The Indian World of George Washington

by Colin G. Calloway

  Louis Cook also lent his support to the peace initiatives. After his services with Washington during the Revolution, Cook had settled on a farm in Oneida country and played a prominent leadership role, primarily facilitating land sales. He was a bitter rival of Brant and complained that in courting the Mohawk, Washington undermined the peace efforts of the Kahnawakes, Stockbridges, and Senecas. “My father has struck me,” he said, “by raising Brant so high and employing him to make peace who is the enemy of peace.”78 Cook thought he was entitled to reward for his services, and Knox recommended that Washington approve paying him $100.79 Other Oneidas who had served with Washington and received officers’ commissions wanted to know why Cook received preferential treatment; he was the only one to be placed on half pay (Knox had declined their requests two years before). They asked the president to see justice done to them as well as to Cook.80 Washington was knee-deep in intertribal, intratribal, and interpersonal politics.

  With the exception of Aupaumut’s mission, Knox reported to Washington, all the peace overtures miscarried, “whether conducted by Whites or Indians.” The British did everything they could to derail any peace talks. Brant and some of the Six Nations chiefs got sick, although whether Brant’s illness was medical or political is unclear. Good Peter died.81 “The whole Confederacy will feel the loss of Good Peter,” wrote Kirkland.82

  In May 1792, Washington appointed Rufus Putnam a brigadier general and sent him in company with Aupaumut with a message for the tribes who were going to meet in council at the Miami River. Putnam was to make it clear “that we want not a foot of their land.”83 Such duplicity required delicate handling. “No idea of purchasing land from them ought to be admitted,” Washington told Knox; “for no treaty, or other communications with the Indians have ever been satisfactory to them when this has been the subject.” Instead, negotiators like Putnam should be informed of the principles and general outlines of the treaties, “notwithstanding the right of disannulling is reserved to the Government—Illiterate people are not easily made sensible of the propriety, or policy, of giving a power, & rejecting what is done under it.”84

  Seeing little prospect of making peace with the northwestern Indians, Putnam headed instead to Vincennes to try and detach the lower Wabash tribes from the confederacy. The Moravian missionary John Heckewelder accompanied him, and Putnam enlisted William Wells, a former Miami captive and son-in-law of Little Turtle, as an interpreter.85 But the chiefs who signed the treaty were not committed members of the Indian confederacy, and maybe, as Washington noted in his journal, “not Chiefs.”86

  Nevertheless, at the end of the negotiations Putnam invited them to send a delegation to visit Washington in Philadelphia. Fifteen or sixteen men and three women from the Kaskaskias, Piankashaws, Peorias, Potawatomis, Mascoutens, and other tribes accompanied Heckewelder on the journey, carrying a wampum belt of peace to present to the president. The Kaskaskia chief Jean Baptiste DuCoigne also carried a letter of introduction from Washington’s land agent on the Kanawha, together with certificates from western citizens like George Rogers Clark attesting to their regard for the chief. DuCoigne had visited Jefferson at Monticello in 1781—Jefferson gave him a bronze medal and smoked the pipe with him; DuCoigne gave Jefferson several painted buffalo skins and named his son after him—and renewed his acquaintance with the secretary of state soon after the delegation arrived in late December 1792.87 Washington was anxious to know if anyone had spoken with the Indians about land since they arrived in the city, and he had Knox give the interpreters strict instructions “not to communicate to the Indians a single sentence relative to purchasing their Lands.”88

  Eight of the Indian men and the three women met with Washington at his house on February 1, 1793, from noon until midafternoon. Six chiefs and two women dined with him again on February 4. DuCoigne presented Washington with a black pipe to smoke in remembrance of “our chiefs who have come here and died in your bed.” (Two men had died of smallpox in the first month of the visit, five more died from being inoculated, and at least one person died of pleurisy.89) A white pipe was then passed and smoked to clear the air for peace talks to proceed. “Father, your people of Kentuckey are like Musketoes, and try to destroy the red men,” DuCoigne said, “but I look to you as to a good being. Order your people to be just. They are always trying to get our lands. They come on our lands. They hunt on them; kill our game & kill us. Keep them then on one side of the line and us on the other.” Other members of the delegation—war chiefs, civil chiefs, and women—reiterated the same sentiments, punctuating their talks with strings of white wampum and smoking the calumet pipe. “Father, you are rich,” concluded DuCoigne; “you have all things at command, you want for nothing. You promised to wipe away our tears. I commend our women & children to your care.”90

