[901] Latrobe, op. cit., II, 214.
For a few days longer the Indians refused the proffered terms. At length, urged by the agents and traders, the chiefs one after another submitted to the inevitable, until, on September 26, the treaty was concluded. The real significance of the submission cannot be better stated than in the words of the talented Latrobe, who was a keen-sighted spectator of the proceedings. "The business of arranging the terms of an Indian Treaty," he observed, "lies chiefly between the various traders, agents, creditors, and half-breeds of the tribes, on whom custom and necessity have made the degraded chiefs dependant, and the Government Agents. When the former have seen matters so far arranged that their self-interest, and various schemes and claims are likely to be fulfilled and allowed to their heart's content—the silent acquiescence of the Indian follows of course; and till this is the case the Treaty can never be amicably effected."[902]
[902] Ibid., II, 215. An editorial in the first number of the first newspaper published in Chicago, commenting on the difficulties encountered by the commissioners in the early stages of the negotiations, says: "The various and clashing interests of the Traders were powerfully operating, and altogether seemed, for some days, to render doubtful the accomplishment of this great and vastly important object" (Chicago Weekly Democrat, November 26, 1833).
The treaty[903] provided that the Pottawatomies and allied tribes should cede their lands to the west of Lake Michigan and their remaining reservation in southwestern Michigan, supposed to contain about five million acres, to the United States, and within three years' time remove beyond the Mississippi River. In return they were to receive five million acres of land in the West for their new home; the United States was to transport them thither and pay the cost of their support for one year after their arrival; and the expenditure in their behalf of sums of money aggregating almost a million dollars was agreed upon. These provisions were regarded as very liberal on the part of the United States.[904] In comparison with similar treaties of the time this view was doubtless justified; but an examination of the disposition of the money which the United States was to pay confirms Latrobe's account of the influence by which the terms of the treaty were shaped. Except for a few minor bequests the entire sum appropriated was devoted to six principal purposes which fall naturally into two groups of three each. The sum of three hundred and twenty thousand dollars was devoted to the payment for twenty years of an annuity of sixteen thousand dollars. For the erection of mills, blacksmith shops, and houses, the employment of physicians, blacksmiths, and mechanics, and the promotion of civilization generally, one hundred and fifty thousand dollars were set aside; while the sum of seventy thousand dollars was devoted to educational purposes and the encouragement of the domestic arts.
[903] For it see U.S. Statutes at Large, VII, 431 ff.
[904] Porter, op. cit., 72.
This group of provisions, which were calculated to redound to the advantage of the red man, requires no discussion. The second group, from which he derived little or no advantage, calls for extended consideration. It was agreed that goods and provisions to the value of one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars should be distributed to the Indians, one portion at the conclusion of the negotiations, the residue during the ensuing year. The sum of one hundred and ten thousand dollars was devoted to the satisfaction of "sundry individuals in behalf of whom reservations were asked, which the Commissioners refused to grant." A list of the persons thus favored, together with the amount granted to each, was appended to the treaty as Schedule A. Finally, provision was made for the payment of one hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars to various individuals to satisfy claims made by them against the tribes concerned in the treaty, "which they have admitted to be justly due." The list of claimants with the amount allowed in each case constituted Schedule B of the treaty.
It was in connection with the contents of Schedules A and B that the most striking display of greed and dishonesty occurred. Judged by the standards of the time, some of the requests for reservations were doubtless proper; measured by the same standards, too, some of the claims advanced were probably valid; yet there is no room to doubt that a large proportion of the grants to individuals under these two heads were improperly made. "It was an apportionment," remarks Andreas of the one hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars granted under Schedule B, "of the ready money of the tribes among all the whites who could bring a claim against an Indian. The honest debtor and the unjust and dishonest claimant absorbed the fund. How large a portion of it represented robbery, theft, and perjury will never be known until the great book is opened at the last day."[905]
[905] Andreas, History of Chicago, I, 126-27.
Doubtless this is true, yet the impropriety of many of the claims allowed is patent even today. The story of "Snipe" and his claim for pay for hogs which the wolves had eaten is probably fairly typical of the groundlessness of most of these claims. "Snipe," whose real name, unfortunately, has not been recorded, was a farmer from the St. Joseph country, who came to Chicago in the same stage which brought Latrobe and Shirreff, to prosecute a claim against the Indians, which on his own statement of the case was improper.[906] He had intended to make a great deal of pork that season, but upon collecting his hogs from the woods, where they had run for five months, he could number only thirty-five instead of fifty-five. The Indians had been hunting hogs, he stated, and he expected the government agents to allow his claim for the twenty which were missing.