USA > New York > Genesee County > History of the Genesee country (western New York) comprising the counties of Allegany, Cattaraugus, Chautauqua, Chemung, Erie, Genesee, Livingston, Monroe, Niagara, Ontario, Orleans, Schuyler, Steuben, Wayne, Wyoming and Yates, Volume I > Part 28
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"This is dated Philadelphia, August 1, 1797. Robert Morris says he has not the interest in the lands that he ought to have retained, but is in duty bound to extinguish the Indian title. Then follow instructions under twenty-four heads. He thinks the busi- ness of the treaty may be facilitated by withholding liquor from the Indians, 'until the business is finished, showing and promising it to them when the treaty is over.' He adds that the liquors and stores he sends up 'must be used and if not sufficient more must be got.' The commissioners and other white men at the treaty must be entertained properly, and Mr. Morris insisted that Jones, Smith, Johnson, Dean, and Parrish must be employed to assist in the negotiations, and that they should be 'compensated with a rea- sonable liberality.' Mr. Morris thought an annuity of $4,000 or $5,000 forever would be a sufficient price for the land he desired; but he added that if the Indians wanted the full purchase price in cash he would pay $75,000 within sixty or ninety days. He said: 'The whole cost and charges of this treaty being at my expense, you will direct everything upon the principles of a liberal economy. The Indians must have plenty of food, and also liquor, when you see proper to order it to them.' Concluding his volu- minous instructions, Robert Morris said: 'You are 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, good sense and discretion, and therefore I confide to your management the whole of this business without limitation
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or restriction. If you can make the purchase on better terms than I have proposed I am sure you will do it, or 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, there- fore you must effect it at all events, and I can only repeat that although I wish to buy as reasonable as may be, yet I do not mean to starve the cause, for I must have it.'
"The council was formally opened at 1 o'clock on the afternoon of August 28, 1797. Cornplanter spoke first. Turning to Thomas Morris, he acknowledged the speech of invitation conveyed by Jasper Parrish and Horatio Jones, and returned the string of wampum that had reached him with the invitation to the treaty. Then the commissioners from the United States and Massachu- setts presented their credentials and addressed the assembly, as- suring the Indians that their interests would be duly guarded and that no injustice would be done. Thomas Morris then made a short address, saying that his father was unable to appear, but had directed the delivery of the following speech which he had written to them from Philadelphia (and which is now made public for the first time) :
" '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 Williamson 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 I might or could do were I present at this treaty with you, and it is my request 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 engage 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 myself ; therefore I pray you to listen to them and believe in what they say.
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" '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 impor- tuned 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 who succeed your present leading men should not deserve and 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 super- intend 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 Shepherd, Esq., to be a commissioner to attend this treaty on behalf of the state of Massachusetts. These gentle- men 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 trans- actions.
(Courtesy of Ontario County Historical Society.)
RED JACKET, A SENECA WAR CHIEF. .
26-Vol. 1
.
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" 'Brothers, I bid you farewell. May the Great Spirit ever befriend and protect you.'
"After the delivery of this shrewdly written speech, the coun- cil adjourned to give the Indians time to deliberate. There was a brief session the next day, when Red Jacket declared that some- thing had been kept back, and asked for full particulars. On the following day Thomas Morris delivered a long and carefully pre- pared 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 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 pos- terity 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 extinguish the Indian title, and that he would be compelled to negotiate again if the Indians refused now. Mr. Morris also refrained from naming the price he was willing to pay.
