May 5, 1808.
To Colonel Louis Cook and Jacob Francis of the St. Regis Indians:—
My Children,—I take you by the hand, and all the people of St. Regis within the limits of the United States, and I desire to speak to them through you. A great misunderstanding has taken place between the English and the United States, and although we desire to live in peace with all the world and unmolested, yet it is not quite certain whether this difference will end in peace or war. Should war take place, do you, my children, remain at home in peace, taking care of your wives and children. You have no concern in our quarrel, take therefore no part in it. We do not wish you to spill your blood in our battles. We can fight them ourselves. Say the same to your red brethren everywhere, let them remain neutral and quiet, and we will never disturb them. Should the English insist on their taking up the hatchet againstus, if they choose rather to break up their settlements and come over to live in peace with us, we will find other settlements for them, and they shall become our children. The red nations who shall remain in peace with the United States, shall forever find them true friends and fathers. Those who commence against them an unprovoked war, must expect their lasting enmity.
My children, I wish you well, and a safe return to your own country.
Washington, December 2, 1808.
To the Delaware Chief, Captain Armstrong:—
I have received your letter of October 20th, wherein you express a wish to obtain a deed for the thirteen sections of lands reserved for the Delawares in the State of Ohio, by an act of Congress. I accordingly now send you an authentic deed designating the thirteen sections, and signed by the Secretary of the Treasury, who was authorized for this purpose by the act of Congress. Under this you are free to settle on the lands when you please, and to occupy them according to your own rules. You cannot, indeed, sell them to the white citizens of the United States. Knowing how liable you would be to be cheated and deceived, were we to permit our citizens to purchase your lands, our government acting as your friends and patrons, and desirous of guarding your interests against the frauds that would surround you, does not permit white persons to purchase your lands from you. In every other way they are yours, free to be used as you please; and their possession will be protected and guaranteed to you by the United States. I salute you and my children, the Delawares, with friendship.
December 21, 1808.
To the Miamis, Powtewatamies, Delawares and Chippeways.
My Children:—Some of you are old enough to remember, and the youngest have heard from their fathers, that the country was formerly governed by the English. While they governed it there were constant wars between the white and the red people. To such a height was the hatred of both parties carried that they thought it no crime to kill one another in cold blood whenever they had an opportunity. This spirit led many of the Indians to take side against us in the war; and at the close of it the English made peace for themselves, and left the Indians to get out of it as well as they could. It was not till twelve years after that we were able by the treaty of Greeneville to close our wars with all our red neighbors. From that moment, my children, the policy of this country towards you has been entirely changed. General Washington, our first President, began a line of just and friendly conduct towards you. Mr. Adams, the second, continued it; and from the moment I came into the administration I have looked upon you with the same good will as my own fellow citizens, have considered your interests as our interests, and peace and friendship as a blessing to us all. Seeing with sincere regret that your people were wasting away, believing that this proceeded from your frequent wars, and the destructive use of spirituous liquors, and scanty supplies of food, I have inculcated peace with all your neighbors, have endeavored to prevent the introduction of spirituous liquors among you, and pressed on you to rely for food on the culture of the earth more than on hunting. On the contrary, my children, the English persuade you to hunt, they supply you with spirituous liquors, and are now endeavoring to engage you to join them in the war against us, should a war take place. You possess reason, my children, as we do, and you will judge for yourselves which of us advise you as friends. The course they advise has worn you down to your present numbers, but temperance, peace and agriculture will raise you up to be what your forefathers were, will prepare you to possessproperty, to wish to live under regular laws, to join us in our government, to mix with us in society, and your blood and ours united will spread again over the great island.
My children, this is the last time I shall speak to you as your father, it is the last counsel I shall give. I am now too old to watch over the extensive concerns of the seventeen States and their territories. I have, therefore, requested my fellow citizens to permit me to retire, to live with my family and to choose another chief and another father for you, and in a short time I shall retire and resign into his hands the care of your and our concerns. Be assured, my children, that he will have the same friendly disposition towards you which I have had, and that you will find in him a true and affectionate father. Entertain, therefore, no uneasiness on account of this change, for there will be no change as to you. Indeed, my children, this is now the disposition towards you of all our people. They look upon you as brethren, born in the same land, and having the same interests. In your journey to this place you have seen many of them. I am certain they have received you as brothers and been ready to show you every kindness. You will see the same on the road by which you will return; and were you to pass from north to south, or east to west in any part of the United States, you would find yourselves always among friends. Tell this, therefore, to your people on your return home, assure them that no change will ever take place in our dispositions towards them; deliver to them my adieux and my prayers to the Great Spirit for their happiness, tell them that during my administration I have held their hand fast in mine, that I will put it into the hand of their new father, who will hold it as I have done.
To Little Turtle, Chief of the Miamis:—
My Son,—It is always with pleasure that I receive you here and take you by the hand, and that to the assurances of friendship to your nation I can add those of my personal respect andesteem for you. Our confidence in your friendship has been the stronger, as your enlarged understanding could not fail to see the advantages resulting to your nation as well as to us from a mutual good understanding. We ask nothing from them but their peace and good will, and it is a sincere solicitude for their welfare which has induced us, from time to time, to warn them of the decay of their nation by continuing to rely on the chase for food, after the deer and buffalo are become too scanty to subsist them, and to press them before they are reduced too low, to begin the culture of the earth and the raising of domestic animals. A little of their land in corn and cattle will feed them much better than the whole of it in deer and buffalo, in their present scarce state, and they will be scarcer every year. I have, therefore, always believed it an act of friendship to our red brethren whenever they wished to sell a portion of their lands, to be ready to buy whether we wanted them or not, because the price enables them to improve the lands they retain, and turning their industry from hunting to agriculture, the same exertions will support them more plentifully.
