An agent shall soon be appointed to reside in some place convenient to
the Senekas and Six Nations. He will represent the United States. Apply
to him on all occasions.
If any man brings you evil reports of the intentions of the United
States, mark that man as your enemy, for he will mean to deceive you and
lead you into trouble. The United States will be true and faithful to
their engagements.
Given under my Hand and the Seal of the United States, at Philadelphia,
this twenty-ninth day of December, in the year of our Lord one thousand
seven hundred and ninety, and in the fifteenth year of the Sovereignty
and Independence of the United States.
GO. WASHINGTON
BY THE PRESIDENT:
TH. JEFFERSON.
SPEECH OF CORNPLANTER,
IN REPLY TO PRESIDENT WASHINGTON'S ADDRESS.
Father:--Your speech, written on the great paper, is to us like the first
light of the morning to a sick man, whose pulse beats too strongly in
his temples and prevents him from sleep. He sees it and rejoices, but
is not cured. You say that you have spoken plainly on the great point.
That you will protect us in the lands secured to us at Fort Stanwix, and
that we have the right to _sell_, or to _refuse_ to sell it. This is
very good. But our nation complain that you compelled us at that treaty
to give up too much of our lands. We confess that our nation is bound by
what was there done; and acknowledging your power, we have now appealed
to yourselves against that treaty, as made while you were too angry at
us, and therefore unreasonable and unjust. To this you have given us no
answer.
Father! That treaty was not made with a single State--it was with the
Thirteen States. We never would have given all that land to one State.
We know it was before you had the great authority, and as you have more
wisdom than the commissioners who forced us into that treaty, we expect
that you have also more regard to justice, and will now, at our request,
re-consider that treaty, and restore to us a part of that land.
Father! The land which lies between the line running south from Lake
Erie to the boundary of Pennsylvania, as mentioned at the treaty at Fort
Stanwix, and the eastern boundary of the land which you sold, and the
Senecas confirmed to Pennsylvania, is the land in which Half Town and all
his people live, with other Chiefs who always have been and still are
dissatisfied with the treaty at Fort Stanwix. They grew out of this land,
and their fathers grew out of it, and they cannot be persuaded to part
with it. We, therefore, entreat you to restore to us this little piece.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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