Dr. Thomas Walker and Colonel Andrew Lewis, the commissioners from Virginia, had learned on August 18 that the treaty conference was to begin on September 1. Both had financial interests in the claims of the Loyal Land Company. Walker, the company’s agent for more than forty years, “had his finger in every official land activity in Virginia in the second half of the eighteenth century.” He had explored and surveyed parts of southeastern Kentucky eighteen years before and had given the Cumberland Gap its name (one of a number of sites named in honor of William, Duke of Cumberland—Butcher Cumberland to the Highland Scots—who had defeated the Jacobite clans at Culloden in 1746). Walker had acquired property when he married a widowed cousin of George Washington and he had become the guardian of Thomas Jefferson when the boy’s father, his friend, neighbor, and fellow surveyor Peter Jefferson, died in 1757. Lewis, a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses and a surveyor in western Virginia, was also a major player in the Greenbrier Company of land speculators. Like George Washington and other Virginian veterans of the French and Indian War, he had a claim to lands based on bounties that Governor Dinwiddie had promised. Walker and Lewis hurried to Johnson Hall and arrived on August 27, only to be told by Johnson that the Indians would not assemble until September 20. They stayed “at a dirty Tavern near the Hall till the 14th from thence proceeded to Fort Stanwix where we arrived on the 17th and waited for the Indians till the 12th of October.” It was then decided that Lewis should leave to attend John Stuart’s treaty with the Cherokees scheduled to begin at Hard Labor, nine hundred miles away. (In the event, for a variety of reasons, no Virginian representatives attended the Cherokee treaty.) Walker later claimed that he merely witnessed the treaty at Fort Stanwix but, representing the interests of Washington, Jefferson, and other Virginians speculating in lands beyond the Blue Ridge Mountains, he doubtless arrived early to speak with Johnson in private and advance those interests without making a public record of it. In doing so, noted the late Iroquoian scholar William Fenton, he was not departing from council protocol, but simply exploiting a well-established Iroquois negotiating device.77
Lieutenant Governor John Penn and the commissioners from Pennsylvania, Richard Peters and James Tilghman, arrived on September 21, although Penn had to return to Philadelphia before negotiations got under way. Penn and Peters were experienced in the business of acquiring land by treaty: they had both figured prominently as the Penn family’s agents at the Albany Congress in 1754 where they executed a land deed.78 Peters, an Anglican clergyman, provincial secretary, and sometime business partner of George Croghan, once called Croghan a “vile Rascal.”79 It took one to know one. The son of a well-to-do family, Peters had attended the Westminster School in London. While there, he married a serving maid and his parents whisked him off to Leyden for several years to escape the disgrace and the clutches of the “impossible and vulgar person” who had “ensnared” their teenage son. Returning to London, he read law at the inner Temple and then was ordained in the Church of England. He married the daughter of the Earl of Derby but just as she was about to give birth to their child, his first wife turned up. Once again, Peters fled the country, this time to Philadelphia to make a new start.80 There he became Thomas Penn’s adviser and rose within the government of Pennsylvania. He had “a talent for deception,” was “equally at home in saving souls and making fortunes,” and wasted no time in getting into the Indian land business.81 As secretary, Peters spent years tampering with the written records of treaty conferences to undermine Delaware sovereignty and separate the Delawares from their land.82 Chief Justice Frederick Smith of New Jersey also attended, as did “Sundry Gents” from different colonies.
