Treaty: Lancaster, 1744

Early frontier history is a confusing mess of treaty after treaty with various tribes.  There were several reasons for this.  While surveying was a known science in that time, George Washington was a surveyor, the amount of land in question in any such treaty was often a vast and unknown quantity.  The way Natives reckoned the boundaries of their home ranges was often different than the way Whites did.  Further, settling the rights of one tribe by treaty often failed to dispose of the rights held by other tribes to that same stretch of land.  White ideas of ownership couldn't conceive of the idea that if the Iroquois Confederacy claimed land as its hunting range, the Shawnee, Cherokee and others often did the same.  Thus, treaties often had to be renegotiated and rewritten, with more confusion and, too often, more land ceded than what the tribes intended.

The Treaty of Lancaster of 1744 was one example.  The parties to the agreement were the colonial governments of Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia, and the Iroquois Confederacy/Haudenosaunee.  A treaty parley convened on June 25, 1744 in the county courthouse, and the treaty was drawn up and signed on July 4, 1744.  Ever since 1722, Virginia had agreed to recognize the Blue Ridge Mountains as the boundary of settlement.  However, successive governments had been unable to curb Settlers trespassing on Native land and the Iroquois, by 1744, were ready to go to war to protect their own.  The Governor of Virginia paid the Natives for the land occupied, which included the fertile Shenandoah Valley, but skirmishes continued.  Per the terms of the Treaty of Lancaster, the Iroquois believed they were giving up only the Shenandoah Valley east of the Allegheny Mountains.  The Virginians believed they were getting the entire Shenandoah Valley and land in the Ohio Valley southeast of the Ohio River.  And, again, settling with the Iroquois didn't dispose of any rights of the Shawnee, Cherokee or tribes who actually lived in this area. 

It would take several more treaties and years of continued frontier skirmishing to straighten out this mess.  The Treaty of Logstown in 1752, between the Iroquois Confederacy and Virginia granted Virginia rights to the entire Ohio Valley, but did not include the Cherokee, Shawnee and others.  The Treaty of Easton set the boundary as the Allegheny Mountains, as did the Proclamation of 1763.  That only lasted as long as the first Settlers who found their way over the mountains anyway.  In the Treaty of Fort Stanwix of 1768, the Iroquois gave up all claims to land between the Ohio and Tennessee Rivers.  No Shawnee or Cherokee leaders were consulted or informed.  It would take Lord Dunmore's War of 1774 and the Treaty of Camp Charlotte before the Shawnee ceded their claims to this same area.  It took two treaties, also signed in 1768, to settle the Cherokee claims.  No wonder the frontier was always on the fight.

Orator: Canasatego of the Onondaga, c 1684-1750

Native leaders who cooperated with colonial authorities walked a difficult and dangerous line.  Forced or induced to make steep land concessions, and embroiled in conflicts with other colonial powers and other tribes, the conflicts of loyalties became impossible and tragedy followed.  Onondaga leader Canasatego, c 1684-1750,  was yet another casualty of early colonial conflict and land hunger.

Little is known of Canasatego's early life.  Sources differ on whether he ranked as a Sachem or was a leader who rose through the ranks with his skill in oratory and diplomacy.  He enters the historical record in the 1730's, through the auspices of Conrad Weiser.  Weiser worked with Canasatego, Shkellamy and other Native leaders to make concessions of land in Pennsylvania.  The problem was that the Iroquois didn't live on this land, or even use it as a hunting range.  It belonged to the Delaware/Lenape.  Despite this, in 1736, the Penn family brokered an agreement with the Iroquois to cede the land.  Later, in 1737, the Delaware would be forced again to make land concessions as a result of the Walking Purchase.  Then, William Penn's sons had an even more ruthless idea.  Use the Iroquois to force the Delaware from their land.  At a meeting between Pennsylvania authorities, the Delaware and the Iroquois, Canasatego ordered the Delawares to vacate the land.  Sources differ on what he actually said, but he may have called the Delaware warriors women to their faces.  Angered and humiliated, resentment between the tribes simmered.

In 1744, Canasatego served as one of the speakers for the Iroquois delegation at a parley that lead to the Treaty of Lancaster.  An observer for the colony of Maryland noted that Canasatego was about 60 years old, tall, with a muscular chest and brawny limbs.  He had an engaging personality, with a ready smile and lively speech, the necessary qualities for any diplomat.  Present at the conference were members of all the Iroquois tribes except the Mohawk, as well as representatives for Maryland, Delaware and Pennsylvania.  Canasatego was able to persuade the colonial leaders to agree to a much larger purchase price for the land.  However, the final treaty gave Virginia the Shenandoah Valley and several thousand acres more than the Native leaders had bargained.  Canasatego gave the colonial leaders some advice:

We have one thing further to say, and that is We heartily recommend Union and a Good Agreement between you our Brethren. Never disagree, but preserve a strict Friendship for one another, and thereby you as well as we will become the Stronger.  Our wise Forefathers established Union and Amity between the Five Nations; this has made us formidable, this has given us great weight and Authority with our Neighboring Nations. We are a powerful confederacy, and, by your observing the same Methods our wise Forefathers have taken, you will acquire fresh Strength and Power; therefore, whatever befalls you, never fall out with one another. (Wikipedia).

Benjamin Franklin was a member of the Pennsylvania delegation and later printed these words in his newspaper.  Sources differ on just how much the Iroquois Confederacy influenced the future United States government, but these words must have given Franklin food for thought, since he saw fit to reprint them for posterity.  Canasatego again pressed the idea of colonial unity in 1745.  His last appearance was a treaty conference in 1749, where again, the Natives were forced to cede far more land than what they originally bargained for.  Soon after, in 1750, Canasatego was poisoned.  Colonial authorities blamed French agents for poisoning the Onondaga leader, who was perceived as being pro-British and anti-French.  He was also rumored to have accepted bribes for the various land concessions he had made over the years.  Probably, he was killed by pro-French Iroquois who wanted to repudiate the various land deals Canasatego had helped negotiate during his lifetime.