You inform me, my son, that your nation claims all the land on the Wabash and the Miami of the Lake and their waters, and that a small portion of that which was sold to us by the Ottaways, Wyandots, and other tribes of Michigan belonged to you. My son, it is difficult for us to know the exact boundaries which divide the lands of the several Indian tribes, and indeed it appears often that they do not know themselves, or cannot agree about them. I have long thought it desirable that they should settle their boundaries with one another, and let them be written on paper and preserved by them and by us, to prevent disputes among themselves. The tribes who made that sale certainly claim the lands on both sides of the Miami, some distance up from the mouth, as they have since granted us two roads from the rapids to the Miami, the one eastwardly to the line of the treaty of Fort Industry, and the other south eastwardly to the line of the treaty of Greeneville. I observe, moreover, that in the late conveyance of lands on the White River branch of the Wabash, to the Delawares, the Powtewatamies join you in theconveyance, which is an acknowledgment that all the lands on the waters of the Wabash do not belong to the Miamis alone. If, however, the Ottaways and others who sold to us had no right themselves, they could convey none to us, and we acknowledge we cannot acquire lands by buying them of those who have no title themselves. This question cannot be determined here, where we have no means of inquiring from those who have knowledge of the facts. We will instruct Governor Hull to collect the evidence from both parties, and from others, and to report it to us. And if it shall appear that the lands belonged to you and not to those who sold them, be assured we will do you full justice. We ask your friendship and confidence no longer than we shall merit it by our justice. On this subject, therefore, my son, your mind may be tranquil. You have an opportunity of producing before Governor Hull all the evidences of your right, and they shall be fairly weighed against the opposite claims.
My son, I salute your nation with constant friendship, and assure you of my particular esteem.
To Manchol, the great War Chief of the Powtewatamies:—
My Son,—I am happy to receive you at the seat of Government of the United States, to take you and your nation by the hand, and to welcome you to this place. It has long been my desire to see the distinguished men of the Powtewatamies, and to give them the same assurances of friendship and good will which I have given to all my other red children. I wish to see them living in plenty and prosperity, beginning to cultivate the earth and raise domestic animals for their comfortable subsistence. In this way they will raise up young people in abundance to succeed to the old, and to keep their nation strong. For this reason I recommend to them to live in peace with all men, and not, by destroying one another, to make the whole race of red men disappear from the land.
You say, my son, that you have engaged in a war with the Osages, and that the war club is now in your hand for that purpose; but you do not tell me for what cause you are waging war with the Osages. I have never heard that they have crossed the Mississippi and attacked your villages, killed your women and children, or destroyed the game on your lands. What is the injury then which they have done you and for which you wish to cross the Mississippi and to destroy them? If they have done you no wrong, have you a right to make war upon innocent and unoffending people? Be assured that the Great Spirit will not approve of this,—He did not make men strong that they might destroy all other men. If your young people think that in this way they will acquire honor as great warriors, they are mistaken. Nobody can acquire honor by doing what is wrong.
You say, my son, that it is not the wish of my red children to meddle in the wars between the whites, nor that we should meddle in the wars among our red children. If your wars in no wise affect our rights, or our relations with those on whom you make war, we do not meddle with them but by way of advice, as your father and friend submitting it to your own consideration. But my son, your war parties cannot pass from your towns to the country of the Osages, nor can the Osages come to revenge themselves on your towns without traversing extensively a country which is ours. They must cross the Mississippi which is always covered with our boats, our people and property. All the produce of the western parts of Pennsylvania, Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Tennessee, and Louisiana, goes down the river Mississippi to New Orleans. It cannot be indifferent to us that this should be exposed to danger from unruly young men going to war. Our interests require that the Mississippi shall be a river of peace, not to be crossed by men seeking to shed blood. We have a right then to say that no war parties shall cross our river or our country without our consent. The Sacs and Foxes, besides the country from the Illinois to the Wisconsin on the east side of the Mississippi, ceded to us the country on the west side of the Mississippi, between that river and the Missouri, for about one hundred miles up each. The Osageshave ceded to us all the country from the south side of the Missouri to the Arkansas, more than two hundred miles up each river. Surely, my son, we are justifiable in so far meddling with your wars as to say that, in carrying them on neither the Osages nor you must cross that country which is ours, to get at one another, and in doing so to endanger our people and our property, and to stain our land with blood; and friendship requires that we should give you this warning.
My son, I wish you to consider this subject maturely, and to tell your nation that I request them to consider it also. I am ready to do them every favor in my power, and to give them every aid, but not aids to carry war across our territory. Do not suppose that in refusing this I am not your friend. If I were your enemy, what could I do better than to encourage you in tomahawking one another till not a man should be left. Neither must you suppose this to proceed from partiality to the Osages. You are nearer to me than the Osages, and on that account I should be more ready to do you good offices. But my desire to keep you in peace arises from my sincere wish to see you happy and prosperous, increasing in numbers, supplying your families plentifully with food and clothing, and relieving them from the constant chance of being destroyed by their enemies.
My son, the Secretary at War will give to you those tokens of our good will by which we manifest our friendship to the distinguished men among our red children who visit us. Be assured that I shall set a great value on your friendship; and convey for me to your nation assurances that I wish nothing more than their welfare. You shall return by the way of Baltimore and Philadelphia as you desire. I wish you to see as many of your brothers of the United States as you can. You will find them all to be your friends, and that they will receive you hospitably.
December 21, 1808.
To Beaver, the head warrior of the Delawares:—
My Son,—I am glad to see you here to take you by the hand. I am the friend of your nation, and sincerely wish them well. I shall now speak to them as their friend, and advise them for their good.