At the beginning of October 800 Indians had arrived; by the 22nd there were 2,200, with more expected the next day; eventually more than 3,000 attended, “the greatest Number of Indians, That ever met at any Treaty in America.”83 The great majority were men from the Six Nations. Women regularly attended treaty conferences but this was harvest time in Iroquois villages. Moreover, Johnson, whether to keep down expenses or to ensure the absence of a group that might balk at the huge land cession he was planning, had sent word to Iroquois headmen not to bring women to the treaty “as business is best carried on when none but fit men go about it.”84 The Iroquois delegates included the Mohawk warrior and orator Abraham or Little Abraham (his Mohawk name was variously recorded as Tayorheasere, Teyarhasere, Tyorhansera, Tigoransera, and Teirhenshsere). Conoghquieson, the chief sachem of Old Oneida, and Tagawaron from Kanonwalohale represented the Oneidas. Bunt and Diaquanda or Teyohaquende, a “chief Warrior and Sachim” and a close ally and friend of Sir William, spoke for the Onondagas. With fences still to mend with Johnson, the Senecas sent the old Genesee chief Guastrax and the noted war chief Sayenqueragtha (or Old Smoke), who had been with Johnson at the capture of Fort Niagara in 1759. Now in his sixties he was still a commanding figure, over six feet tall, and, said the Seneca chief Blacksnake, he towered “far above his fellows” in intellect.85 A handful of Shawnees and Delawares attended, more as observers than as active participants. Amid the throng of governors, Indian agents, land speculators, colonial commissioners, traders, interpreters, missionaries, and hundreds of Iroquois, they were “lost in the crowd.”86 Killbuck and Turtle’s Heart represented the Delawares. Turtle’s Heart had met the trader William Trent before. He was one of the two Indians who came to parlay at Fort Pitt in 1763 and had been given blankets from the smallpox hospital. Evidently, Turtle’s Heart survived Trent’s germ warfare (many others did not); perhaps he had had smallpox before.
Guy Johnson served as the secretary and Andrew Montour, John Butler, and Philip Philips acted as interpreters. Sir William could get by in Mohawk but a formal multinational council such as this demanded the multilingual skills of an experienced interpreter like Montour who, in addition to being fluent in French and English, spoke Mohawk, Oneida, Wyandot, Delaware, Miami, and Shawnee. Montour had developed a pivotal role as well as an ambiguous identity as a cultural broker on the eighteenth-century frontier. The son of a famous Oneida-French woman, Madam Montour, he had grown up among the Oneidas in New York and the Delawares and Shawnees on the Susquehanna River. Also known by his Indian names Sattelihu or Eghnisera, Montour favored elaborate European clothing while wearing Indian facial paint, applied with bear’s grease, and ear ornaments. He worked as an agent and interpreter for Pennsylvania from 1742 to 1756 and was commissioned to raise a company of scouts for George Washington’s campaign into Ohio country in 1754. Richard Peters called him “a dull stupid Creature, in great Esteem with the Indians.” The Ohio Iroquois made him a chief councilor in 1752, which meant he could “transact any publick Business in behalf of us, the Six Nations.” At the Treaty of Logstown that year the Seneca Half King, Tanagharison, handed Eghnisera a ten-row wampum belt to remind him “that you are one of our own People.” They were pleased to have him there as an interpreter, “for we are sure our Business will go on well & Justice be done on both Sides,” but he should remember that he had done “a great Deal of Business among us” before Pennsylvania and Virginia employed him: “you are not Interpreter only; for you are one of our Council, have an equal Right with us to all these Lands.” In 1756 Montour transferred to the northern department of Indian affairs and the service of William Johnson; from 1766 to 1772 he served as a post interpreter at Fort Pitt. He had a turbulent life, marked by recurrent problems with alcohol, indebtedness, and failed marriages. His contemporaries never quite figured him out or trusted him—was he Indian or white, loyal to Britain or in the employ of the French?—but they relied on him to negotiate and interpret the complex cultural landscape of his world.87
John Butler was born in Connecticut and moved to the Mohawk with his family when his father, an officer in the British army, was posted to Fort Hunter. He was a trader at Fort Oswego from 1745 to 1755, served as an Indian agent, saw action in the French and Indian War, and worked as an interpreter for William Johnson. Like Johnson, he accumulated consid
erable landholdings in the Mohawk Valley, some twenty-six thousand acres, making him the second wealthiest man in the valley after Sir William.88 Philip Philips, a “Dutchman,” had been captured by Kahnawake Mohawks at age fourteen in 1747 during King George’s War, and he had refused to return with other released captives at the end of the war. He had participated in an Indian attack on George Croghan’s trading party in 1753.89
