USA > New York > Livingston County > History of Livingston County, New York, from its earliest traditions to the present together with early town sketches > Part 20
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This Tract No. 1 is bounded on the east by the Genesee river and the boundary lines of Gorham and Phelps' Purchase, on the south by the Pennsylvania north boundary line running twelve miles west on that line, thence on the west by a line to be run from the point of twelve miles due north to Lake Ontario, and thence bounded on the north by Lake Ontario to the north point of said Gorham and Phelps Purchase. This tract must be included in the purchase at all events and the rest may be made agreeable to the Holland company and the Indians, but I hope and expect that the whole will be purchased.
Twenty-third-In case the whole of the tract is agreed for, but the Indians choose to retain some part for their occupation, they will choose, I presume, Buffalo Creek, Tanewanta, and lands bordering on Lake Erie. In fixing this you will consult as much as can be the interests and inclinations of the Holland company, conjointly with the pleasure of the Indians.
Twenty-fourth-Although I have proposed an annuity to the Indians as the price of their lands, yet if they prefer to be paid in money, I do not object. In that case I suppose seventy-five thousand dollars may be set down as the price of the whole, and in proportion for any part less than the whole, the money to be paid to them or their agent or agents within sixty to ninety days either at Philadel- phia, New York, or Canandaigua, as may be agreed on between you and them, consulting Mr. Bayard as to the time and place of payment.
Should any other matter occur that I shall think necessary to be intimated to you, 1 shall, if there be time, write to you again as often
Cobblestone House,-site of Wadsworth Dwelling, Occupied by Commissioners and others Participating at Big Tree Treaty.
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as may appear useful. You are, however, to consider what I have already written rather as outlines for your conduct on this business than as positive orders not to be departed from. I have perfect confidence in your friendship and also in your integrity and discretion and there- fore I confide to your management the whole of this business without limitation or restriction except that if you make a purchase the tract No. 1 must be a part of it. If you can make the purchase on better terms than I have proposed 1 am sure you will do it, and on the contrary should you be obliged to give more I shall acquiesce. You know it is high time this purchase should be made and it is of vast importance to all concerned to have it accomplished; therefore you must effect it at all events, and I can only repeat that although { wish to buy as reasonably as may be, yet I do not mean to starve the cause, for I must have it.
With sincere regard and affection, I am, gentlemen, your friend and servant. Robert Morris.
It was resolved to hold the treaty at Big Tree, near the settlement which afterwards became Geneseo. In meadow lands within the corporate limits of the village of Geneseo, southwest from the park, about a quarter of a mile above the Erie railroad and about the same distance west of the Mount Morris road, there stood until 1900 a cob- blestone house; on the site of this building there was at the time of the treaty a small dwelling erected by William and James Wads- worth in 1791.1 This was rented by Thomas Morris for the accommodation of the principal persons at the treaty. He also caused a large council house to be erected which had for its covering boughs and branches of trees. An elevated bench was provided for the Com- missioners and other benches for the spectators. The probability is that the council house was located about five hundred feet north- west of the Wadsworth dwelling. The Indian village of Big Tree was at this time west of the Genesee and so remained until 1805, when it was moved to the east side of the river.
The treaty had been appointed for the 20th of August, 1797, and the Indians had collected in large numbers when Thomas Morris arrived on August 22d, "not the Senecas exclusively, but groups from other tribes, had come in to be fed from the stores of the Commis- sioners, and so greatly hungered were the natives that they were ravenous for food. Several of the oxen first killed for them were de- voured raw, reeking in the blood."
1. James Wadsworth was in Europe at the time of the treaty.
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On the morning following the arrival of Thomas Morris he called them together and, after a speech of welcome, apologized for the non- arrival of the Commissioners who had been delayed by bad weather.
