"All the world knows, that we conquered the several nations living on the Suquehannah, Cohongoranto, (now Potomack) and back of the Great Mountains in Virginia;" "we conquered the nations residing there, and that land, if the Virginians ever get a good right to it, it must be by us."

These tribes had previously, as early as 1701, placed themselves under the protection and government of Great Britain. In their deed, or treaty of the 4th of September, 1726, they confirmed this disposition of their country. Calculating implicitly on this acknowledgment, General Braddock, when, in 1755, he came over to command one of the military expeditions, directed against the French intruders upon the very Ohio lands in question, issued suitable instructions to Sir William Johnson. This gentleman was the celebrated Indian agent, of the British government, among the Mohawks. By these directions he was required to call the Five Nations together to lay before them the above grant to the King in 1726; by which they had placed all their hunting lands under his majesty's protectection, to be "guarrantied to them and to their use." The general then, after alleging the invasion of the French, and their erecting forts upon these lands, "contrary to the said deed and treaties; calls upon them in his name, to take up the hatchet, and come and take possession of their own lands." These Indian claims are solemnly appealed to in a diplomatic memorial, addressed by the British ministry to the Duke Mirepoix, on the part of France, on the 7th June, 1755. *"It is a certain truth," this memorial states, "that the" (meaning the countries possessed by the Five Nations) "have belonged, and as they have not been given up, or made over to the English, belong still to the same Indian nations." The court of Great Britain maintained in this negotiation, "that the Five Nations were by origin, or by right of conquest, the lawful proprietors of the river Ohio, and the territory in question."

In pursuance of this ancient aboriginal title, the author may not omit the testimony of Dr. Mitchell, who, at the solici

* Franklin's works, ante. † Idem.

tation of the British Board of Trade and Plantations, published a Map of North America, and was furnished for this purpose, with documents from the Colonial office. In this map, the same which the elder Adams mentions,* as the one by which the boundaries in the treaty of Paris of 1783, were adjusted; the Doctor observes, "that the Six Nations have extended their territories ever since the year 1672, when they subdued, and were incorporated with, the ancient Shawanese, the native proprietors of these countries. Besides which, they likewise claim a right of conquest over the Illinois and all the Mississippi, as far as they extend." This, he adds, "is confirmed by their own claims and possessions in 1742, which include all the bounds here laid down (meaning on his map,) and none have ever thought fit to dispute them." Such faith did the British government and their agent, Sir William Johnson, repose in this Indian title, that in October, 1768, agreeably to ministerial instructions solicited by Pennsylvania, "through Dr. Franklin, it was purchased of its holders, the Six Nations, for £10,460 7s. 6d. sterling. This Indian treaty was held at Fort Stanwix, afterwards denominated Fort Schuyler, and now included in the township of Rome, on the Erie canal, in the State of New York. At this meeting, so memorable in the annals of the west, the Six Nations declared to the agent, eminent for his knowledge of Indian concerns, that "you who know all our affairs, must be sensible, that our rights go much further to the south than the Kenhawa, and that we have a very good and clear title, as far south as the Cherokee river, which we cannot allow to be the right of any other Indians, without doing wrong to our posterity, and acting unworthy of those warriors who fought and conquered it; we therefore, expect this our right, will be considered." In 1781,† Colonel Croghan who, for thirty years had been deputy superintendent among the Six Nations, deposed, "that these Indians claimed by right of conquest, all the lands on the south-east side of the Ohio, to the Cherokee river, and on the west side, down to the Big Miami, otherwise called Stony river." This title, as has been men

* State Papers, vol. x, 15. † Haywood's Tennessee, p. 232.

A *

tioned was alienated to the British Crown in the treaty to which reference has just been had. The Cherokee river mentioned in this session, was also called the Hogotege* in the treaty, and is now known as the Tennessee river. The first

of these names is used convertibly with Tennessee, by the legislature of Virginia in their resolutions of 1778, and again in the celebrated land law fo 1779,† as well as in Filson's Topography of Kentucky, compiled in 1784. It is hoped that before the termination of this history, some more minute account of this remarkable treaty may be obtained from the inquiries, so courteously promoted by Governor Breathitt of Kentucky, and addressed to the government of our parent State. Yet the hope is but faint, unless the inquiry shall be pursued to the Colonial office in London, since, on application of secretary Jefferson, in 1793, to Governor Clinton of New York, for copies of all Indian treaties negotiated during the colonial government; it was replied, that on the rupture of the revolution, the British Superintendent for Indian affairs, had taken away all the papers belonging to his department.