  The delegation remained in Philadelphia until May. Washington reminded them as they left to consider the power they had seen and “what the bad Indians may expect in the end if they do not hearken to the voice of peace!” He gave each chief a medal to wear as a symbol of loyalty to the United States and provided a letter of protection to help ensure a safe journey home. The white wampum belts and peace pipes the Indians had given him were deposited, ironically, in the War Office.91

  Washington submitted the Treaty of Vincennes to the Senate in February while the chiefs were still in the city. The fourth article of the treaty guaranteed the Indians “all the lands to which they have a just claim” and recognized their right to sell or not as they wished. Concerned that it did not grant the United States the exclusive right to purchase the Indians’ lands in the future, the Senate postponed discussion of the treaty until the next session of Congress. The Indian delegates apparently were not informed. Since most of the chiefs who came to Philadelphia had died of smallpox, Knox told Washington it would have been improper and futile “to have attempted with the remainder any explanation of the fourth article of the treaty.”92 The Senate refused to ratify the treaty in January 1794. The delegates from the Wabash had died for nothing.

  knox expected the peace overtures to the Northwestern Confederacy would also amount to nothing. Since the Indians would demand “more than we can grant consistently with any sort of dignity,” he confided to General Anthony Wayne in early September 1792, the United States should prepare for war.93 Unsuccessful in their attempts to reach out to the western tribes or enlist Brant’s help, Washington and Knox had to rely on Red Jacket. That same month, Red Jacket, Farmer’s Brother, and Cornplanter carried an American peace offer to the Glaize in northwestern Ohio, where so many nations were assembled “that we can not tell the names of them.”94 In addition to Shawnees, Miamis, Delawares, Wyandots, Ottawas, Ojibwas, and Potawatomis, there were Sauks and Foxes from the upper Mississippi; some Creeks and Cherokees from the South; Conoys, Nanticokes, and Mahicans from the East; and deputies from the Six Nations in New York and the Seven Nations in Canada.95 According to Aupaumut, Brant, still ill, sent his nephew Tawalooth with a message warning the tribes not to be deceived. “I have myself seen Washington, and see his heart and bowels; and he declared that he claims from the mouth of Miamie to the head of it—thence to the land of the Wabash river, and down the same to the mouth of it; and that he did take up dust and did declare that he would not restore so much dust to the Indians, but he is willing to have peace with the Indians.”96

  Red Jacket said the Americans were extending the hand of peace and might accept the Muskingum River as a compromise boundary. “Don’t be too proud Spirited and reject it, [lest] the great Spirit should be angry with you,” he warned. The Shawnees accused the Senecas who had been to Philadelphia of doing Washington’s dirty work and trying to split the confederacy. “We know what you are about,” sneered the Shawnee chief Messquakenoe or Painted Pole. “Speak from your heart and not from your mouth.” Picking up the wampum on which Red Jacket had spoken, he threw it at the Senecas’ feet. “The Farmer’s Brother then put the String which had been thrown down, over his head & hangi
ng down his back they then moved away & remained an hour.”

  When they returned, Red Jacket said it was true they had been to Philadelphia. “Washington asked us what was the cause of the uneasiness of the Western Nations, we told him it was in regard to their Lands.” Washington did not say he would give up the lands, but he did promise to “satisfy the owners of the land, if it had been sold by people who were not the real owners thereof.” In their talks with Washington, Farmer’s Brother said, they “heard nothing false from him, but what breathed the strongest desire of cultivating peace and Friendship with all Nations of our Colour on this Island on the ground of justice and humanity.” The western Indians, however, understood that Washington’s idea of justice still entailed taking their land. “You say Washington will make us a compensation if our land was not purchased of the right owner,” said Painted Pole; “we do not want compensation, we want restitution of our Country which they hold under false pretences.” They could accept no peace unless the Americans agreed to the Ohio River boundary. The Americans intended to build forts and drive all the Indians out of the country, but the allied tribes had twice defeated their armies while the Iroquois sat by doing nothing. They saw no need to compromise now. Still, Washington said he wanted peace so they would talk peace. Since “General Washington did not let us know the terms on which he would make peace,” they agreed to meet his representatives the following spring and listen to his offer.97

