1. 2 Blacks. Com. 51, 53, 86,105.
2. 4 Johns. Rep. 163. Jackson v. Waters, 12 Johns. Rep. 365. S. P.
3. 3 Johns. Rep. 375.
4.Fletcher v. Peck, 6 Cranch's Rep. 87. Johnson v. McIntosh, 8 Wheat. Rep. 543.
5. 8 Wheat. Rep. 543.
6. 20 Johns. Rep. 693. This case was argued and decided in March, 1823, at Albany, and concurrently, in point of time, with that of Johnson v. McIntosh, at Washington; and the entire coincidence in the doctrine of the two cases, is very apparent, and evidence of the general sense of the nation.
7. Droit des Gens, b. 1. sec. 81.
8. Ibid. b. I. sec. 209.
9. Hutchinson's History of Massachusetts, vol. i. 5. 283. Holmes' American Annals, vol. i. 184.
10. Hazard's Collection of State Papers, vol. ii. 531-534. Holmes' American Annals, vol. i. 435. See also an account of the various purchases from the Indians, in that part of Massachusetts which is now the state of Maine, between the years 1643 and 1675, in Sullivan's History of the District of Maine, p. 143-149.
11. The war of the Pequots, in 1637, and the confederacy of Indian nations formed in 1675, by Metacom, the sachem of the Wampanoags, commonly called King Philip, would seem to have been engendered by these patriotic views on the part of the Indians.
12. On the first settlement of the English at New York, in 1665, it was ordained, that no purchase of lands from the Indians should be valid without the governor's license, executed in his presence, and this salutary check to fraud and injustice was continued. (Smith's History of New York, p. 39. edit. 1792.) This has been the invariable American policy down to this day; and the prohibition of individual purchase of Indian lands without the consent of the government, has been made even a constitutional provision in some of the states; as, for instance, in New York, Virginia, and North Carolina.
13. Colden's History of the Five Nations of Canada, dependent on the Provinces of New York. Vol. i. 34. et passim. The confederacy of the Five Nations, (and which was known as the confederacy of the Six Nations after the Tuscaroras were admitted into the Union) was distinguished, from the time of the first discovery of the Hudson down to the war of 1756, for its power and martial spirit. At the close of the seventeenth century, that confederacy was computed to contain 10,000 fighting men; but their decrease was so rapid, that in 1747 they were supposed not to exceed 1,500 (Burke's Account of the European Settlements in America, vol. ii. 133. Douglass' Summary of the British Settlements in North America, vol. i. 185, 186). The Five Nations during the time of their ascendancy and glory, extended their dominion on every side, and levied tribute on distant tribes. Charlevoix (Travels in Canada, Vol. i. 152, 167-171) speaks in strong terns of the power and fierceness of the Iroquois, who as early as 1710, had almost extirpated the Algonquins, the Hurons, and other tribes of Canadian savages. Governor Colden was well acquainted with their history, and in his character of surveyor general of the province, he had access to the best means for information. He wrote the first part of his history as early as 1727 and he says, that the Five Nations carried their arms to the Carolinas, and the banks of the Mississippi, and entirely destroyed many Indian nations. In 1684, Lord Howard the Governor of Virginia was under the necessity of meeting the Five Nations in council at Albany, in order to check by negotiation their incursions to the south. (Colden's History, Vol i. 3645.) Their military spirit and daring enterprise were continued to a later period. An intelligent old Mohawk Indian communicated the fact to General Schuyler, that in his early life he was one of a party of Mohawks who left their castles on an expedition against the Chickasaws in Carolina, and he said that the expedition was disastrous, and the Chickasaws met and destroyed them by an attack in ambush; that only two of them, of which he was one, escaped. His companion fled to St. Augustin, and he returned home to the Mohawk, and supplied himself on his long journey with food by his bow and arrow. He cautiously avoided all Indian settlements and did not see the face of a human being from
the time that he fled from the battle in Carolina until he reached the Mohawk castles. This anecdote I received in the year 1803, from General Schuyler, who appeared to place implicit confidence in its accuracy. No person was more capable of giving precise information on every subject connected with our colonial history, and Indian affairs, than that very intelligent and accomplished man; and since his name has been thus incidentally introduced, I cannot refrain from adding, that he stands conspicuous in that proud roll of statesmen and civilians, of patriots and heroes, who adorned the annals of New York in the most trying periods of its history, between the years 1755 and 1790. It may be truly said, that no part of the history of this country excels the local history of the period I have alluded to in interesting events, or would be more worthy of the pen of some native scholar and man of genius.
14. An able and well instructed writer in the North American Review, No. lv. art. 5., has satisfactorily shown that the intentions of the government of the United States in their treatment of the Indians, and in all their intercourse with them, have been uniformly just and benevolent. But the system of treaty making, and assembling conventions of Indians, pursued to a considerable extent on the part of the United States, and accompanied with presents and annuities, is supposed by another writer, also able and well instructed, (the American Quarterly Review, No. vi. art. 5.) to have been attended with much abuse in practice, and with very injurious effects upon the moral and civil condition of the Indian tribes. The subject of the treatment of the Indians is one which appears to be, in every view, replete with difficulty and danger. It seems to be almost impossible to stay or arrest their rapid progress to ruin. The condition of the Indian tribes is deplorably wretched. They consider their country lost to them, by encroachment and oppression, and they are irreclaimably jealous of their white neighbors. The restless and enterprising population on their borders, and which, in a considerable degree, partakes of the fierce and lawless manners of the hunter state, are exempt, no doubt, from much sympathy with Indian sufferings, and they are penetrated with perfect contempt for Indian rights. If it were not for the frontier garrisons and troops of the United States, officered by correct and discreet men, there would probably be a state of constant hostility between the Indians, and the white borderers and hunters. They covet the Indian hunting grounds, and they must have them; and the Indians will finally be compelled by circumstances, annoyed as they are from without, and with a constantly and rapidly diminishing population, and with increasing poverty and misery, to recede from all the habitable parts of the Mississippi valley, and its tributary streams, until they become essentially extinguished, or lost to the eye of the civilized world.