I have read your speech to the Secretary at War, and considered it maturely. You therein say that after the conclusion of the treaty of Greenville, the Wapanakies and other tribes of Indians mutually agreed to maintain peace among themselves and with the United States. This, my son, was wise, and I entirely approve of it. And I equally commend you for what you further say, that yours and the other tribes have constantly maintained the articles of peace with us, and have ceased to listen to bad advice. I hope, my son, that you will continue in this good line of conduct, and I assure you the United States will forever religiously observe the treaty on their part, not only because they have agreed to it, but because they esteem you; they wish you well, and would endeavor to promote your welfare even if there were no treaty; and rejoicing that you have ceased to listen to bad advice, they hope you will listen to that which is good.
My son, you say that the Osage nation has refused to be at peace with your nation or any others; that they have refused the offers of peace, and extended their aggressions to all people. This is all new to me. I never heard of an Osage coming to war on this side of the Mississippi. Have they attacked your towns, killed your people, or destroyed your game? Tell me in what year they did this? or what is the aggression they have committed on yours and the other tribes on this side the Mississippi? But if they have defended themselves and their country, when your tribes have gone over to destroy them, they have only done what brave men ought to do, and what just men ought never to have forced them to do. Your having committed one wrong on them gives you no right to commit a second; andbe assured, my son, that the Almighty Spirit which is above will not look down with indifference on your going to war against his children on the other side the Mississippi, who have never come to attack you. He is their father as well as your father, and He did not make the Osages to be destroyed by you. I tell you that if you make war unjustly on the Osages, He will punish your nation for it. He will send upon your nation famine, sickness, or the tomahawk of a stronger nation, who will cut you off from the land. Consider this thing well, then, before it is too late, and before you strike. His hand is uplifted over your heads, and His stroke will follow yours. My son, I tell you these things because I wish your nation well. I wish them to become a peaceable, prosperous, and happy nation; and if this war against the Osages concerned yourselves alone, I would confine myself to giving you advice, and leave it to yourselves to profit by it. But this war deeply concerns the United States. Between you and the Osages is a country of many hundred miles extent belonging to the United States. Between you also is the Mississippi, the river of peace. On this river are floating the boats, the people, and all the produce of the western States of the Union. This commerce must not be exposed to the alarm of war parties crossing the river, nor must a path of blood be made across our country. What we say to you, my son, we say also to the Osages. We tell them that armed bands of warriors, entering on the lands or waters of the United States without our consent, are the enemies of the United States. If, therefore, considerations of your own welfare are not sufficient to restrain you from this unauthorized war, let me warn you on the part of the United States to respect their rights, not to violate their territory.
You request, my son, to be informed of our warfares, that you may be enabled to inform your nation on your return. We are yet at peace, and shall continue so, if the injustice of the other nations will permit us. The war beyond the water is universal. We wish to keep it out of our island. But should we go to war, we wish our red children to take no part in it. We are able to fight our own battles, and we know that our red children cannotafford to spill their blood in our quarrels. Therefore, we do not ask it, but wish them to remain home in quiet, taking care of themselves and their families.
You complain that the white people in your neighborhood have stolen a number of your horses. My son, the Secretary of War will take measures for inquiring into the truth of this, and if it so appears, justice shall be done you.
The two swords which you ask shall be given to you; and we shall be happy to give you every other proof that we esteem you personally, my son, and shall always be ready to do anything which may advance your comfort and happiness. I hope you will deliver to your nation the words I have spoken to you, and assure them that in everything which can promote their welfare and prosperity they shall ever find me their true and faithful friend and father, that I hold them fast by the hand of friendship, which I hope they will not force me to let go.
To Captain Hendrick, the Delawares, Mohiccons, and Munries:—
My Son and my Children,—I am glad to see you here to receive your salutations, and to return them by taking you by the hand, and renewing to you the assurances of my friendship. I learn with pleasure that the Miamis and Powtawatamies have given you some of their lands on the White River to live on, and that you propose to gather there your scattered tribes, and to dwell on it all your days.
The picture which you have drawn, my son, of the increase of our numbers and the decrease of yours is just, the causes are very plain, and the remedy depends on yourselves alone. You have lived by hunting the deer and buffalo—all these have been driven westward; you have sold out on the sea-board and moved westwardly in pursuit of them. As they became scarce there, your food has failed you; you have been a part of every year without food, except the roots and other unwholesome things youcould find in the forest. Scanty and unwholesome food produce diseases and death among your children, and hence you have raised few and your numbers have decreased. Frequent wars, too, and the abuse of spirituous liquors, have assisted in lessening your numbers. The whites, on the other hand, are in the habit of cultivating the earth, of raising stocks of cattle, hogs, and other domestic animals, in much greater numbers than they could kill of deer and buffalo. Having always a plenty of food and clothing they raise abundance of children, they double their numbers every twenty years, the new swarms are continually advancing upon the country like flocks of pigeons, and so they will continue to do. Now, my children, if we wanted to diminish our numbers, we would give up the culture of the earth, pursue the deer and buffalo, and be always at war; this would soon reduce us to be as few as you are, and if you wish to increase your numbers you must give up the deer and buffalo, live in peace, and cultivate the earth. You see then, my children, that it depends on yourselves alone to become a numerous and great people. Let me entreat you, therefore, on the lands now given you to begin to give every man a farm; let him enclose it, cultivate it, build a warm house on it, and when he dies, let it belong to his wife and children after him. Nothing is so easy as to learn to cultivate the earth; all your women understand it, and to make it easier, we are always ready to teach you how to make ploughs, hoes, and necessary utensils. If the men will take the labor of the earth from the women they will learn to spin and weave and to clothe their families. In this way you will also raise many children, you will double your numbers every twenty years, and soon fill the land your friends have given you, and your children will never be tempted to sell the spot on which they have been born, raised, have labored and called their own. When once you have property, you will want laws and magistrates to protect your property and persons, and to punish those among you who commit crimes. You will find that our laws are good for this purpose; you will wish to live under them, you will unite yourselves with us, join in our great councils and form one people with us, and we shall all be Americans;you will mix with us by marriage, your blood will run in our veins, and will spread with us over this great island. Instead, then, my children, of the gloomy prospect you have drawn of your total disappearance from the face of the earth, which is true, if you continue to hunt the deer and buffalo and go to war, you see what a brilliant aspect is offered to your future history, if you give up war and hunting. Adopt the culture of the earth and raise domestic animals; you see how from a small family you may become a great nation by adopting the course which from the small beginning you describe has made us a great nation.
