they wou’d settle wherever they pleas’d. If this is the case we must look upon every engagement you made with us as void and of no effect.
Background Text courtesy of Teaching American History with Primary Sources [NPS, Public Domain]
Primary Source Text in Public Domain
Primary Source Text in Public Domain