It was obvious from the outset that a number of white men, who spoke a little of the native tongue and whose offers of employment had been declined by Morris, would attempt to persuade the Indians to reject all offers made them, with a view to securing their own terms. The natives were in a mood to be influenced in this direc- tion, for with few exceptions they were, said General Knox, greatly tenacious of their lands. To these venal whites Thomas Morris alluded in his address. Cornplanter, who was disposed to treat the whole subject fairly, immediately arose and expressed his satisfaction at being informed that the mischief-makers were known and would be properly dealt with.
Late in the afternoon of the 26th of August, the Commissioners arrived, Colonel Jeremiah Wadsworth to represent the United States and General William Shepard to represent the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Captain Israel Chapin, who had succeeded his father, General Israel Chapin, as Superintendent of Indian affairs, attended ; James Rees, subsequently of Geneva, was there and acted as Secretary, and among other prominent white men who were present and were greatly interested in the negotiation were William Bayard of New York, the agent of the Holland Land Company; two young gentlemen from Holland named Van Staphorst, near relatives of the Van Staphorst who was one of the principal members of the Holland Company, Nathaniel W. Howell, Jasper Parrish and Captain Horatio Jones.
The Commissioners found the Indians receiving their annual pres- ents from the United States under the direction of Captain Chapin. The day following their arrival was Sunday, and intelligence having reached the Senecas of the death of the daughter of Captain Chapin, whom they greatly respected, they appointed a council for condolence with him, to which all the gentlemen from a distance were invited.
At one o'clock on the afternoon of Monday the 28th, the council formally opened. It fell to Cornplanter to speak first. Turning to Thomas Morris he briefly addressed him, acknowledging the speech of invitation conveyed through Horatio Jones and Jasper Parrish, re- gretted that the Commissioners had been delayed, and closed by re-
The Pole Marks the Probable Site of Council House at Big Tree Treaty.
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turning the string of wampum which had reached him with the in- vitation. The Commissioners then presented their credentials and Colonel Wadsworth delivered his speech, assuring the Indians of his purpose watchfully to observe the proceedings in their interest. Ile was followed by General Shepard. Mr. Morris then rose and said that his father was unable to be present, but that Captain Williamson and he had been duly appointed to represent him, and, as instructed, he would now submit Robert Morris's speech and a belt of wampum, which were laid upon the table. The speech was as follows:
Brothers of the Seneca Nation-It was my wish and my intention to have come into your country and to have met you at this treaty, but the Great Spirit has ordained otherwise and I cannot go. I grow old and corpulent, and not very well, and am fearful of traveling so far during the hot weather in the month of August.
Brothers, as I cannot be with you at the treaty, I have deputed and appointed my son Thomas Morris, Esq .. and my friend Charles Wil- liamson, Esq., to appear for me and on my behalf to speak and treat with you in the same manner and to the same effect as 1 might or could do were I present at this treaty with you, and it is my re- quest that you will listen to them with the same attention that you would to me.
Brothers, I have the greatest love and esteem for my son and my friend. They possess my entire confidence and whatever they en- gage for on my behalf you may depend that I will perform the same as exactly as if I was there and made the engagements with you my- self; therefore I pray you to listen to them and believe in what they say.
Brothers, it is now six years since I have been invested with the exclusive right to acquire your lands. During the whole of this time you have quietly possessed them without being importuned by me to sell them, but I now think that it is time for them to be productive to you. It is with a view to render them so that I have acquiesced in your desire to meet you at the Genesee river. I shall take care immediately to deposit in the Bank of the United States whatever my son and my friend may agree to pay you in my behalf.
Brothers, from the personal acquaintance which I have with your chiefs and head men, I am assured that their wisdom and integrity will direct the object of the treaty to the happiness of yourselves and your posterity. It is a pleasing circumstance to me that my business is to be transacted with such men, because while on the one hand they will take care of your interests, on the other whatever is done between them and me will be strong and binding. I hope that wise men will always be at the head of your councils, but for fear that those that succeed your present leading men should not deserve and
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possess your confidence as fully as these do, you had better have your business so fixed now as not to leave it in the power of wrong-headed men in future to waste the property given to you by the Great Spirit for the use of yourselves and your posterity.