"On August 30th and September 1st there was no public coun- cil. On September 2d brief speeches were made by Farmer's Brother and Red Jacket, which were not at all friendly. In the evening Thomas Morris announced privately to some of the
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chiefs that he was willing to pay $100,000, to be invested so as to yield the Indians $6,000 a year. On the following day Red Jacket made an elaborate speech, setting forth the objections to the sale of the lands. Mr. Morris then publicly named the price he was willing to pay, and declared that if this were refused his father would never again meet the Senecas in general council- which, of course, was a decided stretching of the truth. On Sep- tember 4th Cornplanter complained that the sachems were con- ducting the whole business themselves, and threatened to go home. It was evident that there were serious divisions among the Indians. Indeed, a quarrel at this session was narrowly averted. There was no meeting on the 5th. Mr. Bayard and the two com- missioners, becoming impatient, urged Mr. Morris to make vigor- ous action. He protested that he knew better than they the peculi- arities of the Indian character; they insisted, and Mr. Morris, yielding reluctantly, gave at the next session an emphatic nega- tive to a proposition by the chiefs, declaring that if they had nothing to offer, the council might as well end. Red Jacket imme- diately sprang to his feet and exclaimed: 'You have now arrived at the point to which I wish to bring you. You told us in your first address that even in the event of our not agreeing, we would part friends. Here, then, is my hand. I now cover up the coun- cil fire.' Apparently this ended the council. The decision of the chiefs was received with great applause and the forest rang with savage yells. The commissioners and Mr. Bayard, seeing the unfortunate result of their interference, urged Mr. Morris to endeavor to rekindle the council fire, and promised that if he suc- ceeded they would offer no further suggestions.
"Meeting Farmer's Brother, Mr. Morris declared that accord- ing to Indian usage only he who had kindled a council fire had the right to put it out; consequently Red Jacket had exceeded his authority, and 'the fire was still burning.' This having been admitted, and a very important point having been gained, Mr. Morris called the Seneca women together, distributed handsome presents and argued with them in favor of the sale of the lands. It was one of the features of the Indian policy that the lands belonged to the warriors who defended them and the women who tilled them, and though the sachems usually negotiated the treaties the warriors and women had the right, when the sale of land was in question, to interfere. In this instance the women exercised
(Courtesy of Ontario County Historical Society.)
REPLICA OF WASHINGTON MEDAL, 1792,
Popularly known as the Red Jacket Medal,
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their right, and the council reassembled. Then Cornplanter con- ducted the Indian side of the negotiations, Red Jacket having been superseded.
"Within a short time an agreement was reached and the Indian lands west of the Genesee, excepting ten reservations em- bracing 337 square miles, were sold to Robert Morris for $100,000 to be invested in the stock of the bank of the United States and held in the name of the President for the benefit of the Indians. The Treaty was signed on September 15, 1797. The lands sold were described as follows:
"'All that certain tract of land, except as hereinafter excepted, lying within the county of Ontario and state of New York, being part of a tract of land, the right of preemption whereof was ceded by the state of New York. to the common- wealth of Massachusetts, by deed of cession executed at Hart- ford, on the sixteenth day of December, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-six, being all such part thereof as is not included in the Indian purchase made by Oliver Phelps and Nathaniel Gorham, and bounded as follows, to-wit: easterly, by the land confirmed to Oliver Phelps and Nathaniel Gorham by the legislature of the commonwealth of Massachusetts by an act passed the twenty-first day of November, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-eight; south- erly, by the north boundary line of the state of Pennsylvania; westerly, partly by a tract of land, part of the land ceded by the state of Massachusetts to the United States, and by them sold to Pennsylvania, being a right angled triangle, whose hypothenuse is in or along the shore of Lake Erie; partly by Lake Erie, from the northern point of that triangle to the southern bounds of a tract of land one mile in width lying on and along the east side of the strait of Niagara, and partly by the said tract to Lake Ontario; and on the north by the boundary line between the. United States and the king of Great Britain; excepting never- theless, and always reserving out of this grant and conveyance, all such pieces or parcels of the aforesaid tract, and such privi- leges thereunto belonging, as are next hereinafter particularly mentioned, which said pieces or parcels of land so excepted, are by the parties to these presents, clearly and fully understood to remain the property of the said parties of the first part, in as full and ample manner as if these presents had not been executed.'
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"The following were the reservations as agreed upon: Cat- taraugus reservation, containing 26,880 acres in the counties of Chautauqua and Erie; Allegany reservation in Cattaraugus County, containing forty-two square miles; Buffalo Creek reser- vation in Erie County, containing 130 square miles; Tonawanda reservation in the counties of Erie, Genesee and Niagara, con- taining seventy-one square miles; Conawaugus reservation, two square miles; Big Tree reservation, two square miles; Little Beard's reservation, two square miles; Squakie Hill reserva- tion, two square miles, Gardeau reservation, twenty-eight square miles; Caneadea reservation, sixteen square miles; in all 337 square miles.
