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The Indian titles to the lands in Warren County
were extinguished by the treaties of Fort McIntosh in 1785, Fort Harmar
in 1789, and Greenville in 1795. The first stipulated for the distribution
of goods among the different tribes for their use and comfort, but their
value is not specified. The last provided that the United States should
deliver to the tribes goods to the value of $20,000. and a perpetual annuity
of $9,500. payable in goods reckoned at first cost in the city or place
where they should be procured. By these three treaties, the Indians relinquished
forever all their claims to two-thirds of the State of Ohio. The great
councils of the Northwestern tribes, however, refused to rec-
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ognize the validity of the two former treaties, because they
were made with only a few of the tribes, and had not been sanctioned by
the united voice of the Indian confederacy. The Indians could have obtained
a much larger sum for these lands had they accepted the offers of the United
States Government made previous to Wayne's victorious campaign against them.
In 1793, President Washington instructed the Commissioners appointed by
him to negotiate a treaty of peace with the Northwestern Indians, to use
every effort to obtain a confirmation of the boundary line established at
Fort Harmar, and to offer in payment $50,000 in hand, and an annuity of
$10,000 forever. The Indians refused the money, claimed that the treaties
already made were void because not sanctioned by all the tribes, demanded
that the Ohio River should be considered the boundary, and that every white
settlement should be removed from the Northwest Territory. The Commissioners
explained to them that the United States Government had sold large tracts
of land northwest of the Ohio, and that the white settlements and improvements
were numerous, and had cost much money and labor, and could not be given
up; but the Government was willing to pay a larger sum in money and goods
than had been given at any one time for Indian lands since the whites first
set their feet on this continent. The Indians gave as their final reply:
"Money is of no value to us, and to most of us is unknown. As no
consideration whatever can induce us to sell the lands on which we get
sustenance for our women and children, we hope we may be allowed to point
out a mode by which your settlers may be easily removed, and peace thereby
obtained.
"We know these settlers are poor, or they never would have ventured
to live in a country which has been in continual trouble since they crossed
the Ohio. Divide, therefore, this large sum of money which you have offered
to us among these people. Give to each, also, a proportion of what you
say you will give to us annually over and above this large sum of money,
and, we are persuaded, they will most readily accept it in lieu of the
land you sold them. If you add, also, the great sums you must expend in
raising and paying armies with a view to force us to yield you our country,
you will certainly have more than sufficient for the purpose of repaying
these settlers for all their labor and their improvements.
"We shall be persuaded that you mean to do us justice if you agree
that the Ohio shall remain the boundary line between us. If you will not
consent thereto, our further meeting will be altogether unnecessary."
The Commissioners on the part of the Government said: "That they
had already explicitly declared to them that it was now impossible to
make the Ohio River the line between their lands and the lands of the
United States. Your answer amounts to a declaration that you will agree
to no other boundary than the Ohio. The negotiation is therefore at an
end."
Nothing remained for the Government but a vigorous prosecution of the
war. The Indians were defeated by Gen. Wayne in August,
1794, and in August, 1795, a treaty of peace was ratified by all the tribes.
Who was in the wrong in the long and bloody war which attended the early
settlement of Ohio? Are we placed in the dilemma of believing either that
our pioneer fathers were rapacious invaders of the lands of the Indians,
or that the red men were regardless of their solemn engagements? Fortunately,
we are not compelled to adopt either alternative. Enough has already been
said to show that the war was not one in which all the wrong was on one
side and all the right on the other. An honest effort was made by the
Government of the United States to observe good faith toward the Indians,
and to prevent their lands from being taken from them without their consent
in treaties duly ratified, but in the earlier treaties for the purchase
of lands in Ohio, all the tribes who had just claims were not represented. |