Brothers, I have now opened my mind to you, and as I depend on my son and my friend to carry on and conclude the business with you I shall only add that the President of the United States, approving of this treaty and being your father and friend, has appointed an honorable and worthy gentleman, formerly a member of congress, the Hon. Jeremiah Wadsworth, Esq., to be a commissioner on behalf of the United States to attend and superintend this treaty, and the governor of the state of Massachusetts also appointed an honorable and worthy gentleman, formerly a general in the American army and now a member of congress, the Hon. William Shepard, Esq., to be a commissioner to attend this treaty on behalf of the state of Massa. chusetts. These gentlemen will attend to what is said and done on both sides in order to see that mutual fair dealings and justice shall take place. Their office and duty will be rendered agreeable so far as depends on me because I desire nothing but fair, open and honest transactions.
Brothers, I bid you farewell. May the Great Spirit ever befriend and protect you.
This closed the business for that sitting, and the council fire was covered for the day.
The council did not assemble until late in the afternoon of the fol- lowing day. Meantime the Indians were consulting among them- selves on the speeches already delivered, agreeing, as was their habit, in private on the measures to be adopted, the arguments to be used in support and fixing upon the speakers to present them, before meeting the white people in the more public council. On reas- sembling, Red Jacket thanked the Great Spirit for his care of the dignitaries and after a few general observations turned to Thomas Morris and said, "It appears to us as though something is kept back. From the candor and veracity promised by you we hope that all will be laid before the Indians fairly." On being assured of this, the chief observed that as the sun was nearly down it would be well to wait until the next day.
On the morning of the 30th Mr. Morris delivered a long and care- fully prepared speech, setting forth the reasons why, in his opinion. the Indians should sell their lands. Among other things he said "You will receive a larger sum of money than has ever yet been
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paid to you for your lands; this money can be so disposed of that not only you but your children and your children's children can derive from it a lasting benefit. It can be placed in the bank of the United States from whence a sufficient income can annually be drawn by the President, your father, to make you and your posterity happy forever. Then the wants of your old and poor can be supplied, and in times of scarcity the women and children of your nation can be fed and you will no longer experience the miseries resulting from nakedness and want. Your white brethren are willing to provide you with the things which they enjoy provided you furnish them with the room which they want and of which you have too much. Brothers, you may perhaps suppose that by selling your lands you will do an injury to your posterity. This, brothers, is not the case. By disposing of the money which you will receive for them in the manner which I have mentioned, your children will always hereafter be as rich as you are now." Concluding, Mr. Morris said that if the Indians declined his offer "neither my father nor any per- son in his behalf will ever come forward and treat with you on the generous terms now proposed."
It will be observed that Mr. Morris did not say that his father had already sold the lands to the Hollanders and was required to ex- tingnish the Indian title, and that he would be compelled to negotiate again if the Indians refused now. He also refrained from naming the price he was willing to pay.
A few minutes of silence followed the conclusion of the speech ; then one of the chiefs said that if Mr. Morris had nothing to add it was their wish to be left to their own private deliberations. No public council was held on August 31st and September 1st. that interval be- ing employed by the Indians in considering the speech of Mr. Morris. Whiskey had now found its way to the Indians, and was interfering with the business that had called the council together. Farmer's Brother reported that several, among them Red Jacket, had been drinking and were quarrelsome. The chief, under advice, seized the offending barrel of spirits and knocked in the head, but not in time to prevent a general fight, the pulling of hair and biting each other like dogs.