My children, I will give you a paper declaring your right to hold, against all persons, the lands given you by the Miamis and Powtewatamies, and that you never can sell them without their consent. But I must tell you that if ever they and you agree to sell, no paper which I can give you can prevent your doing what you please with your own. The only way to prevent this is to give to every one of your people a farm, which shall belong to him and his family, and which the nation shall have no right to take from them and sell; in this way alone can you ensure the lands to your descendants through all generations, and that it shall never be sold from under their feet. It is not the keeping your lands which will keep your people alive on them after the deer and buffalo shall have left them; it is the cultivating them alone which can do that. The hundredth part in corn and cattle will support you better than the whole in deer and buffalo.
My son Hendrick, deliver these words to your people. I have spoken to them plainly, that they may see what is before them, and that it is in their own power to go on dwindling to nothing, or to become again a great people. It is for this reason I wish them to live in peace with all people, to teach their young men to love agriculture, rather than war and hunting. Let these words sink deep in their hearts, and let them often repeat them and consider them. Tell them that I hold them fast by the hand, and that I will ever be their friend to advise and to assist them in following the true path to their future happiness.
To Kitchao Geboway:—
My Son,—I am happy to receive your visit at the seat of our government, and to repeat to you the assurances of my friendly dispositions towards your nation. I am the more pleased to see you again, as at your last visit we could not converse together for want of an interpreter. This difficulty is now removed by the presence of Mr. Ryley. I approve of your disposition, my son, to live at peace with all the world. It is what we wish all our red children to do, and to consider themselves as brethren of the same family, and forming with us but one nation. The Great Spirit did not make men that they might destroy one another, but doing to each other all the good in their power, and thus filling the land with happiness instead of misery and murder. This is the way in which we wish all our red children to live with one another, and with us; and this is what I wish you to say to your nation from me, when you deliver to them what I said to you the last winter. I am sorry you have not been able to carry it to them; they would have seen by that, that you came here as the friend of your own nation, and of all your red brethren. My son, I take by the hand the young man, the son of your friend, whom you brought with you. He is now young, and I hope will live to be old, and through his life will be steadfast in encouraging his nation to live in peace and friendship with their white brethren of the United States.
The Secretary at War will provide for your journey back, and your father Governor Hull will be glad to see you on your way. He will always give good advice to your nation in my name, and will guide them in the paths of peace and friendship with all men.
January 9, 1809.
To the Deputies of the Cherokee Upper Towns:—
My Children,—I have maturely considered the speeches you have delivered me, and will now give you answers to the several matters they contain.
You inform me of your anxious desires to engage in the industrious pursuits of agriculture and civilized life. That finding it impracticable to induce the nation at large to join in this, you wish a line of separation to be established between the upper and lower towns, so as to include all the waters of the Hiwassee in your part, and that having thus contracted your society within narrower limits, you propose within these to begin the establishment of fixed laws and of regular government. You say that the lower towns are satisfied with the division you propose; and on these several matters you ask my advice and aid.
With respect to the line of division between yourselves and the lower towns, it must rest on the joint consent of both parties. The one you propose seems moderate, reasonable, and well defined. We are willing to recognize those on each side of that line as distinct societies, and if our aid shall be necessary to mark it more plainly than nature has done, you shall have it. I think with you, that on this reduced scale it will be more easy for you to introduce the regular administration of laws.
In proceeding to the establishment of laws, you wish to adopt them from ours, and such only for the present as suit your present condition; chiefly, indeed, those for the punishment of crimes, and the protection of property. But who is to determine which of our laws suit your condition, and shall be in force with you? All of you being equally free, no one has a right to say what shall be law for the others. Our way is to put these questions to the vote, and to consider that as law for which the majority votes. The fool has as great a right to express his opinion by vote as the wise, because he is equally free, and equally master of himself. But as it would be inconvenient for all your men to meet in one place, would it not be better for every town to do as we do, that is to say, choose by the vote of the majority of the town and of the country people nearer to that than to any other town, one, two, three, or more, according to the size of the town, of those whom each voter thinks the wisest and honestest men of their place, and let these meet together and agree which of our laws suit them. But these men know nothing of our laws; how then can they know which to adopt. Let them associatein their council our beloved man living with them, Colonel Meigs, and he will tell them what our law is on any point they desire. He will inform them, also, of our methods of doing business in our councils, so as to preserve order, and to obtain the vote of every member fairly. This council can make a law for giving to every head of a family a separate parcel of land, which, when he has built upon and improved, it shall belong to him and his descendants forever, and which the nation itself shall have no right to sell from under his feet; they will determine, too, what punishment shall be inflicted for every crime. In our States, generally, we punish murder only by death, and all other crimes by solitary confinement in a prison.
