Treaty: Fort Stanwix I, July, 1768

We've dealt with this treaty in connection with others that set the boundaries and provided for land concessions from various tribes on the frontier.  Today, we'll deal with the first Treaty of Fort Stanwix, signed at Fort Stanwix near what is now Rome, New York.  Specifically, we'll look at the backstory of the treaty.

The Treaty of Fort Stanwix put a formal end to two conflicts between Natives, specifically the Iroquois, and Colonial governments (read, Sir William Johnson, the Penn family of Pennsylvania), and representative of four colonies, New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Virginia.  In frontier America, land speculation was big business.  Though the Royal Proclamation of 1763 had forbidden White settlement beyond the Appalachian mountains, many prominent colonial Americans had already staked out claims to what is now Ohio, Tennessee and Kentucky.  Further, being an Indian agent was lucrative business. Sir William Johnson, the British Superintendent for Indian Affairs, Northern Department had long used his connections to the Iroquois (read Joseph and Molly Brant), to acquire title to thousands of acres of Iroquois land in New York.  The Iroquois believed that, by rights of conquest during the 17th century Beaver Wars, they had control over hunting rights in the Ohio Valley.  Johnson wasn't the only one with his eye on this lucrative land.  The Penn family in Pennsylvania also hoped to capitalize on Ohio real estate.

The Seven Years War had ended in 1763 with the Treaty of Paris, in which France ceded possession of all its North American territory to Britain, without any specific mention of Native rights to any lands whatsoever.  Several Native tribes who had supported the French rose in what became known as Pontiac's War, 1763-1766.  One of their concerns was the increasing number of Settlers on Native hunting range beyond the Appalachian Mountains, which the British were supposed to police but didn't have the resources or the intention to.  There was only one solution to this problem, one which benefitted wealthy investors in America but created only further war on the frontier.  Johnson, as Indian Agent, called a counsel at Fort Stanwix.  Whether by accident or design, he chose to invite only the Iroquois Confederacy to the counsel.  The Cherokee, Ottawa, Lenape, Cherokee and other tribes who used the Ohio Valley as hunting range were not invited or consulted. 

The Treaty of Fort Stanwix pushed the Royal Proclamation line back into the Ohio Valley.  Instead of the line being the watersheds of the Appalachians, it now ran from near modern-day Pittsburgh (Fort Pitt), and followed the Ohio Valley to the Tennessee River, ceding what is now Kentucky and West Virginia to Virginia, adding several thousand acres to what is now Pennsylvania, and taking in most of modern-day Ohio.  The Iroquois received 10,000 pounds sterling as well as an annual annuity of trade goods in receipt of this purchase.  English officials in London decided to ignore this overstep of the Royal Proclamation of 1763 and called the newly acquired land the New Purchase.  The Shawnee were furious.  They wouldn't cede their rights to the Ohio Valley until the Treaty of Camp Charlotte which ended Dunmore's War of 1774.  The Cherokee went through two treaties, Hard Labor in 1768 and Lochaber in 1770, to cede their rights to this same land.  Meanwhile, Settlers continued to pour onto Native land and conflicts continued.

Places: the Joseph Brant House, Burlington, Ontario

One can tell a lot about a person by the company they keep and the influences they choose to emulate.  Such is the case is with Joseph Brant's later home in Burlington, Ontario

Some have tried to make Joseph's story out to be a rags-to-riches tale of a young boy with little hope of status in his tribe rising to a life of wealth through the patronage of an English Indian Agent.  But that narrative doesn't do Joseph any justice.  He was not born in poverty and his mother was of sufficient status in their tribe to become the wife of a sachem.  Joseph's stepfather, whose last name he took, lived on a farm with a large farmhouse not indistinguishable from that of their White neighbors.  Members of John Sullivan's 1779 expedition commented on the prosperity of Iroquois farms.  The Brant home was respectable enough that Sir William Johnson, Superintendent of the British Indian Department, felt comfortable staying there.

In 1763 Sir William built Johnson Hall, in present-day Johnstown, New York.  Once he and Molly, Joseph's sister, began their relationship Joseph was a frequent guest at Johnson Hall.  He learned more than just how wealthy Whites lived.  He learned how a man of stature behaved, how he entertained his guests, and how he expected to be perceived in the world.  Joseph would one day try to recreate that world for himself.  After the Revolution, he built a home for himself near what is now Brantford, Ontario, but over time, as his power within his society waned, he decided on a home further away.  He settled in what is now Burlington, Ontario, and began work on a home that was a deliberate half-scale model of Johnson Hall.  His power as a leader may have been on the decline, but he wasn't about to let the world know it.  In that time, keeping up appearances was just as important in Native society as it was in the White world.  Unfortunately, Joseph would only have a few years to enjoy his new home.  He died in 1807 and the house is now a museum.

Whose Picture Is It: the Johnson/Brant Portrait by Benjamin West

Several members of Sir William Johnson's extended family followed him into what became the family business, serving as Superintendents in the British Indian Department.  One of these was Guy Johnson (c 1740-1788).  Years later, noted portraitist Benjamin West would paint a picture depicting a seated British officer in uniform, wearing a blanket or piece of cloth matchcoat style around his shoulders.  A Mohawk warrior can be seen behind him.  The warrior is delivering advice or intelligence of some kind, to which the officer is listening and pondering intently before making up his mind on what to do.