Thus far the aboriginal title to Kentucky has been traced to its transfer to the British Crown; and although, as a matter of convention, and a question of treaty obligation, it seems well founded; yet it is not quite conclusive against the tribes west of the Six Nations. In the fluctuations so peculiarly incident to savage society, one tribe successively succeeds to the dominion, and the rights of its feebler neighbor; and in the weakness consequent upon the approach of the dense population of agricultural society, while one nation fades before the civilized man, another formerly tributary, resumes the paramount authority, which had been lost by its conquerors. In this manner, the north-western tribes, who seem to have been conquered by the Mohawks in ancient times, appear to have succeeded to the rights of their conquerors, when their former masters had lost the predominancy, which they certainly possessed during the war of 1755. Since our countrymen have been particularly acquainted with the north-western Indians, and have under

*Haywood's History of Tennessee, 231-2 † Henning's Statutes at large, 2, 1779.

stood their titles and fluctuating dominions, the Miami confederacy, or as they designated it, the Mi-a-mi-ah, have occupied the country between the Ohio, the lakes and the Mississippi, as far east as the Scioto. General Harrison, to whose curious inquiries the country is particularly indebted for information on this subject, gives this account in his valuable letter to Secretary Armstrong, in 1814. *"They (meaning the Miamis) have no tradition of removing from any other quarter of the country; whereas all the neighboring tribes, the Piankishaws excepted, who are a branch of the Miamies, are either intruders upon them, or have been permitted to settle in their country." "The claims of the Miamies were bounded on the north and west by those of the Illinois confederacy, consisting originally of five tribes, called Kaskaskias, Cahokias, Peorians, Michiganians, and Temarois, speaking the Miami language, and no doubt, branches of that nation."

In the above war between France and Great Britian,† the Indians inhabiting the countries between the rivers Mississippi, Ohio, and Miami, were known by the name of the Western confederacy, and were the allies of the former; while the Six Nations were attached to the latter, and were denominated the Northern confederacy. On the termination of this war, the Kaskaskias, under the mediation of the British government, formed a treaty of peace with the Iroquois. The former tribe, including the tribes between the Wabash and the Mississippi, had previously separated from the rest of the confederacy; for indeed the nature of Indian society, forbids the continuance of any large population together; and hence its endless ramification. The Illinois tribes had been driven from their possessions on lake Michigan, and had been nearly extirpated by the Sacs or Saukies, before the close of our revolutionary war. But all the traditional accounts of the north-western Indians, represent the country now composing the State of Indiana and that of Ohio west of the Scioto, to have been occupied by the Miami confederacy. The occupation of the country on the

*McAfee's History, p. 43. † Wheaton's Reports, Johnson against McIntosh. Gen. Harrison's Letter to the Author.

Scioto and the Miamis of the Ohio by the Delawares and Shawnees, was on the same authority, of more recent date, and by the permission of the Miamis. The Wyandots were the most easterly of these nations, and had long before the revolutionary war, carried on hostilities with the Mohawks. One battle fought in canoes near Long Point, on lake Erie, was so fatal to the Wyandots, as to have compelled the remnant of their tribe to remove to lake Michigan. The precise date of these events, cannot now be ascertained; but sometime before the close of the revolution, the Wyandots were found in their ancient seats about Sandusky river. Their numbers were not formidable, but their character for valor was so distinguished, that they obtained the custody of the great calumet, which was the emblem of the confederacy of nine tribes, formed by British influence against the United States, and terminated only by the victory of Wayne, at the rapids of the Maumee, in 1794. The return of this tribe, was in all probability, the result of British mediation, after their conquest of Canada. The Senecas, the most western of the Six Nations, had, at one time, extended themselves as far as the Sandusky river, and possessed a town upon it, which bore their name." This is the farthest western settlement of the Six Nations known, independent of the accounts of the colonial writers, which have been quoted; now had they conquered the Wyandots, still this tribe have not been discovered to have had any pretensions to Kentucky, beyond the other coterminous bands. Within the personal knowledge of our countrymen since the war of 1755, Kentucky has not been in the occupancy of any tribe. There are indeed through it, as all over the western country, indications of a race of people having existed, much more advanced in the arts, than the tribes known to us; but, whose history is but a tissue of faint and disjointed conjectures, like that of innumerable tribes all over the globe, who have been destitute of letters and the use of the metals. Without these foundations, civilization has neither fruits to record, nor instruments to perpetuate their memory. Our hunters from 1767, in their various pere

*

* General Harrison had his head quarters at this point during the late war.