PRESIDENT WASHINGTON TO CORNPLANTER, DEC. 29, 1790.
The reply of the President of the United States, to the Speech of The Cornplanter, Half-Town and Great Tree, Chiefs and Counsellors of the Seneka Nations of Indians.
I, the President of the United States, by my own mouth, and by a written Speech, signed by own hand and sealed with the seal of the United States, speak to the Seneka nation, and desire their attention, and that they would keep this Speech in remembrance of the friendship of the United States.
I have received your Speech with satisfaction, as a proof of your confidence in the justice of the United States—and I have attentively examined the several objects which you have laid before me, whether delivered by your Chiefs at Tioga Point, in the last month, to Colonel Pickering, or laid before me, in the present month, by The Cornplanter, and the other Seneka Chiefs, now in Philadelphia.
In the first place, I observe to you, and I request it may sink deep in your minds, that it is my desire, and the desire of the United States, that all the miseries of the late war should be forgotten and buried forever. That in future the United States and the Six Nations should be truly brothers, promoting each other's prosperity by acts of mutual friendship and justice.
I am not uninformed that the Six Nations have been led into some difficulties with respect to the sale of their lands since the peace. But I must inform you that these evils arose before the present government of the United States was established, when the separate States and individuals under their authority, undertook to treat with the Indian tribes respecting the sale of their lands.
But the case is now entirely altered—the general government only has the power to treat with the Indian nations, and any treaty formed and held without its authority, will not be binding.
Here then is the security for the remainder of your lands.—No State, nor person, can purchase your lands, unless at some public treaty held under the authority of the United States. The general government will never consent to your being defrauded. But it will protect you in all your rights.
Hear well and let it be heard by every person in your nation, that the President of the United States declares, that the general government considers itself bound to protect you in all the lands secured you by the Treaty of Fort Stanwix, the twenty-second of October, one thousand seven hundred and eighty-four, excepting such parts as you may since have fairly sold to persons properly authorized to purchase of you.
You complain that John Livingston and Oliver Phelps have obtained your lands, assisted by Mr. Street, of Niagara, and they have not complied with their agreement.