Signed | November 11, 1794 |
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Location | Canandaigua, New York |
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Parties |
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The Treaty of Canandaigua (or Konondaigua, as spelled in the treaty itself), also known as the Pickering Treaty [1] and the Calico Treaty, is a treaty signed after the American Revolutionary War between the Grand Council of the Six Nations and President George Washington, representing the United States of America.
It was signed at Canandaigua, New York, on November 11, 1794, by fifty sachems (hoya:ne:h) and war chiefs representing the Grand Council of the Six Nations of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy (including the Cayuga, Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Seneca and Tuscarora Nations) and by Timothy Pickering, official agent of President Washington.
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The Treaty of Canandaigua arose out of a combination of geo-political tensions. In the aftermath of its defeat in the American Revolutionary War, Great Britain was forced to relinquish its land east of the Mississippi River to the United States. [2] However, Great Britain’s original rights to this territory were unclear, causing resentment among the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, to whom the land originally belonged. Moreover, some indigenous peoples on the western frontier of the United States remained loyal to the British after the American Revolutionary War and were hostile towards the United States. [3] The United States faced resentment from the Haudenosaunee Confederacy over its acceptance of land in the Ohio Valley from Great Britain and faced the threat of another war on its western frontier.
To avoid war, the United States government sought to define a solid boundary on its western frontier. [3] It also recognized that peace with the Haudenosaunee Confederacy was critical in case another war broke out. [3]
The United States attempted to make peace with the Haudenosaunee Confederacy with a series of conferences and treaties: the treaties of Fort Stanwix and Fort Harmar. [2] However, both treaties were considered failures by the United States government because they resulted in increased tension with the confederacy. [2]
Henry Knox, the United States secretary of war, began a military operation on the western frontier in September 1790 and appointed Timothy Pickering as Indian commissioner to address the Haudenosaunee Confederacy’s grievances with the United States government. [4] Pickering decided to follow a “strategy of conciliation and compromise”, [3] beginning with a conference with the Seneca Nation to offer gifts and peace after the failed treaties of Fort Harmar and Fort Stanwix. [5] A series of conferences followed, in which Pickering opened dialogue between the Haudenosaunee Confederacy and the United States regarding what would become of the land that Great Britain had lost. In October 1791, Knox’s military efforts on the western frontier were failing, and he suggested enlisting the Haudenosaunee Confederacy to fight on behalf of the United States. Pickering and the Haudenosaunee Confederacy were unimpressed by Knox’s request and declined to participate in the war. [6] In 1793, the military operation on the western frontier broke out into war, escalating the situation in the Ohio Valley. [7]
In June 1794, the Haudenosaunee Confederacy proposed a conference at Buffalo Creek. At the conference, the confederacy rejected the Fort Harmar and Fort Stanwix treaties. As a result, the United States ceded land to the Seneca Nation. [8] Afraid that the Haudenosaunee Confederacy would join the opposition at the western frontier, the United States held the first conference for the Treaty of Canandaigua in September 1794. [9]
The official conference for the Treaty of Canandaigua began on October 18, 1794, with more than 1,500 members of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy present. [10] Deliberations were tense at first because of discrepancies of cultural beliefs on treaties. According to scholar Granville Ganter, “Unlike their Anglo counterparts, the Haudenosaunee saw treaty agreements as requiring constant renewal and upkeep. The term they used was ‘brightening the chain of friendship’”. [11] Seneca leader Red Jacket played an integral role in helping Pickering overcome some of these ideological differences throughout the deliberations. [12] He “reminded Pickering that making peace requires declarations that mean one thing—peace—and mixing in language of blame or criticism simply fouls the process”. [12]
Another ideological difference between the United States and the Haudenosaunee Confederacy during deliberations was the role of women. No United States settler women were included in the dialogue; however, Haudenosaunee women, in keeping with their significant role in tribal governance, were included. Historian Joan M. Jensen states that Seneca women “spoke during the negotiations of the Treaty of 1794 with the United States government”. [13]
The conference ended on November 11, 1794, when fifty-nine war chiefs and sachems signed the treaty, and the text of the Canandaigua treaty, which comprised seven articles, was submitted to the U.S. Senate on January 2, 1795, carrying the title: "The Six Nations, and Oneida, Tuscarora, and Stockbridge Tribes'”. [14]
The treaty established peace and friendship between the United States of America and the Six Nations and affirmed Haudenosaunee land rights in the state of New York, and the boundaries established by the Phelps and Gorham Purchase of 1788. [15]