But when you shall have adopted laws, who are to execute them? Perhaps it may be best to permit every town and the settlers in its neighborhood attached to it, to select some of their best men, by a majority of its votes, to be judges in all differences, and to execute the law according to their own judgment. Your council of representatives will decide on this or such other mode as may best suit you. I suggest these things, my children, for the consideration of the upper towns of your nation, to be decided on as they think best; and I sincerely wish you may succeed in your laudable endeavors to save the remains of your nation by adopting industrious occupations and a government of regular law. In this you may always rely on the counsel and assistance of the government of the United States. Deliver these words to your people in my name, and assure them of my friendship.
January 9, 1809.
To the Deputies of the Cherokees of the Upper and Lower Towns:—
My Children,—I understand from the speeches which you have delivered me, that there is a difference of disposition among the people of both parts of your nation, some of them desiring to remain on their lands, to betake themselves to agriculture, andthe industrious occupations of civilized life, while others, retaining their attachment to the hunter life, and having little game on their present lands, are desirous to remove across the Mississippi, to some of the vacant lands of the United States, where game is abundant. I am pleased to find so many disposed to ensure, by the cultivation of the earth, a plentiful subsistence for their families, and to improve their minds by education; but I do not blame those who, having been brought up from their infancy to the pursuit of game, desire still to follow it to distant countries. I know how difficult it is for men to change the habits in which they have been raised. The United States, my children, are the friends of both parties, and as far as can reasonably be asked, they will be willing to satisfy the wishes of both. Those who remain may be assured of our patronage, our aid, and good neighborhood; those who wish to remove, are permitted to send an exploring party to reconnoitre the country on the waters of the Arkansas and White rivers, and the higher up the better, as they will be the longer unapproached by our settlements, which will begin at the mouths of those rivers. The regular districts of the government of St. Louis are already laid off to the St. Francis. When this party shall have found a tract of country suiting the emigrants, and not claimed by other Indians, we will arrange with them and you the exchange of that for a just portion of the country they leave, and to a part of which proportioned to their numbers they have a right. Every aid towards their removal, and what will be necessary for them there, will then be freely administered to them, and when established in their new settlements, we shall still consider them as our children, give them the benefit of exchanging their peltries for what they want at our factories, and always hold them firmly by the hand.
I will now, my children, proceed to answer your kind address on my retiring from the government. Sensible that I am become too old to watch over the extensive concerns of the seventeen States and their territories, I requested my fellow citizens to permit me to retire, to live with my family, and to choose another President for themselves and father for you. They havedone so; and in a short time I shall retire, and resign into his hands the care of your and our concerns. Be assured, my children, that he will have the same friendly dispositions towards you which I have had, and that you will find in him a true and affectionate father. Indeed, this is now the disposition of all our people towards you; they look upon you as brethren, born in the same land, and having the same interests. Tell your people, therefore, to entertain no uneasiness on account of this change, for there will be no change as to them. Deliver to them my adieux, and my prayers to the Great Spirit for their happiness. Tell them that during my administration I have held their hand fast in mine, and that I will put it into the hand of their new father, who will hold it as I have done.
January 10, 1809.
To the Chiefs of the Wyandots, Ottawas, Chippewas, Powtewatamies and Shawanese:—
My Children,—This is the first time I have had the pleasure of seeing the distinguished men of our neighbors the Wyandots, Ottawas and Chippewas, at the seat of our government. I welcome you to it as well as the Powtewatamies and Shawanese, and thank the Great Spirit for having conducted you hither in safety and health. I take you and your people by the hand and salute you as my children; I consider all my red children as forming one family with the whites, born in the same land with them, and bound to live like brethren, in peace, friendship and good neighborhood. In former times, my children, we were not our own masters, but were governed by the English. Then we were often at war with our neighbors. Ill blood was raised and kept up between us, and in the war in which we threw off the English government, many of the red people, mistaking their brothers and real friends, took sides with the English government against us; and it was not till many years after we made peace with the English, that the treaty of Grenville closed our last wars withour Indian neighbors. From that time, my children, we have looked on you as a part of ourselves, and have cherished your prosperity as our own. We saw that these things were wasting away your numbers to nothing; that the intemperate use of ardent spirits produced poverty, trouble and murders among you; your wars with one another were lessening your numbers, and attachment to the hunter life, after game had nearly left you, produced famine, sickness and deaths among you in the scarce season of every year. It has been our endeavor, therefore, like true fathers and brothers, to withhold strong liquors from you, to keep you in peace with one another, and to encourage and aid you in the culture of the earth, and raising domestic animals, to take the place of the wild ones. This we have done, my children, because we are your friends, and wish you well. If we feared you, if we were your enemies, we should have furnished you plentifully with whiskey, let the men destroy one another in perpetual wars, and the women and children waste away for want of food, and remain insensible that they could raise it out of the earth. We have been told, my children, that some of you have been doubting whether we or the English were your truest friends. What do the English do for you? They furnish you with plenty of whiskey, to keep you in idleness, drunkenness and poverty; and they are now exciting you to join them in war against us, if war should take place between them and us. But we tell you to stay at home in quiet, to take no part in quarrels which do not concern you. The English are now at war with all the world but us, and it is not yet known whether they will not force us also into it. They are strong on the water, but weak on the land. We live on the land and we fear them not. We are able to fight our own battles; therefore we do not ask you to spill your blood in our quarrels, much less do we wish to be forced to spill it with our own hands. You have travelled through our country from the lakes to the tide waters. You have seen our numbers in that direction, and were you to pass along the sea shore you would find them much greater. You know the English numbers, their scattered forts and string of people, along the borders of the lakes and the St. Lawrence,how long do you think it will take us to sweep them out of the country? and when they are swept away, what is to become of those who join them in their war against us? My children, if you love the land in which you were born, if you wish to inhabit the earth which covers the bones of your fathers, take no part in the war between the English and us, if we should have war. Never will we do an unjust act towards you. On the contrary, we wish to befriend you in every possible way; but the tribe which shall begin an unprovoked war against us, we will extirpate from the earth, or drive to such a distance as that they shall never again be able to strike us. I tell you these things my children, not to make you afraid. I know you are brave men and therefore cannot fear. But you are also wise men and prudent men. I say it, therefore, that, in your wisdom and prudence, you may look forward. That you may go to the graves of your fathers and say, "fathers, shall we abandon you?" That you may look in the faces of your wives and children and ask, "shall we expose these our own flesh and blood to perish from want in a distant country and have our race and name extinguished from the face of the earth?" Think of these things, my children, as wise men, and as men loving their fathers, their wives and children, and the name and memory of their nation. I repeat, that we will never do an unjust act towards you. On the contrary, we wish you to live in peace, to increase in numbers, to learn to labor as we do, and furnish food for your increasing numbers, when the game shall have left you. We wish to see you possessed of property, and protecting it by regular laws. In time, you will be as we are; you will become one people with us. Your blood will mix with ours; and will spread, with ours, over this great island. Hold fast then, my children, the chain of friendship which binds us together, and join us in keeping it forever bright and unbroken.