"The Senecas also intended to reserve the Oil Spring reser- vation, one mile square, containing their famous oil spring, three miles west of Cuba in the counties of Allegany and Cattaraugus, from which oil had been gathered, for centuries. As it was not included in the deed, the title passed to Robert Morris and the Holland Land Company, and then to three extensive land owners at Ellicottville. These men supposed it was an Indian reservation, and treated it as such until 1842, when one of them discovered that it was not one of the reservations mentioned in the treaty. Accordingly they had the land surveyed and sold. In 1856 the Indians began legal proceedings and ultimately succeeded in get- ting possession of the property. Governor Blacksnake supplied the most important evidence on the trial of the suit. He was present at the council at Big Tree and remembered that when the treaty was read over the omission of the Oil Spring reserva- tion was noticed and commented upon, and that Thomas Morris executed and delivered to Handsome Lake, the Prophet, a sepa- rate paper, reserving this tract to the Indians. Blacksnake also had in his possession a copy of the first map of the Holland Purchase made by Joseph Ellicott and presented by him, this map showing by means of red ink the eleven Indian reservations.
"There were two incidents at the Treaty of Big Tree that deserve more than passing notice-one as to the purchase money and the second in regard to the claim which was made by Indian Allan's daughter to the Mt. Morris tract.
"The consideration for the sale of the Indian lands to Robert Morris was $100,000 to be invested in the stock of the bank of the United States, and the stock was to be held by the President
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for the benefit of the Indians. They were to receive interest or dividends on the stock, and it was very difficult for the white men to make the Indians understand how money could make money-or, as they expressed it, how money could grow. This was accomplished at length, however, and the Indians went away satisfied that Washington would guard their interests securely and that all would be well. Everything did go well till 1811, when there was a failure on the part of the government to pay. Then the anxious Indians held a council at Buffalo Creek and Farmer's Brother, Young King, Pollard, Chief Warrior, and other Seneca chiefs agreed upon the following letter, which was sent to the seat of Federal government by special messenger :
" 'To the Honorable William Eustis, Secretary of War:
" 'The sachems and chief warriors of the Seneca nation of Indians understanding you are the person appointed by the great council of your nation to manage and conduct the affairs of the several nations of Indians with whom you are at peace and on terms of friendship, come, at this time, as children to a father, to lay before you the trouble which we have on our minds.
" 'Brother, we do not think it best to multiply words; we will therefore tell you what our complaint is. Brother, listen to what we say: Some years since we held a treaty at Big Tree, near the Genesee River. This treaty was called by our great father, the President of the United States. He sent an agent, Colonel Wadsworth, to attend this treaty for the purpose of advising us in the business and seeing that we had justice done us. At this treaty we sold to Robert Morris the greatest part of our country. The sum he gave us was $100,000. The commissioners who were appointed on your part advised us to place this money in the hands of our great father, the President of the United States. He told us our father loved his red children and would take care of our money, and plant it in a field where it would bear seed for- ever, as long as trees grow, or waters run. Our money has here- tofore been of great service to us. It has helped to support our old people and our women and children; but we are told the field where our money was planted is become barren. Brother, we do not understand your way of doing business. The thing is very heavy on our minds. We mean to hold our white brethren of the United States by the hand; but this weight lies heavy. We hope you will remove it. We have heard of the bad conduct
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of our brothers toward the setting sun. We are sorry for what they have done; but you must not blame us. We had no hand in this bad business. They have had bad people among them. It is your enemies have done this. We have persuaded our agent to take this talk to your great council. He knows our situation and will speak our minds.'
"Immediately upon the receipt of this letter at Washington $8,000 was appropriated and the Indians once more received their money. This $8,000 was 'in lieu of the dividend on the bank shares held by the President of the United States, in trust for the Seneca nation, in the bank of the United States.'