On the 2d of September the sachems asked that the council fire be uncovered. Farmer's Brother arose and stated that it was their in-
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tention to answer Mr. Morris's speech. Red Jacket followed in a short address whose drift was unfavorable to the object of the treaty. He referred in glowing terms to the importance which the possession of their fine lands' had given the Senecas among other nations of Indians. Said he: "It raises us in our own estimation. It creates in our bosoms a proud feeling which elevates us as a nation. Observe the difference between the estimation in which a Seneca and an Oneida are held. We are courted, while the Oneidas are considered a degraded people, fit only to make brooms and baskets. Why this difference? It is because the Senecas are known as the proprietors of a broad domain, while the Oneidas are cooped up in a narrow space." Mr. Morris parried this thrust with much address, and endeavored to convince Red Jacket that he was mistaken in this, recalling the contemptuous treatment received by some of the Seneca chiefs when on a mission of peace with Colonel Pickering and others to the country of the hostile Indians at the West in 1793. Red Jacket promptly answered, admitting the fact, but imputing the discourtesy to their going thither in bad company. "Had we gone alone," said he. "and on our own business, our reception would have been such as Senecas have a right to expect : but when we interfered in the disputes of the United States, and accompanied its representatives, we forfeited all claims to such a reception, " adding that the experience to which al- lusion had been made would warn them thereafter to confine then- selves to their own affairs.
In the evening a private conference was held with the principal sachems, at which Mr. Morris offered the Indians $100,000 for their lands, a sum, he said, which placed in the Bank of the United States would yield them $6,000 a year interest. This offer they requested him to state in the public council. The following day Red Jacket communicated through a private medium that his speech did not ex- press his own sentiments, but was made to please some of his people. and added that on the next occasion he should be less harsh. The assurance was not made good, however, for at the open council in the afternoon, referring to the former greatness of the Six Nations, the crafty chief covertly warned those who favored the sale, by alluding to the fact that their forefathers, who had parted with lands, had eaten up the proceeds and all was gone. He then referred to the plan proposed of investing the money, and asked that the proposition
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might be put in writing. Mr. Morris assented, explaining at the same time the operation of an investment. The idea was altogether new to the natives, who were unable as yet to count beyond a hun- dred and it became difficult to make them comprehend how money could increase without being planted in the ground, or how great a sum $100,000 was. To aid their comprehension, he told them it would fill a certain number of kegs of a given size, and would require thirty horses to draw the silver hither from Philadelphia. The speech was well received and with it closed the business of the day. On the 4th Cornplanter complained that the sachems were conducting the whole business themselves, and threatened to go home. It was evident that there were serious divisions among the Indians, and a quarrel at this session was narrowly averted. There was no meeting on the 5th.
On the 6th; in council, Little Beard, the chief warrior of the Senecas, spoke, addressing himself more especially to his own people. It would appear that this notable was the leader of those who were opposed to the sale. He therefore favored placing the negotiations in the hands of the ablest and shrewdest of the sachems, presuming that they would be more likely than those of less experience to defeat the pur- pose of the treaty. He began by observing that it was the custom among their forefathers to refer all business relating to the nation's welfare, except war, to the sachems, "and therefore," he continued, "the belt of wampum delivered me by Cornplanter, I shall return to him and let the whole business be transacted by the sachems. What- ever they determine upon all the warriors will agree to." He sat down and Red Jacket arose slowly. Surveying the assemblage for a moment, he said the Indians did not want to sell their lands though they had assented reluctantly to holding the treaty. There were expenses attending the convention, he continued, and his people were ready to offer Mr. Morris a single township on the Pennsylvania border at one dollar per acre. This land placed in market would sell, he said, for an advance sufficient to cover the expenses.