I invite you to come here, my children, that you might hear with your own ears, the words of your father; that you might see with your own eyes, the sincere disposition of the United States towards you. In your journey to this place you have seen great numbers of your white brothers; you have been receivedby them as brothers, have been treated kindly and hospitably, and you have seen and can tell your people that their hearts are now sincerely with you. This is the first time I have ever addressed your chiefs, in person, at the seat of Government,—it will also be the last. Sensible that I am become too old to watch over the extensive concerns of the seventeen States and their territories, I requested my fellow citizens to permit me to retire to live with my family, and to choose another President for themselves, and father for you. They have done so; and in a short time I shall retire and resign into his hands the care of your and our concerns. Be assured, my children, that he will have the same friendly dispositions towards you which I have had, and that you will find in him a true and affectionate father. Indeed this is now the disposition of all our people towards you; they look upon you as brethren, born in the same land, and having the same interests. Tell your people, therefore, to entertain no uneasiness on account of this change, for there will be no change as to them. Deliver to them my adieus, and my prayers to the Great Spirit for their happiness. Tell them that during my administration, I have held their hand fast in mine; and that I will put it into the hand of their new father, who will hold it as I have done.
January 18, 1809.
To the Chiefs of the Ottawas, Chippewas, Powtewatamies, Shawanese and Wyandots:—
My Children,—I have considered the speech you have delivered me, and will now make answer to it. You have gone back to ancient times, and given a true history of the uses made of you by the French, who first inhabited your country, and afterwards by the English; and how they used you as dogs to set upon those whom they wanted to destroy. They kept the hatchet always in your hand, exposing you to be killed in their quarrels, and then gave you whiskey that you might quarrel and kill one another. I am glad you understand these things, andare determined no more to fight their battles. We shall never wish you to fight ours, but to stay at home in peace and take care of yourselves. You still wish, however, to keep up a correspondence with the English, because you say your young people find an advantage in it. The less you have to do with them the better, because all their endeavors will be, as you know, to persuade you to go to war for them. If they owe you for lands, they ought to pay you once for all and be done with it. With respect to your people on the English side of the water, should we have war with the English, let them remain neutral and we shall not disturb them; but if the English should endeavor to force them into the war, you would do well to receive them and let them live with you till we can clear the way for them to go back again, which will not take long.
You ask me what passed between this Government and the Little Turtle, the chiefs of the Chippewas, Powtewatamies, Shawanese, Ottawas, Isaac Williams, the Crane and the Delawares, at their visits to the seat of this Government many years ago. Those visits were in the time of my predecessors, so that I did not hear their speeches, and they did not leave them in writing. It is not in my power, therefore, to tell you what they were. But I can assure you that when the Little Turtle visited me, and in like manner when the chiefs of other tribes have visited me, not one word was ever said to the prejudice of the other Indians. I have no reason to believe they wished to speak to me in that way, but if they did, they knew I would not listen to them, and therefore did not do it. My advice to them all has been constantly to live in peace and friendship with one another, to begin to cultivate the earth, to raise domestic animals, and leave off the use of ardent spirits: in short, precisely what I have said to yourselves.
You ask whether the treaties at Swan's creek, and those of the last fall, and the fall before, were made by my desire. I will explain the subject to you. We consider your lands as belonging fully to yourselves, and that we have no right to purchase them but with your own free consent. Whenever you wish to sell, we are willing to buy, although it may be landswhich we do not immediately want. We believe it to be for your benefit to sell a part of your lands for annuities, which may enable you to improve farms, and in the meantime to support yourselves. While you keep such large tracts of country, the few deer which remain tempt you to continue hunters, and are yet not enough to maintain you plentifully through the year. A small part of the land cultivated in corn, with the cattle, hogs, and sheep it would enable you to raise, would maintain you better through the year, than the whole does in game. A thorough persuasion, therefore, that it is better for you to turn your surplus lands from time to time into money, induces us to buy when you desire to sell. On this principle, at the treaty of Swan's creek we purchased the slip of land which laid between what you sold to the Connecticut company and our former lines. We had no particular desire to buy it, but were told that it would be convenient to you to sell that parcel, and therefore we bought it.