Most of the negotiations at Fort Stanwix were conducted privately. Johnson complained afterward that he was in poor health and worn out by sitting “whole nights generally in the open woods in private conferences with the leading men.” These private meetings “where most points are discussed & settled” did not usually make it into the record; “if they had it would have been too Voluminous,” said Johnson.90 Private meetings always raised suspicions of shady dealing, and often with good reason, but “talk in the bushes”—to arrange an agenda, discuss an issue, or hash out a disagreement prior to more formal negotiation in open council—was not unusual. The real business often took place behind the scenes.91
On Monday, October 24, Johnson opened the formal negotiations. Speaking through the Mohawk chief Abraham, he welcomed the Indians “to this place where I have kindled a Council Fire for affairs of importance.” He and the delegates from Virginia and Pennsylvania had waited a month to see them. “I hope therefore that you are now come fully prepared and with Hearts well inclined to the great business for which we are convened, and in order to prepare you the better for these purposes, I do now, agreeable to the antient custom established by our Forefathers, proceed to the ceremony of Condolence usual on these occasions.” He then duly presented strings of wampum to wipe away tears, clear throats, and open ears and hearts. He gave a wampum belt to rekindle their council fires, another to bid them assemble, and another to dispel darkness. He took “the clearest water” to cleanse their insides, advised the sachems to consult with their war chiefs and the war chiefs to listen to their sachems, and urged the different nations to be unanimous. Also, “as there are but two Council Fires for your confederacy, the one at my house and the other at Onondaga, I must desire that you will always be ready to attend either of them, when called upon, by which means business will I hope, always be attended & properly carried on for our mutual Interest.” Johnson punctuated each statement with the presentation of a wampum belt and the Indians “gave the Yo-hah at the proper places.” With the proper rituals completed, the council adjourned until the following day.92
Conoghquieson opened proceedings the next day, giving his own name to Governor Franklin, as he was the only one of the several governors on whom the Iroquois had not yet bestowed a ceremonial name. Then Conoghquieson thanked Johnson for his adherence to the ancient rituals, “repeated all that Sir William had said,” and thanked him for each statement and belt, giving belt for belt in response. That done, the council adjourned again until the next day.93 As William Fenton noted, Johnson “had learned that adhering to Iroquois customary ways was the sure way to get what he wanted out of a council. Others of his contemporaries who found Indian ceremony tedious and who bridled at the waste of time accomplished far less.”94
On Wednesday Conoghquieson got to his feet and announced that, not being satisfied with his giving his own name to Franklin, the Six Nations now bestowed on the governor the name Saorghweyoghsta, or Doer of Justice, in recognition of New Jersey having recently imposed the death penalty on some Indian killers. (In fact, the chiefs may have not wanted to give him the name of one of the league’s founders.)95 Sir William moved the proceedings along, producing a fifteen-row wampum belt with human figures at each end, representing their alliance, and he renewed and confirmed the Covenant Chain, “rubbing off any rust which it may have contracted that it might appear bright to all Nations as a proof of our love and Friendship.” Then he got down to business. Three years before, the Indians had agreed in principle to settling a boundary and they and he both knew only too well that until such a firm and clear line was established trespass and trouble would continue. “After long deliberation on some means for your relief, and for preventing future disputes concerning Lands,” the great and good king of England had ordered Johnson to fix a boundary line and give the Indians “handsome proof of his Generosity proportiond to the nature and extent of what Lands shall fall to him.” According to Wharton, “in order that all the different Tribes might clearly understand his Speech,” Johnson “departed from the Usual Method of treating with Them and had it translated into the Mohock Tongue by an Indian, who spoke and wrote, both English and Mohock excellently well.” Abraham repeated what Sir William had said, thanked him for saying it, and called for an adjournment so that they could give this “weighty affair” their “most serious consideration.”96
