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. [1] 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.
Following the Revolutionary War, the British ceded their claims in North America to the American government, against the desire of their Native American allies. As a result, the status of Indian lands was ignored in the Treaty of Paris, which was the peace and land settlement between the British and the American colonies. Iroquois League fled to Canada after the Revolution in order to continue receiving British support. Later, some of the Iroquois returned to their home in the Ohio region. Those that returned often got into violent conflict with colonists trying to settle the area. [2] The Treaty of Fort Stanwix was intended to serve as a peace treaty between the Americans and the Iroquois, as well as secure other Indian lands farther west, which the Iroquois had gained by conquest during the Beaver Wars in the last century. Joseph Brant was the leading Indian at the start of negotiations. He said, "But we must observe to you, that we are sent in order to make peace, and that we are not authorized, to stipulate any particular cession of lands." [3] Brant had to leave early for a planned trip to England. The leading Indian representatives who signed the treaty were Cornplanter and Captain Aaron Hill. In this treaty, the Iroquois Confederacy ceded all claims to the Ohio territory, a strip of land along the Niagara river and all land west of mouth of Buffalo creek. In Pennsylvania, the land acquired in this treaty is known as the "Last Purchase".
The Six Nations council at Buffalo Creek refused to ratify the treaty, denying that their delegates had the power to give away such large tracts of land and asked the Americans for return of the deeds and promised to indemnify them for any presents they had given. The general Indian confederacy also disavowed the treaty because most of the Six Nations did not live in the Ohio territory. The Ohio Country natives, including the Shawnee Indians, the Seneca-Cayuga, the Lenape (Delaware) and several other tribes, rejected the treaty. A series of treaties and land sales with these tribes soon followed:
The Treaty of Fort Stanwix was a significant blow to the Iroquois League. The Revolutionary War had significantly weakened the strength of the confederacy, and the negotiations at the Treaty of Fort Stanwix served to further divide them. After the war, the Iroquois never returned to their former influential status. [4]
Thayendanegea or Joseph Brant was a Mohawk military and political leader, based in present-day New York, who was closely associated with Great Britain during and after the American Revolution. Perhaps the Native American of his generation best known to the Americans and British, he met many of the most significant Anglo-American people of the age, including both George Washington and King George III.
The 1779 Sullivan Expedition—also known as the Sullivan-Clinton Expedition and Sullivan Campaign—was a military campaign ordered by George Washington during the American Revolutionary War. The Continental Army carried out a scorched-earth campaign, in what is now western New York state, against Loyalists and the four Nations of the Iroquois which had sided with the British. The campaign drove 5,000 Iroquois to Canada seeking British protection, and depopulated the area for post-war settlement.
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.
Fort Stanwix was a colonial fortress whose construction commenced on August 26, 1758, under the direction of British General John Stanwix, at the location of present-day Rome, New York, but was not completed until about 1762. The bastion fort was built to guard a portage known as the Oneida Carry during the French and Indian War. Fort Stanwix National Monument, a reconstructed structure built by the National Park Service, now occupies the site.
The Phelps and Gorham Purchase was the purchase in 1788 of 6,000,000 acres (24,000 km2) of land in what is now western New York State from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts for $1,000,000 (£300,000), to be paid in three annual installments, and the pre-emptive right to the title on the land from the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy for $5000 (£12,500). A syndicate formed by Oliver Phelps and Nathaniel Gorham bought preemptive rights to the 9,600-square-mile (25,000 km2) parcel - larger than six present U.S. states: Vermont, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Connecticut, Delaware, and Rhode Island - in New York, west of Seneca Lake between Lake Ontario and the Pennsylvania border, from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
The Ohio Country was a name used in the mid- to late 18th century for a region of North America west of the Appalachian Mountains and north of the upper Ohio and Allegheny rivers, extending to Lake Erie. The area encompassed roughly northwestern West Virginia, Western Pennsylvania, all of the present-day state of Ohio, and a wedge of southeastern Indiana.
The Shawnee are an Algonquian-speaking indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands. In the 17th century they lived in Pennsylvania, and in the 18th century they were in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana with some bands in Kentucky and Alabama. By the 19th century they were forcibly removed to Missouri, Kansas, Texas, and ultimately Indian Territory, which became Oklahoma under the 1830 Indian Removal Act.