  The western Indians also viewed Brant with suspicion after his visit to Philadelphia and called on him to join them when they met with the Americans. Brant agreed to attend, but made it clear he had not been bought by American dollars or fooled by Washington’s words when he visited Philadelphia. Stand united, he warned the Shawnees and Delawares. “General Washington is very cunning, he will try to fool us if he can. He speaks very smooth, will tell you fair stories, and at the same time want to ruin us. Perhaps in a few days, he may send out a flag—that will only be to blindfold us. It will not do for one man to turn about and listen to that flag. We must be all at it, as we are all united as one man.”98

  Back on home ground at Buffalo Creek in November, Red Jacket urged delegates from the western nations to meet the Americans at Sandusky. The western Indians had no objection to a meeting, “provided it is for our Interests” and provided American armies were not on the move. “The Americans came into our Country, we defeated them, we consider ourselves sole proprietors of this Land,” they declared; “and tho’ Washington is lately become a great man, we are resolved to receive no messages from him by the Bloody road.”99 Washington had violated diplomatic protocol by sending a peace message via a warpath, but the Indian confederacy was not closing the white path of peace. Once again, Red Jacket denied Shawnee accusations that he was an American pawn.

  In preparation for the conference at Sandusky, Knox compiled a list of possible commissioners. To assure the public that the government was acting in good faith, Washington insisted they be men known for their talents and integrity, “clear of every Suspicion of a wish to prolong the War,” and intent on making peace. “Characters uniting these desiderata,” he noted, “do not abound.” He asked Senator Charles Carroll of Maryland and Charles Thomson, who both declined, and then nominated Benjamin Lincoln, Timothy Pickering, and Beverley Randolph, governor of Virginia from 1789 to 1791.100

  Half a dozen chiefs of the Six Nations arrived in Philadelphia on January 20, 1793. Again Washington gave clear instructions that no one speak to them about buying land.101 On February 11 Washington, Knox, St. Clair, Pickering, and Rufus Putnam dined with Hendrick Aupaumut, Louis Cook, and the other Iroquois, who promised their chiefs would attend the Sandusky conference.102 Washington briefed his cabinet on the importance of the upcoming negotiations, and for the first time in American history the cabinet submitted to the president its written corporate opinions. He instructed Jefferson as secretary of state to review the treaties, asked his cabinet to consider the appropriate role for Quakers who wished to attend the treaty as observers, and furnished the commissioners with detailed instructions prepared by Knox. They were to wind up the talks by August so that General Wayne would have time to carry out his expedition before the end of the campaign season in the event of an unsuccessful outcome.103 An unsuccessful outcome was more than likely: Knox’s instructions stated “explicitly” that the United States could not return any lands the Indians had already ceded.104 According to Jefferson’s notes on the cabinet discussion in February, Washington “declared he was so much in the opinion that the treaty would end in nothing that he then in the presence of us all gave orders to Genl. Knox not to slacken the preparations for the campaign in the least but to exert every nerve in preparing for it.”105

  The peace commissioners set out in April. En route, they received “a written speech, and four strings of white wampum, sent by the Western Indians to the President” and designating Sandusky as the meeting place.106 Delegates from sixteen tribes assembled at the foot of the Maumee rapids, where the British agent Alexander McKee had a trading post, and held their own discussions before meeting the commissioners.

  Lieutenant Governor Simcoe had limited expectations. He hoped for a just and secure safe peace, he wrote McKee, “but I own I dread the selfish & ambitious Projects of Mr. Washington & his Colleagues in Office will frustrate what must be the wish of every honest Man in America.”107 He was not impressed with the commissioners: “Lincoln was very civil, Randolph able and of the rakish or Virginian cast of character, and Pickering a violent, low, philosophic, cunning New Englander.”108 Narrowly interpreting the meeting as an effort to settle specific tribal land claims, one of the commissioners, according to Simcoe, had “expressed his Surprize that so many Nations should be assembled who had no business with the Lands in dispute, & with whom no treaty would be held.” This gentleman seemed to forget, wrote Simcoe, “that the Indian Confederacy is of an Older Day than the Union of the states, and that the Creeks are as much concerned as the People of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, &c, &c.”109 The prospects for peace were slim: neither the commissioners nor General Wayne expected it, and the United States had sent the commission “as necessary to adjust the ceremonial of the destruction and pre-determined extirpation of the Indian Americans.” From Simcoe’s perspective, the main goal of Washington’s Indian diplomacy was to secure an alliance with the Six Nations and to turn them against the western Indians and ultimately Britain as well.110