The lands which were purchased of you near Detroit the last fall and the fall before, we did wish to purchase, provided you were willing freely to sell. At Detroit, you know, we keep a garrison to watch the English, and to protect the factory we establish there, to carry on trade with you. It is very desirable for us, therefore, to obtain so much land in the neighborhood as would receive settlers sufficient to raise provisions for the garrison, and to strengthen the garrison if attacked by the English. But still we instructed Governor Hull, however much we wished to get some land there, not to press it on you if you were not entirely willing to accommodate us. The settlement of our people there will be a great advantage to you if you become cultivators of the earth. You saw the Cherokees who were here when you arrived, my children. These were wealthy men, and became wealthy merely by living near our settlements. Their mother towns of Chota and Chilowee, are but twelve miles from our principal town of Knoxville. The Cherokees there have good farms, good houses, and abundance of cattle and horses. If a family raises more cattle or corn than they want for their own use, instead of letting it be eaten by their own lazy people who will not work, they carry it to Knoxville, sell it to our people,and purchase with the money clothes and other comforts for themselves. Our settlements around Detroit will give you the same advantages. If you become farmers and raise cattle, hogs, sheep, fowls, and such things to spare, you can immediately exchange them for clothing and other necessaries. I am satisfied, therefore, my children, that the accommodating us with that land was as beneficial to you as to us. But, notwithstanding, I believe it to be better for you to sell your surplus lands from time to time; yet I repeat to you the assurances that although we may go so far, sometimes, as to say we would be willing to buy such a piece of land, yet we will never press you to sell, until you shall desire yourselves to sell it.
I have thus, my children, answered the particulars of your speech. I have done it with truth and an open heart, and I hope it will be satisfactory to you.
January 31, 1809.
To the Chiefs of the Ottawas, Chippewas, Powtewatamies, Wyandots, and Shawanese:—
My Children,—I have considered the speech you have delivered me, and I will now give you an answer to it.
You have told us on former occasions of certain promises made to you at the treaty of Grenville, by General Wayne, respecting certain lands whereon you and your friends live. But when we looked into the treaty of Grenville, we found no such promises there; and as it is our custom to put all our agreements into writing, that they may never be forgotten or mistaken, we concluded no such promises had been made. But you now explain that the chiefs of the Wyandots near Detroit did not arrive at Grenville till after the treaty was signed—that they then convinced General Wayne that provision ought to be made for securing to them possession of the lands they lived on, so long as they and their descendants shall choose to live on them, and that he agreed to it. Of this, besides other evidence, you now producethe belt of wampum reserved by you, in memory of it, the counter-belt given us having probably been destroyed in the fire which consumed our war office in the year 1800. Such evidence, therefore, being now produced as induces a belief of the agreement, it shall be committed to writing, according to what has passed between the Secretary at War and yourselves; and we will also put into writing what has passed respecting the reserves for the Indians, and you shall have a copy of these writings which shall be firm and good to you forever.
You complain that white people go on your lands and settle without your consent. This is entirely against our will, and I earnestly desire you, my children, as soon as any intruder of the whites sets down on your lands, that you will not delay a moment to inform our agent, who will always be instructed in the measures to be taken for their immediate removal; and I desire you to do this, on your return, as to the intruders you now complain of.
The Secretary at War has explained to you the circumstances which attended the running the boundary line near Sandusky, under the treaty at Swan's creek, so as to satisfy you that no variation of it was intended; and you may be assured that when we proceed to run the lines for the roads granted us the last fall, you shall have notice, in order that your chiefs may attend and see it fairly done.
For these roads, with which your nations have been so friendly as to accommodate us, and which you wished us to accept as a present, I return you my thanks, and I accept them; and I request you, on our part, to accept as a token of our good will, the sum of a thousand dollars, of which five hundred dollars will be paid you here. And we shall be happy if you can employ this sum to your benefit or comfort in any way. Our settlements are now extending so much in every direction, that we shall be obliged to ask roads from our Indian brethren, that we may pass conveniently from one settlement to another, for which we will always gladly pay them the full value.
You have been informed, as you desired, of the exact amount of your annuities.
I have thus, my children, answered all the parts of your speech, and I have done it sincerely and with good will to you. I have not filled you with whiskey, as the English do, to make you promise, or give up what is against your interest, when out of your senses. I have listened to your complaints and proposals, I have found them reasonable, and I have given you the answers which a just and a reasonable nation ought to do. And this you may be assured is the way in which we shall always do business with you, because we do not consider you as another nation, but as a part of us, living indeed under your own laws, but having the same interests with us. I hope you will tell these things to your people, and that they will sink deep into their minds.
Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives:—
As the continuance of the act for establishing trading-houses with the Indian tribes, will be under the consideration of the legislature at its present session, I think it my duty to communicate the views which have guided me in the execution of that act, in order that you may decide on the policy of continuing it, in the present or any other form, or discontinue it altogether, if that shall, on the whole, seem most for the public good.