Lord Dunmore's War—or Dunmore's War—was a 1774 conflict between the Colony of Virginia and the Shawnee and Mingo American Indian nations.
Six Nations is demographically the largest First Nations reserve in Canada. As of the end of 2017, it has a total of 27,276 members, 12,848 of whom live on the reserve. It is the only reserve in North America that has representatives of all six Haudenosaunee nations living together. These nations are the Mohawk, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, Seneca and Tuscarora. Some Lenape also live in the territory.
The Treaty of Fort Stanwix was a treaty signed between representatives from the Iroquois and Great Britain in 1768 at Fort Stanwix. It was negotiated between Sir William Johnson, his deputy George Croghan, and representatives of the Iroquois.
The Northwest Indian War (1786–1795), also known by other names, was an armed conflict for control of the Northwest Territory fought between the United States and a united group of Native American nations known today as the Northwestern Confederacy. The United States Army considers it the first of the United States Indian Wars.
The Treaty of Canandaigua also known as the Pickering Treaty 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.
The Treaty of Fort McIntosh was a treaty between the United States government and representatives of the Wyandotte, Delaware, Chippewa and Ottawa nations of Native Americans. The treaty was signed at Fort McIntosh on January 21, 1785. It contained 10 articles and an addendum.
The Treaty of Fort Harmar (1789) was an agreement between the United States government and numerous Native American tribes with claims to the Northwest Territory.
Lochry's Defeat, also known as the Lochry massacre, was a battle fought on August 24, 1781, near present-day Aurora, Indiana, in the United States. The battle was part of the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783), which began as a conflict between Great Britain and the Thirteen Colonies before spreading to the western frontier, where American Indians entered the war as British allies. The battle was short and decisive: about one hundred Indians of local tribes led by Joseph Brant, a Mohawk military leader who was temporarily in the west, ambushed a similar number of Pennsylvania militiamen led by Archibald Lochry. Brant and his men killed or captured all of the Pennsylvanians without suffering any casualties.
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.
"Indian Reserve" is a historical term for the largely uncolonized land in North America that was claimed by France, ceded to Great Britain through the Treaty of Paris (1763) at the end of the Seven Years' War—also known as the French and Indian War—and set aside for the First Nations in the Royal Proclamation of 1763. The British government had contemplated establishing an Indian barrier state in the portion of the reserve west of the Appalachian Mountains, and bounded by the Ohio and Mississippi rivers and the Great Lakes. British officials aspired to establish such a state even after the region was assigned to the United States in the Treaty of Paris (1783) ending the American Revolutionary War, but abandoned their efforts in 1814 after losing military control of the region during the War of 1812.
Snake was the English language name of two Shawnee leaders prominent in the history of the Ohio Country: Peteusha and Shemanetoo. They were both commonly referred to as "Snake" in historical records, or by variations such as "Black Snake" or "Captain Snake," so it is often difficult to determine which individual was being referred to. On a number of occasions, the two Snakes both signed a letter or appeared together, so it is clear they were two different people. There may have been additional Shawnees called "Snake," further complicating the matter. According to historian John Sugden, "it is unlikely if the biographies of these chiefs will ever be completely disentangled."
Quatawapea or John Lewis, also known as Captain Lewis and Colonel Lewis, was a Shawnee leader for whom Lewistown, Ohio, is named. Lewis fought in the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783) and the Northwest Indian War (1785–1795) as part of Shawnee opposition to the expansion of the United States into Shawnee territory. After the 1795 Treaty of Greenville, he sought to preserve Shawnee autonomy by promoting accommodation with the U.S., working with Black Hoof, the principal Shawnee spokesman.
Kekewepelethy, also known as Captain Johnny, was the principal civil chief of the Shawnees in the Ohio Country during the Northwest Indian War (1786–1795). He first came to prominence during the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783), in which he, like most of his fellow Mekoche Shawnees, initially sought to remain neutral. He joined the war against the United States around 1780, moving to Wakatomika, a Shawnee town known for its militant defense of the Ohio Country.