[Remarks on a Plan for the future Management of Indian Affairs.][72]
The regulations in this plan seem to me to be in general very good: but some few appear to want explanation, or farther consideration.
Clause 3. Is it intended by this clause, to prevent the trade that Indians, living near the frontiers, may choose to carry on with the inhabitants, by bringing their skins into the [English] settlements? This prevention is hardly practicable; as such trade may be carried on in many places out of the observation of government; the frontier being of great extent, and the inhabitants thinly settled in the woods, remote from each other. The Indians too do not every where live in towns sufficiently numerous to encourage traders to reside among them, but in scattered families, here and there, often shifting their situation for the sake of better hunting; and if they are near the English settlements, it would seem to them very hard to be obliged to carry their skins for sale to remote towns or posts, when they could dispose of them to their neighbours, with less trouble, and to greater advantage; as the goods they want for them, are and must be dearer at such remote posts.
4. The colony "laws for regulating Indian affairs or commerce" are the result of long experience, made by people on the spot, interested to make them good; and it would be well to consider the matter thoroughly, before they are repealed, to make way for new untried schemes.
By whom are they to be repealed? By the colony assemblies, or by parliament? Some difficulty will arise here.
13. The districts seem too large for this. The Indians under the care of the northern superintendant, by this plan, border on the colonies of Nova Scotia, Quebec, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pensylvania, Maryland, Virginia: the superintendant's situation, remote from many of these, may occasion great inconvenience, if his consent is always to be necessary in such cases.
14. This seems too much to be done, when the vastness of the district is considered. If there were more districts and smaller, it might be more practicable.
15 and 16. Are these agents or commissaries to try causes where life is concerned? Would it not be better, to send the criminals into some civil well settled government or colony for trial, where good juries can be had?
18. "Chief for the whole tribe; who shall constantly reside with the commissary, &c." Provision must then be made for his maintenance, as particular Indians have no estates, but live by hunting, and their public has no funds or revenues. Being used to rambling, it would perhaps not be easy to find one, who would be obliged to this constant residence; but it may be tried.