The negotiations had progressed slowly, and both Colonel Wads- worth and Mr. Bayard had grown impatient of further delay. The former was an old man, afflicted with gout and far from home; the latter wanted to see the lands of his principals freed from Indian occupancy, but as a large portion of the purchase money had been
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withheld by them, it mattered less to him if the demand of the natives should prove unreasonable. Mr. Morris, however, had cogent reasons for securing an Indian deed at a fair equivalent. The splendid fortune of his father, placed wholly at the disposal of the Continental authorities in the darkest hours of the infant Republic, had suffered greatly by the depreciation of the publie credit. His expectation of retrieving a share of these losses through the purchase of this vast body of land had not been realized, and the fear now was that its inopportune sale, should the Indians prove exacting. might involve him in actual loss. He had hoped the Senecas would be content with $75,000, but $100,000 did not satisfy them. Mr. Morris, who better understood the Indian character than the Commissioners. knew that anything like the appearance of haste would defeat their purpose, and especially he felt that further delay was indispensable to counteract the impression that had been made on the Indians by the more recent speeches of their warriors. But so fixed were the two Commissioners in their purpose of bringing the proceedings to a close, that they insisted that when Red Jacket should make the above proposition-of which they had been previously advised- Morris ought boklly to reject it, and thus bring the natives to con- sider his offer, otherwise they would go home. To this Morris could only consent. No sooner, therefore, had the famous Seneca sat down than Mr. Morris told him the proposal did not merit a moment's consideration: that if they had no more reasonable offer to make the sooner the conference ended the better. Red Jacket sprang to his feet. and in great passion said, "We have now reached the point to which I wanted to bring you. You told us when we first met that we were free either to sell or retain our lands. I repeat, we will not part with them. Here is my hand on it," thrusting his arm across the table. "Let us shake hands and part friends. 1 now cover up this council fire." All was now tumult. "The whooping and yelling of the Indians, " says Mr. Morris, 1 "was such that persons less accustomed to them would have imagined that they intended to tomahawk all the whites. One of their drunken warriors, in a. most violent and abusive speech, asked me how I dared to come among them to cheat them out of their lands. "
1. See Appendix No. 11 for Thomas Morris's narrative relating to the Treaty of Big Tree.
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The result was a bitter disappointment to Bayard, and Mr. Morris was vexed at the miscarriage of their plans. He had hopes, however, of bringing on the business anew, it both Bayard and Colonel Wads- worth would engage not to interfere either by advice or otherwise. To this both readily agreed. The following day when Farmer's Brother called to express the hope that previous friendships would not be lessened by the failure of the treaty, Morris reminded him that Indian usage gave to him who lighted a council fire the right to cover it up. Hence as he had himself kindled this one, Red Jacket had no warrant for declaring it extinguished, and he urged that it was yet burning. To this, after a few minutes' reflection, the chief assented. Negotiations with the sachems having failed, custom justified an attempt to secure the approval of the warriors who defended the lands and the women who cultivated them and who had the right to take the business in their own hands when dissatisfied with the management of the sachems. Accordingly, after a few days spent in examining the accounts for supplies, paying for provisions consumed and collecting the cattle not slaughtered, Morris invited the chief women and some of the warriors to meet him. renewing to them his offer. Ile assured them of his readiness to concede such reservations as were required for their actual occupancy, and showed them how much good the money would do toward relieving the women ot drudgery. He also stated that he had brought some presents from Philadelphia for them, to be distributed, however, only in the event of effecting a purchase of their lands, but as he had no cause of com- plaint against the women their portion of the gifts would now be divided among them, and in a few hours silver brooches glittered and glass beads sparkled upon hundreds of the dusky daughters of the forest, while all were more or less fantastically arrayed in shawls and printed India goods.
Some days were spent in rude festivities, alternated by serious consultations. A thrifty pig, well soaped, was let loose upon the green, and a dollar and the porker were offered to the one who should catch and hold him by the tail. A thousand failures and many a break-neck fall resulted, but all tended to restore good humor and bring all sides together. The women and warriors collected together in little knots and were obviously discussing the sale. At length Mr. Morris received a request to call the council
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together for negotiation. Cornplanter, being the principal war chief, opened the proceedings. He said the women and warriors had seen with regret the misconduct of their sachems, and did not hesitate to declare the conduct of Mr. Morris as having been too hasty. Farmer's Brother, on the part of the sachems, stated that these proceedings of the women and warriors were, in view of what had occurred, in perfect accordance with their usages. From the moment this new stage was reached, Cornplanter became the principal speaker, and Red Jacket withdrew, no longer attending the meetings, but procuring some liquor remained drunk until the terms were agreed upon. Mary Jemison took a part in the deliberations, both in and out of the council house, urging her claims for an allotment of lands in a manner that was more pertinacious than dignified. Red Jacket was opposed to recognizing her, but he was not present. The others were desirous of giving her a small reservation.
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