The cultural sensitivities of this portrait aside, debate exists over whether West meant to depict Sir William Johnson and Joseph Brant, or Guy Johnson and Joseph Brant.  The warrior is almost certainly Brant, who was a Mohawk war chief.  He was active in that capacity during the final years of William's life, and would work closely with two other Johnsons, Guy, and Sir John Johnson, 2nd Baronet.  Neither John nor Guy were sons of Native women.  John (1741-1830), was the son of William Johnson by his first long-term companion, a German woman by the name of Catherine Weisenberg.  Guy, who immigrated from County Meath, Ireland in 1756, would later marry William's daughter and John's sister Polly, another of Catherine's children.  In modern terms it would be highly inappropriate for any of these men to adopt aspects of Native dress but 18th century people had a fascination with Natives and wouldn't have thought anything of it.

Guy served as William's assistant for many years, himself amassing a fortune in what was once Mohawk land.  William died in 1774.  Despite not being the legitimate son of William Johnson, John inherited the lion's share of his father's estate and was later knighted and created a baronet, giving him an equal right to the title of Sir John Johnson.  Meanwhile, Guy succeeded his uncle as Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the British Indian Department, Northern colonies, working in tandem with John Stuart in the South.  During the American Revolution, the Johnsons' lands and homes were confiscated.  Not only were they Loyalists, which was bad enough in American eyes, but their close association with the Mohawk, particularly Brant, was unforgivable.  Both men would have made valuable prisoners and much time and intelligence was spent trying to capture either John or Guy while their empire was being dismembered in their absence.  Johnson Hall, where Molly Brant had presided over gatherings attended by local White and Native dignitaries including her brother Joseph, as well as Guy Park, in what is now Amsterdam, New York. 

The Johnson family fled to Canada, and quickly reestablished their roles in the Indian Department as well as acquiring extensive landholdings in Canada.  Like his father, John had a large family, though none of his children married Natives and several of his sons became British officers.  Guy's wife Polly, died during the flight from New York to Canada.  A large and powerful family such as this routinely makes enemies and the Johnsons had their share.  In 1782, as the Revolution would down, Guy was accused by several British officers of misappropriating funds in the Indian Department.  He left John in charge at Fort Niagara and went to London to clear his name, dying there in in 1788.  John succeeded his cousin/brother-in-law as Superintendent in 1782 and served in that capacity in Canada for many years, dying in 1830. 

So, whose portrait is it?  That remains a mystery. 

A Tale of Three Treaties

Treaties between colonial governments and Natives often led to more problems then they solved.  There were several reasons for this, including the fact that these vast tracts of land were almost impossible to survey with precision, there was always self-dealing behind the scenes, and tribes with rights to specific hunting ranges were often overlooked.  The Royal Proclamation of 1763, issued by George III's ministers in London with the intent to placate Native tribes after the Seven Years War (1755-1763), caused total chaos on the ground.

The Royal Proclamation forbade settlement beyond an imaginary line drawn along the Appalachian Mountain chain.  The rule of thumb to differentiate open land from land off limits sounded simple enough.  Settlement was permitted along those rivers which flowed into Atlantic.  It was forbidden along Rivers which flowed into the Mississippi.  This put the Ohio River Valley and Tennessee off limits to White settlement.  The King's government reckoned without the rampant land speculation which took place during and after the war.  Wealthy landowners such as Sir William Johnson and George Washington had already staked claims to lands in the Ohio Valley.  Veterans of the War in most of the states had been promised land grants of seized French land as inducement to fight.  The Royal Proclamation threw a sprig in all these schemes and something had to be done. 

That something was the Treaty of Hard Labor signed between the Cherokee and John Stuart, Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the British Indian Department in the South.  Why this Treaty received its colorful name is not known today, except that it took all of Stuart's trust with the Cherokee and personal diplomacy to get it agreed to.   The Cherokee agreed to give up claims to property west of the Allegheny Mountains and east of the Ohio River, namely all of present-day West Virginia.  The line drawn ran from the junction of the Ohio and Kanawha Rivers, to the headwaters of the Kanawha, then south to the boundary of Spanish Florida, well beyond the Proclamation line.  Johnson signed the Treaty of Fort Stanwix in November, 1768 with the Iroquois, moving the Proclamation boundary west 300 miles.  

There were immediate problems.  For one, neither Stuart nor Johnson had reckoned with the Shawnee, Creek, or other Native tribes who also felt they had range rights in this land.  Further, the boundary lines did not jive.  Stuart called a parley with Cherokee leaders at Lochaber Plantation near Ninety-Six, South Carolina to redraw the lines again.  The treaty line in the south was moved to six miles east of Long Island of the Holston River.  The south fork of the Holston was agreed as the boundary.  However, the generic designation of north or south of the Holston River caused immediate confusion as Settlers poured into the Holston, Nolichucky and Watauga River valleys of Tennessee, quickly lapping over into Cherokee territory.  A survey confirmed that the boundaries lines of the Treaty of Lochaber were still not correct and settlers beyond the redrawn boundary were ordered to leave. 

At this point, the Settlers decided to circumvent the crown, the Cherokee who were actually living on the contested ground, and land speculators in the east.  They formed the Watauga Association and leased, later purchased the land from Cherokee leaders.  In doing so, they reckoned without the Chickamauga Cherokee, who were not willing to cede any of their land.  The Settlers also had another reason for grievance with the British crown, which refused to approve their purchase or defend them against Native attacks.  On the frontier, the Revolution wasn't about taxation without representation.  It was about land rights, pure and simple.