"There was something decidedly queer about the sale of the Allan lands. Ebenezer Allan had two half-breed daughters, Mary and Chloe, and on July 15, 1791, the Seneca sachems deeded to the girls a tract of land four miles square at what is now Mt. Morris. The deed declared that this land was to be in full of their share of all the lands belonging to the Seneca nation. This deed was executed at the treaty of Newtown; it was ap- proved by Timothy Pickering, United States commissioner; and it was recorded in the county clerk's office at Canandaigua. The following is an extract from the deed :
" 'Whereas, our said brother, Jen-uh-sheo, the father of the said Mary and Chloe, has expressed to us a desire to have the share of the Seneca lands to which the said Mary and Chloe (whom we consider our children) are entitled to have, set off to them in severalty, that they may enjoy the same as their separate portions; now, know ye, that we, the sachems, chiefs and war- riors of the Seneca nation, in the name and by the authority of our whole nation, whom according to our ancient customs in like cases we represent, and in consideration of the rights of the said Mary and Chloe, as children and members of the Seneca nation, and of our love and affection for them, do hereby set off and assign to them, the said Mary and Chloe, and to their heirs and assigns, a tract of land, on part of which the said Jen-uh-sheo, our brother, now dwells upon the waters of the Jenuhsheo River in the county of Ontario, in the state of New York, bounded as follows: Beginning at an elm tree standing in the forks of the Jen-uh-sheo River (the boundary between our lands and the lands we sold to Oliver Phelps and Mr. Gorham), and running from thence due south four miles, thence due west four miles, thence due
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north four miles, and thence due east four miles, until the line strikes the said elm tree, with the appurtenances. To have and to hold the said tract of land, with the appurtenances, to them, the said Mary Allen and Chloe Allen, and to their heirs and assigns, as tenants in common, to their use forever.'
"When he heard of this transaction, Secretary of War Knox became greatly excited. He thought Pickering had blundered, he called Washington's attention to the matter, and by direction of the President wrote to Governor Clinton of New York, and expressly disavowed the claim, which he supposed was implied by Pickering's action that the Indians could 'Alienate' their lands under the supervision of the United States and without consult- ing New York and Massachusetts. But it was not Pickering but the secretary himself who blundered, and his mistake was due to his ignorance of the Indian laws of descent. When Knox called Pickering to account, the latter replied as follows:
" 'It appeared to be understood by the Senecas that Messrs. Morris and Ogden, as the grantees of Massachusetts, had the right of preemption of all their lands. But at the same time there existed nothing to bar a division of their whole country among themselves; and if they could divide the whole, they could certainly set off a part to two individuals of their nation as their share. This was the object of their deed to Allan's children, whom they called their children, agreeably to the rule of descent among them, which is in the female line; and in this deed the land assigned is declared to be in full of those two children's share of the whole Seneca country. Here was the ground of my ratification. Now, you will be pleased to recollect that before the matter was opened in council I had repeated the law of the United States relative to Indian lands and the solemn declara- tion of the President last winter to the Cornplanter that they (the Indians) had the right to sell, or refuse to sell, their lands, and that in respect to their lands, they might depend upon the pro- tection of the United States, so that on this head, they had now no cause for jealousy or discontent. This being by them well understood, I saw no way of avoiding the ratification of the assignment to their two children, without reviving, or rather exciting their utmost jealousy, as it would have been denying the free enjoyment of their own lands by some members of the nation, according to the will of the nation; and a denial, I was appre-
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hensive, would lead them to think that the solemn assurance of the President was made but to amuse and deceive. Here you see my great inducement to the ratification.'
"This, of course, was conclusive and Secretary Knox had noth- ing more to say on the subject.
"With the Indian deed to his daughters in his possession Ebenezer Allan went to Philadelphia and sold the land to Robert Morris for dry goods and trinkets, and returned with these articles to what is now Mt. Morris and began to trade with the Indians.
"At the treaty of Big Tree four years later one of Allan's daughters appeared and denied the right of the Indians to sell the Mt. Morris tract. Thomas Morris replied that his father had already paid Allan for the land and was now paying the nation for it again. The girl denied it, and appealed to one of the commissioners, who replied that she had had bad advisers.
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