On Thursday, September 27, Johnson’s Onondaga ally Diaquanda and eighty-six other Indians came to Sir William’s quarters “to pay him the usual compliments.” Johnson returned the compliments and “ordered them paint, Pipes, Tobacco & a dram around and dismissed them.” On Friday, the weather turning cold, he “clothed the old chiefs of every Nation for which they returned many thanks.”97 The Indians continued discussing the boundary issue among themselves until four in the afternoon, and then they informed Johnson that they were ready to speak with him. They acknowledged that a firm line between the Indians and the English would be to everyone’s advantage. Experience had taught them “we cannot have any great dependence on the white People, and that they will forget their agreements for the sake of our Lands,” but Johnson had done much to assure them that things could be different this time and they moved from debating the concept of a boundary to discussing the details. In particular, they worried that their northern towns would lay open if the line stopped at Owego on the Susquehanna River, the northern point of the boundary negotiated in 1765. What was the point of drawing a line between Iroquois country and Pennsylvania and Virginia “whilst the way to our Towns lay open?” They needed to extend the line northward to close off the Finger Lakes region from colonial settlers. Johnson was ready for this issue. He invited the chiefs of each nation back to his quarters, saying, “I have prepared a Map on which the Country is drawn large & plain which will enable us both to judge better of these matters.”98
Johnson’s instructions were to fix the boundary line at the Kanawha River, where it would meet the southern line negotiated by John Stuart with the Cherokees. The Iroquois speaker, probably Conoghquieson, reminded Johnson that the Tennessee River, not the Kanhawha, marked the proper limit to their lands. The Six Nations had “a very good & clear Title to the Lands as far as the Cherokee River,” and they expected Britain to recognize it. The understanding was clear: by accepting a land grant from the Iroquois reaching as far as the Tennessee River, Britain would implicitly recognize Iroquois dominance over the region. There were few surprises at Fort Stanwix. Johnson and his associates had been laying the groundwork for years and he knew what the Iroquois would be willing to grant. Even if he did not orchestrate Conoghquieson’s assertion and offer, Johnson was ready to act on it. To accept such an offer would require Johnson to disobey his orders from London, but how could he do otherwise?99
The Iroquois were more concerned about land closer to home. They had been generous in the past and had given white people lands from which they had “often had bad Returns,” but they intended to be as generous as they could be now “without ruining our Children.” The country from Owego to Oswego was full of Iroquois towns and villages and “we can not be expected to part with what lies at our Doors, besides your people are come already too close to us.” Like Joseph Brant’s village of Conajoharie, Abraham’s village lay on the wrong side of the proclamation line and the proposed Stanwix line and stood to be engulfed by colonial settlements. They suggested instead a boundary that would run from the Delaware to the upper Mohawk River and across to Lake George. Johnson replied that the king had no intention of disturbing them on the lands where they lived but countered with the suggestion that the line run
as far as Lake Ontario. The Indians withdrew, taking the map with them, to discuss the matter among themselves. That night “Sir William had a private conference with the Cheifs [sic] of the most Influence with whom he made use of every argument to bring matters to an agreeable issue.”100
The Indians debated in council all Saturday morning and then said they needed more time and hoped to give their answer on Monday. Johnson agreed to wait but made clear “that he was really become very impatient through the delays which was given to the business, that the security of their Lands depended upon their dispatch and the freedom of the Cession.” That night, belts arrived from the Shawnees carrying news that French and Spanish agents were stirring up trouble among the Ohio nations and telling them the English planned to drive them from their homelands. The western Indians were on the verge of going to war against the English but were waiting to hear the outcome of the negotiations at Fort Stanwix. Concerned about the prospect of pushing the Ohio Indians to war, Conoghquieson, Tagawaron, Tyearuruante, and Abraham the next morning told Johnson “they would not part with any Lands to the Westward of Oriscany or down towards Wioming or the Great Island, as they reserved that part of the Country for their Dependants.” Sir William responded to the four chiefs with “a long and warm speech.” The Crown had spent a lot of time and money negotiating the boundary line and “if they rejected this opportunity now offered them and drew the Line so as to interfere with Grants, or approach almost to our settlements, he could not see that any thing more effectual could thereafter be proposed for preventing encroachments.” In other words, this is your best offer: think again. “After these and many other arguments, & further explaining the several courses laid down on the draft, they agreed to take the Map back to their Council Hutt for farther consideration, promising to use their Interest with the rest for a more favorable Line.” Sir William assured them “they should be particularly rewarded for their services or endeavours to shew the Indians the reasonableness of the requisition.” That night, Tagawaron returned the map to Sir William. He said the Indians were still debating the issue. Johnson promptly went to work and “had many other private conferences which occupied a great part of the night.”101
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