Article One of the treaty promises “perpetual peace and friendship” between America and the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. [16] Article Two acknowledges lands belonging to the Oneida, Onondoga, and Cayuga, and gives them the legal right to sell the land if they so wish and Article Three legally defines the perimeter of Seneca territories. [16] Article Four maintains that America must not “claim or disturb” any lands belonging to the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. [16] Article Five legally acknowledges that the road from “Fort Schlosser to Lake Erie, as far south as Buffalo Creek” belongs to the Seneca Nation. [16] Article Six promises $4,500 each year to the Haudenosaunee Confederacy from America. [16] Article Seven states that if the “perpetual peace and friendship” between the Haudenosaunee Confederacy and America were disturbed in any way, the conflict would be resolved peacefully by a third party. [16]
Article Six of the treaty continues to be honored by the contracting parties. [17] It provides that the U.S. government annually provide goods valued at $4,500. [18] To date, Haudenosaunee leaders have insisted that the payment be made with bolts of cloth, rather than cash, as a means of adhering to the terms of the largely dishonored treaty. [19] [20] [21]
The U.S. government dishonored Article Two, which ensured that the land rights of the Oneida, Onondaga, and Cayuga nations would be protected by the U.S. government against state interference. [16] By the early 19th century, federal Indian agents were "deeply involved" in furthering a federal policy of depriving the Oneida people of their Article Two rights to the quiet enjoyment of their treaty lands by both failing to prevent New York from purchasing treaty lands and actively "encouraging the removal of the Oneidas... to the west." [22] By 1920, the Oneida Nation retained only 32 acres (13 ha) of treaty land, [23] down from the six million acres (2,400,000 ha) held before the American Revolution. [24]
The Oneida Nation of Wisconsin was still receiving an annuity check of $1,800 as late as 1941, almost 150 years after the treaty took effect. [1] [21]
The Quakers were involved in the aftermath of the treaty. Pickering appointed the Quakers to teach the Haudenosaunee Confederacy “European-style agriculture”. [25] The Friends’ Review, a Quaker publication, recalls “ploughs, axes, and hoes” being “liberally” supplied to the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. [26] The treaty has had a lasting legacy in asserting the sovereignty of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy; historian Robert W. Venables states that “from 1794 to the present day, the treaty has been the legal keystones of relations between the United States and the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy. The treaty is at the center of any of the Six Nation’s land claims and their rights to govern their own reservations”. [27] The sovereignty and autonomy established in the treaty was also reaffirmed in the State Papers of the London Review of 1796, stating that anyone is able to “freely to pass and repass” through the territory addressed in the treaty, while recognizing the friendship established by the treaty itself. [28]
The treaty was signed by fifty sachems and war chiefs. [15] [29]
Notable signatories include:
To us it is more than a contract, more than a symbol;
to us the 1794 Treaty is a way of life. [30]
Thayendanegea or Joseph Brant was a Mohawk military and political leader, based in present-day New York and, later, Brantford, in what is today Ontario, who was closely associated with Great Britain during and after the American Revolution. Perhaps the best known Native American of his generation, he met many of the most significant American and British people of the age, including both United States President George Washington and King George III of Great Britain.
The Seneca are a group of Indigenous Iroquoian-speaking people who historically lived south of Lake Ontario, one of the five Great Lakes in North America. Their nation was the farthest to the west within the Six Nations or Iroquois League (Haudenosaunee) in New York before the American Revolution. For this reason, they are called “The Keepers of the Western Door.”
The Phelps and Gorham Purchase was the sale, in 1788, of a portion of a large tract of land in western New York State owned by the Seneca nation of the Iroquois Confederacy to a syndicate of land developers led by Oliver Phelps and Nathaniel Gorham. The larger tract of land is generally known as the "Genesee tract" and roughly encompasses all that portion of New York State west of Seneca Lake, consisting of about 6,000,000 acres (24,000 km2).
The Onondaga people are one of the five original nations of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy in the Northeastern Woodlands. Their historical homelands are in and around present-day Onondaga County, New York, south of Lake Ontario.
The Cayuga are one of the five original constituents of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois), a confederacy of Native Americans in New York. The Cayuga homeland lies in the Finger Lakes region along Cayuga Lake, between their league neighbors, the Onondaga to the east and the Seneca to the west. Today, Cayuga people belong to the Six Nations of the Grand River First Nation in Ontario, and the federally recognized Cayuga Nation of New York and the Seneca-Cayuga Tribe of Oklahoma.
John Abeel III known as Gaiänt'wakê or Kaiiontwa'kon in the Seneca language and thus generally known as Cornplanter, was a Dutch-Seneca chief warrior and diplomat of the Seneca people. As a war chief, Cornplanter fought in the American Revolutionary War on the side of the British. After the war Cornplanter led negotiations with the United States and was a signatory of the Treaty of Fort Stanwix (1784), the Treaty of Canandaigua (1794), and other treaties. He helped ensure Seneca neutrality during the Northwest Indian War.