  Brant on the other hand believed “this is the best time to obtain a good Peace, and if lost, may not be easily regained,” and again suggested ceding land east of the Muskingum River.111 But his compromise gained no traction with the Indians or with Simcoe, who expected little from him after he had been hobnobbing with Washington. “This Cunning and self interested Savage chooses not to understand the difference between a fair Peace, and one upon any terms,” he told George Hammond.112

  The Indians suspected the Americans of duplicity, talking peace while their army readied for war. The commissioners assured them that “our Great Chief, General Washington, has strictly forbidden all hostilities against you” until the peace talks were finished. Unable to strictly forbid anyone from doing anything, Brant recommended restraining the Indian warriors until the treaty took place. Ignoring Brant’s suggested compromise, the Indians sent the commissioners a message that there could be no peace as long as white settlers were living on their lands. Were the commissioners authorized to fix the Ohio River as the boundary? That was out of the question, the commissioners replied: the Indians had ceded the lands north of the Ohio by treaty, and American settlers were already living there. The best the government could do was reconsider its claim to possess the Indians’ lands by right of conquest and to “concede this great point, by express authority of the President, & acknowledge the right of soil to the country to be in the Indian nations so long as they desire to occupy.” The United States claimed only those lands already ceded and the exclusive right of purchase when the time came fo
r the Indians to sell their lands. A Wyandot chief, with Simon Girty interpreting, put the issue simply: “We regard this side of the Ohio as our property. You say you cannot remove your people; & we cannot give up our lands. We are sorry we cannot come to an agreement.” Girty then said the Wyandot chief said the commissioners might as well go home; when his interpretation was questioned, he amended it to say they should wait for the Indians’ answer.113 In a multinational summit conducted via convoluted translation chains, there was ample opportunity for misinterpretation, willful or not: James Dean had translated the commissioners’ opening speech into Oneida; Brant’s nephew then translated it from Oneida into Shawnee, and another interpreter translated it from Shawnee into Ojibwa.114

  After two weeks of fruitless negotiations, the Indians made a counterproposal: instead of spending vast amounts of money waging war on Indians or buying their lands, why didn’t the government pay its citizens to relocate back on the other side of the Ohio? The Indians demanded only “the peaceable possession of a small part of our once great Country.” They could retreat no further and were resolved “to leave our bones in this small space, to which we are now confined.” Delegates from all the tribes except Brant and the Iroquois affixed their marks to the message. John Heckewelder characterized the speech as “Impertinent & Insolent, & intended to put an end to Treaty Bussiness.”115 It did. Lincoln, Randolph, and Pickering packed their bags. “The Indians have refused to make peace,” they reported to Knox.116

  Brant left the negotiations “much disappointed.” The Shawnees, Delawares, and Miamis had “carried everything their own way.” He predicted, with some accuracy, that if those three nations were not able to withstand the Americans, they would lose their country and be driven to the Mississippi, unless assisted by the British, which was unlikely; “the consequences then must be fatal to those Indians as time must ere long convince us.” He blamed McKee and other British agents for exerting undue influence.117 Mckee denied it, although he protested too much.118 Whether or not Brant had made a deal with Washington, his visit to Philadelphia and his willingness to compromise rendered him suspect in the eyes of the hardliners and their British backers. Simcoe said the western Indians regarded him “as a Traitor to their Interests, and totally in the Service of the United States.”119 Simcoe himself did not go that far. Although Brant was “artful” and out for himself, he informed his superiors, he could also be “a Man of Principle.” In the precarious situation the Iroquois occupied between the western nations and the United States, Brant always put the Indians’ interests first and then, despite his trip to Philadelphia, had a slight preference for the British over the Americans.120