The Indian tribes residing within the limits of the United States, have, for a considerable time, been growing more and more uneasy at the constant diminution of the territory they occupy, although effected by their own voluntary sales; and the policy has long been gaining strength with them, of refusing absolutely all further sale, on any conditions; insomuch that, at this time, it hazards their friendship, and excites dangerous jealousies and perturbations in their minds to make any overture for the purchase of the smallest portions of their land. A very few tribes only are not yet obstinately in these dispositions. In order peaceably to counteract this policy of theirs, and to provide an extension of territory which the rapid increase of our numbers will call for, two measures are deemed expedient. First: to encourage them to abandon hunting, to apply to the raising stock, to agriculture and domestic manufactures, and thereby prove to themselves that less land and labor will maintain them in this, better than in their former mode of living. The extensive forests necessary in the hunting life will then become useless,and they will see advantage in exchanging them for the means of improving their farms and of increasing their domestic comforts. Secondly: to multiply trading-houses among them, and place within their reach those things which will contribute more to their domestic comfort than the possession of extensive but uncultivated wilds. Experience and reflection will develop to them the wisdom of exchanging what they can spare and we want, for what we can spare and they want. In leading them thus to agriculture, to manufactures, and civilization; in bringing together their and our settlements, and in preparing them ultimately to participate in the benefits of our government, I trust and believe we are acting for their greatest good. At these trading-houses we have pursued the principles of the act of Congress, which directs that the commerce shall be carried on liberally, and requires only that the capital stock shall not be diminished. We consequently undersell private traders, foreign and domestic; drive them from the competition; and thus, with the good will of the Indians, rid ourselves of a description of men who are constantly endeavoring to excite in the Indian mind suspicions, fears, and irritations toward us. A letter now enclosed, shows the effect of our competition on the operations of the traders, while the Indians, perceiving the advantage of purchasing from us, are soliciting generally our establishment of trading houses among them. In one quarter this is particularly interesting. The legislature, reflecting on the late occurrences on the Mississippi, must be sensible how desirable it is to possess a respectable breadth of country on that river, from our southern limit to the Illinois at least, so that we may present as firm a front on that as on our eastern border. We possess what is below the Yazoo, and can probably acquire a certain breadth from the Illinois and Wabash to the Ohio; but between the Ohio and Yazoo, the country all belongs to the Chickasaws, the most friendly tribe within our limits, but the most decided against the alienation of lands. The portion of their country most important for us is exactly that which they do not inhabit. Their settlements are not on the Mississippi, but in the interior country. They have lately shown a desire to become agricultural, and thisleads to the desire of buying implements and comforts. In the strengthening and gratifying of these wants, I see the only prospect of planting on the Mississippi itself, the means of its own safety. Duty has required me to submit these views to the judgment of the legislature; but as their disclosure might embarrass and defeat their effect, they are committed to the special confidence of the two houses.
While the extension of the public commerce among the Indian tribes, may deprive of that source of profit such of our citizens as are engaged in it, it might be worthy the attention of Congress, in their care of individual as well as of the general interest, to point in another direction the enterprize of these citizens, as profitably for themselves, and more usefully for the public. The river Missouri, and the Indians inhabiting it, are not as well known as is rendered desirable by their connection with the Mississippi, and consequently with us. It is, however, understood, that the country on that river is inhabited by numerous tribes, who furnish great supplies of furs and peltry to the trade of another nation, carried on in a high latitude, through an infinite number of portages and lakes, shut up by ice through a long season. The commerce on that line could bear no competition with that of the Missouri, traversing a moderate climate, offering, according to the best accounts, a continued navigation from its source, and possibly with a single portage, from the western ocean, and finding to the Atlantic a choice of channels through the Illinois or Wabash, the lakes and Hudson, through the Ohio and Susquehanna, or Potomac or James rivers, and through the Tennessee and Savannah rivers. An intelligent officer, with ten or twelve chosen men, fit for the enterprize, and willing to undertake it, taken from our posts, where they may be spared without inconvenience, might explore the whole line, even to the western ocean; have conferences with the natives on the subject of commercial intercourse; get admission among them for our traders, as others are admitted; agree on convenient deposits for an interchange of articles; and return with the information acquired, in the course of two summers. Their arms and accoutrements, some instruments of observation,and light and cheap presents for the Indians, would be all the apparatus they could carry, and with an expectation of a soldier's portion of land on their return, would constitute the whole expense. Their pay would be going on, whether here or there. While other civilized nations have encountered great expense to enlarge the boundaries of knowledge, by undertaking voyages of discovery, and for other literary purposes, in various parts and directions, our nation seems to owe to the same object, as well as to its own interests, to explore this, the only line of easy communication across the continent, and so directly traversing our own part of it. The interests of commerce place the principal object within the constitutional powers and care of Congress, and that it should incidentally advance the geographical knowledge of our own continent, can not but be an additional gratification. The nation claiming the territory, regarding this as a literary pursuit, which it is in the habit of permitting within its own dominions, would not be disposed to view it with jealousy, even if the expiring state of its interests there did not render it a matter of indifference. The appropriation of two thousand five hundred dollars, "for the purpose of extending the external commerce of the United States," while understood and considered by the executive as giving the legislative sanction, would cover the undertaking from notice, and prevent the obstructions which interested individuals might otherwise previously prepare in its way.
This fourth and last division of the work contains a large mass of very valuable and interesting miscellaneous matter—everything, indeed, valuable and interesting written by Mr. Jefferson, and not embraced in the previous divisions of the work. To the general reader, it will be found much the most instructive and entertaining portion of the publication, ranging, as it does, over a vast field of discussion—unless, perhaps, the latter portion of Mr. Jefferson's Correspondence be excepted, say, from 1812 to the end of his life. Among the interesting papers contained in this division of the work, may be enumerated the "Notes on Virginia," biographical sketches of distinguished Revolutionary characters, Mr. Jefferson's argument in vindication of his official action while President of the United States in connection with the Batture at New Orleans—the celebrated Anas, Resolutions defining the relations between the State and Federal Governments, and believed to be the originals of the Kentucky Resolutions of 1799, &c. These are but a few of the interesting papers comprised in Book IV. There are many others possessing great intrinsic interest and a very considerable historical value, as throwing much light upon the early history of our country. And nowhere does the genius of the distinguished Author, and the richness and diversity of his resources, more impress the reader than in the mass of miscellaneous matter collected in this last division of the work.