Whitehall. 23. Decembr 1767.
My Lord,
Your Lordp having thought proper to communicate to us, copies and extracts of several letters lately received by your Lordp from Genl Gage and Sir Wm Johnson, & also by other persons from their private correspondents in America, relative to the present temper and disposition of the Northern Indians, we have taken the same into our consideration, and, though the subject matter of these letters has immediate connection with the questions and considerations referred to us by your Lordp’s letter of the 5th October last, yet as they do, from the nature of the advices therein contained, appear to us to be of great urgency, and to require a more speedy attention in His Mjty’s Councils than is consistent with the delay which must necessarily attend the preparing of a Report upon such a variety of important matters as your Lordp’s general letter of reference points out, we think it our duty to lose no time in submitting to your Lordp’s consideration of what has occurred to us upon this subject.
The substance of the advices contained in the papers is, that secret councils have been held by the Indians in the woods; that a general Congress is proposed, to which all the several Nations have been invited; that a Batteau loaded with goods for the Indian Trade, has been stopped and plundered on the Ohio, and that it appears from authentic intelligence, coming through different channels, that something of moment is in agitation, which combined with the discontent prevailing amongst the Indians, on account of encroachments upon their lands, does indicate a design of an hostile and dangerous tendency.
The complaints of the Indians on account of encroachments upon their lands, and the expediency of the establishing a boundary line between their Country and the settlements of his Majty’s subjects, have long been urged by the Superintendant for Indian affairs, as a consideration of very great importance
It was this consideration which occasioned the provisional management in the proclamation of 1763 and induced this Board to propose, in the plan for the Management of Indian Affairs prepared in 1764, a boundary line being established by solemn compact with the Indians.
This plan, having been communicated to the Superintendants for Indian Affairs, they have (tho’ not strictly authorised to do) made it a subject of discussion and negociation with the Indians in the respective districts, and in the Southern district such line has not only been stipulated by Treaty, but has also been in part actually surveyed & run out.
In the Northern district the proposition of a boundary line, appears to have been received by the Indians with marks of the greatest satisfaction and approbation; and the particular course and extent of it to have been very precisely pointed out to them and acquiesced in by Sir William Johnson, in a Congress held with those Indians in 1765.
This line, as described by the Indians, begins at Owegy, upon the Eastern branch of the Susquehannah, from whence, pursuing the course of that branch to Shamokin, it runs up the Western branch to the head thereof, and from thence to Kittaning on the Ohio, and so down that River to its influence with the Cherokee River.
In tracing the Course of this line on the Map, your Lordp will observe, that though it does preclude from settlement a considerable and valuable part of the Province of Pennsylvania, in the forks of the Susquehannah, yet it does on the Contrary, leave room to the Inhabitants of that province, situated to the south of that River, and also to the Inhabitants of Virginia, to extend their settlements further to the Westward than they have hitherto been able to do with any degree of safety; and therefore, when we reflect that the establishment of this line will, in all probability have the effect to prevent the fatal consequences of an Indian War, that seems at present to threaten the middle Colonies, by giving satisfaction to the Indians in a point the most essential to their interests, without confining the settlements of His Majty’s subjects to too narrow limits, we submit to your Lordp, whether it may not be adviseable that orders should be immediately sent to Sir William Johnson for the final settlement of this boundary line, in a Congress to be held with Indians for that purpose, and that he should be enabled to make such gratification to the said Indians, as the nature and extent of the concessions on their part shall appear to require.
It would have been going beyond the bounds of the subject which occasions our troubling your Lordp with this letter, to have entered into a minute detail of what has been agreed upon with the southern Indians concerning a boundary line; but as the line settled with the Cherokees falls in with a part of the Conohway River, communicating with the Ohio, it does seem to us that it would be unadvisable, that the line now proposed to be settled with the six Nations and their allies, should be extended lower down the Ohio, than the mouth of the said Conohway River, as the carrying further might afford a pretence for settlements in a Country, which, however claimed by the Six Nations as part of their ancient dominion, is in fact actually occupied by the Cherokees as their hunting ground, and who would consequently consider such settlements as a direct violation of what has been agreed upon by them.
We are, My Lord, Your Lordp’s
most obedient and
most humble servants.
CLARE
SOAME JENYNS
ED ELIOT
Wm FITZHERBERT
THOMAS ROBINSON.
