The primary importance of this treaty, aside from the surrender of land wanted by actual settlers, is that it opened the way for the construction of the Wabash and Erie canal. The treaty of 1826 and the enlarged annuities it provided also made the ultimate removal of the Indians from this area even more difficult. The frontier community of Fort Wayne could not be disdainful of payments of specie which ran as high as $100,000 in some years. The payments of annuities, the distribution of gifts bought from traders and the assumption of Indian debts were followed by a period of prosperity for agents, traders, and land speculators. It is no wonder that when the people of Fort Wayne learned that Tipton had applied to the government officials to move the Indian agency from Fort Wayne, many protested vigorously. For a long time, Tipton had desired to remove the agency to a more central location in the Indian country. The exploitation of the Indians at Fort Wayne was reason enough, but Tipton had to wait for a while as the opposition was too strong. The attitude of the traders at the treaty of 1826 gave Tipton plenty of excuse to push the project of removal once more. In a letter written February 7, 1827, which eventually found its way onto the Senate floor, Tipton listed seven reasons why the agency should be removed from Fort Wayne.[4] Not only was the agency too remote from the Indians, argued Tipton, but it was also too close to numerous grog shops and to the traders who sold his wards whiskey, encouraged them to run up debts which must later be deducted from annuities, and cheated them in a hundred different ways. Tipton cited one case in which a white woman at Fort Wayne had purchased a shawl from a drunk squaw for seven apples and 12½ cents. This shawl had cost the squaw $3.50. Since the removal of the Indian agency would destroy their highly lucrative business, the traders at Fort Wayne put aside petty quarrels and joined in common defense to prevent it. John McCorkle, as a principal owner of real estate at Fort Wayne, wrote to Representative William McLean from Indiana: This settlement has been formed in consequence of the establishment of the agency at that place. Reserves were made for the use of the agent, thereby holding out a guarantee to the purchasers of public lands and property, that this agency would be continued at that place until the Indians should be removed from that country. Among others, I became a considerable purchaser of considerable public lands, for which I paid an extravagant price. One tract, near and adjoining the reservation for the agency, I paid $26 per acre for.... If a removal should take place, the Indians, as well as the inhabitants at Wayne, who have expended their all there, will be greatly disobliged.[5]