The Seven Nations of Canada was a historic confederation of First Nations living in and around the Saint Lawrence River valley beginning in the eighteenth century. They were allied to New France and often included substantial numbers of Roman Catholic converts. During the Seven Years' War (1756–1763), they supported the French against the British. Later, they formed the northern nucleus of the British-led Aboriginal alliance that fought the United States in the American Revolutionary War and the War of 1812.
There are four treaties of Buffalo Creek, named for the Buffalo River in New York. The Second Treaty of Buffalo Creek, also known as the Treaty with the New York Indians, 1838, was signed on January 15, 1838 between the Seneca Nation, Mohawk nation, Cayuga nation, Oneida Indian Nation, Onondaga (tribe), Tuscarora (tribe) and the United States. It covered land sales of tribal reservations under the U.S. Indian Removal program, by which they planned to move most eastern tribes to Kansas Territory west of the Mississippi River.
The Cayuga Nation of New York is a federally recognized tribe of Cayuga people, based in New York, United States. Other organized tribes with Cayuga members are the federally recognized Seneca-Cayuga Tribe of Oklahoma and the Canadian-recognized Six Nations of the Grand River First Nation in Ontario, Canada.
Ganondagan State Historic Site, also known as Boughton Hill, is a Native American historic site in Ontario County, New York in the United States. Location of the largest Seneca village of the 17th century, the site is in the present-day Town of Victor, southwest of the Village of Victor. The village was also referred to in various spellings as Gannagaro, Canagora, Gandagora, Gandagaro and Gannontaa.
The Seneca–Cayuga Nation is one of three federally recognized tribes of Seneca people in the United States. It includes the Cayuga people and is based in Oklahoma, United States. The tribe had more than 5,000 people in 2011. They have a tribal jurisdictional area in the northeast corner of Oklahoma and are headquartered in Grove. They are descended from Iroquoian peoples who had relocated to Ohio from New York state in the mid-18th century.
The Northwestern Confederacy, or Northwestern Indian Confederacy, was a loose confederacy of Native Americans in the Great Lakes region of the United States created after the American Revolutionary War. Formally, the confederacy referred to itself as the United Indian Nations, at their Confederate Council. It was known infrequently as the Miami Confederacy since many contemporaneous federal officials overestimated the influence and numerical strength of the Miami tribes based on the size of their principal city, Kekionga.
The Treaty of Fort Stanwix was a treaty finalized on October 22, 1784, between the United States and Native Americans from the six nations of the Iroquois League. It was signed at Fort Stanwix, in present-day Rome, New York, and was the first of several treaties between Native Americans and the United States after the American victory in the Revolutionary War.
The Iroquois, also known as the Five Nations, and later as the Six Nations from 1722 onwards; alternatively referred to by the endonym Haudenosaunee are an Iroquoian-speaking confederacy of Native Americans and First Nations peoples in northeast North America. They were known by the French during the colonial years as the Iroquois League, and later as the Iroquois Confederacy, while the English simply called them the "Five Nations". The peoples of the Iroquois included the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca. After 1722, the Iroquoian-speaking Tuscarora people from the southeast were accepted into the confederacy, from which point it was known as the "Six Nations".
Tadodaho was a Native American Hoyenah (sachem) of the Onondaga nation before the Deganawidah and Hiawatha formed the Iroquois League, or "Haudenosaunee". According to oral tradition, he had extraordinary characteristics and was widely feared, but he was persuaded to support the confederacy of the Five Nations.
Oneida Indian Nation of New York v. County of Oneida, 414 U.S. 661 (1974), is a landmark decision by the United States Supreme Court concerning aboriginal title in the United States. The original suit in this matter was the first modern-day Native American land claim litigated in the federal court system rather than before the Indian Claims Commission. It was also the first to go to final judgement.
Jasper Parrish was a United States Agent and Interpreter for the Iroquois. Parrish was fluent in the Mohawk and Delaware languages after having lived among the Munsee and Mohawk nations for six years as a child. Parrish's residence with the Indian nations began when he and his father were kidnapped by members of the Munsee Indian nation on July 5, 1778.
Honayawas or Farmer's Brother was a Seneca Chief, active member of the Six Nations, elected War Chief, translator, and noted orator who fought and negotiated with both the United States and British before, during, and after the American Revolution.
Fish Carrier or "Ojageght," which translates to English as "he is carrying a fish by the forehead strap," was an Iroquois chief of the Cayuga people. He supported the British during the American Revolution, participating in the Battle of Wyoming in 1778 and the Battle of Newtown in 1779.
Little Billy was a chief of the Seneca Nation of Haudenosaunee (Iroquois), also known as Tishkaaga, Gishkaka, Juskakaka, and Jishkaaga. He was a signer of several treaties with the United States government, including the Treaty of Canandaigua in 1794, and the Treaty of Big Tree in 1797.
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