The Moravian Indians, who had taken refuge at Philadelphia, were next threatened by the rioters, who marched towards that place with the avowed intention of killing them also. The provincial authorities appealed to General Gage for help, but before his reply reached them they sought to throw the Indians upon New York for protection. It happened that a company of regulars was about to march from Philadelphia for New York, and under their escort the Indians were dispatched, with intention to place them under charge of Sir William Johnson. The New York authorities refused, however, to permit the Indians to enter that province. Meantime General Gage placed troops at the disposal of Governor Penn. The Indians were conducted back to Philadelphia, and orders were given to repel by force any attack. The rioters again approached Philadelphia, but were dissuaded from attack, and Pennsylvania was spared the shame of further atrocities by the "Paxton Boys."
After this excitement was over the labors of Sir William Johnson to prevent renewed conflict were still constant. He complained, in his correspondence,[1264] of murders, robberies, and encroachments on the rights and possessions of the natives. The frontier inhabitants, according to him, thought themselves at liberty to make settlements where they pleased. He lost heart, while on the other hand the settlers openly bade defiance to authority. In 1766 he wrote: "Murders are now daily committed on the frontiers, and I fear that an Indian war is inevitable." In January, 1767, he announced that Colonel Cresap, of Maryland, himself held a treaty some time during the last year with several warriors of the Six Nations, who passed that way, and who were persuaded to grant to him a considerable tract of land down the Ohio toward Green-Brier. With prophetic instinct, Sir William added: "If this be true, it will be productive of dangerous consequences." A large part of Johnson's time was spent in protecting the Indians from such fraudulent conveyances of their land as were made through transfers where there was but a shadow of title, through forgeries, and through deeds executed without proper formalities, under circumstances which would prevent recognition of the transaction by the tribes. Many deeds, which upon the face seemed properly executed, were secured from the signers when they were so completely intoxicated that they were ignorant what they were doing. Others conveyed by metes and bounds an extent of territory far exceeding the intention of the grantors. No transfer of land made by a band of warriors, on the war-path or on a hunting expedition, would have been recognized by the confederacy. Sir William himself said: "A sachem of each tribe is a necessary party to a fair conveyance, and such sachem affixes the mark of the tribe thereto, as a public seal of a corporation." The title to the land was supposed to be in all. Even the women had a voice in transfers by bargain and sale.[1265] It was one of the principal occupations of Sir William Johnson's life to adjust difficulties arising out of transfers, such as the one to Cresap, of which he had heard, and in which he saw the seeds of future trouble, if it should prove to be true. In his review of the trade and affairs of the Indians in the northern district of America, he recapitulates the wrongs of the Indian.[1266]
Life in the midst of such impending dangers bred contempt for authority, even on the part of men who were well disposed. The strong arm of the government was but feebly felt in the distant bottoms in the western parts of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia, which settlers were beginning to appropriate to their own use. The inhabitants of the frontiers were a law unto themselves, and sometimes unto the authorities. Men who diligently read their Bibles and pondered over the teachings of the gospels could tear scalps from the heads of Indians. The government was powerless to protect the frontiers except through the agency of volunteers, and they in turn were able at any moment seriously to complicate the situation. In the organization of companies of rangers the weakness of the government was exposed, and through them the independence of the settlers was developed. Such companies frequently adopted Indian costumes, painted their faces, and manœuvred by Indian tactics. The habits of the Indian more than the civilization they had left, influenced their modes of life. They attacked for revenge, and were barbarous because the savages were. In the case of the Indians such methods in warfare came by inheritance. They were modified somewhat by the spirit of the missionaries, and however cruel they may have been, they were at any rate absolutely free from assaults on woman's chastity. In the case of the settlers, the promptings of civilization were disregarded, and it would seem as if the system of bounties for scalps had taught them to regard the Indian as on the level of a brute. Nevertheless, the rule had exceptions; and it would not be just to paint all the settlers along the borders in these repulsive colors, or to believe that there was a universal desire for the extermination of the Indians.
Note.—This map was found in MS. among a collection of maps and charts which were presented to the New York State library by Obadiah Rich, of London. It had been sent to Lord Hillsborough in 1771, accompanying a memorial concerning the Iroquois, prepared by the Rev. Charles Inglis, of Trinity Church, New York city, who had endeavored to christianize them. This paper was subsequently recovered from the descendants of Dr. Inglis in Nova Scotia, and is printed in the Doc. Hist. N. Y. (quarto), iv. p. 661, accompanied by an engraved copy of Johnson's map, of which a reduction is given herewith. The map is also given in Pearson's Schenectady Patent, 1883, p. 433; in Hough's edition of Pouchot, ii. 148.
In N. Y. Col. Docs., viii. 136, Guy Johnson's map, showing the line fixed at Fort Stanwix, Nov., 1768, is given as copied from the original in Sir William Johnson's letter, Nov. 18, 1768, to Hillsborough, preserved in the State Paper Office. In Ibid. viii. 31, is a copy of the map annexed to the Report and Representation of the Board of Trade, March 7, 1768, showing the line of the bounds with the Indians. Cf. on this line Doc. Hist. N. Y., i. 587; N. Y. Col. Docs., viii. 110; New Jersey Archives, x. 55, 95; Mill's Bounds of Ontario, p. 21; Olden Time, i. 399; Schweinitz's Zeisberger, ch. xviii.; View of the title to Indiana (1776; see Hildeburn's Bibliog., no. 3,490). Respecting the territory of the Oneidas, see Magazine of American History, Oct., 1885, p. 387, where the accuracy of the map in Morgan's League of the Iroquois is questioned.—Ed.
This hazardous contact of Indian and border settler stretched along a doubtful line which extended from Oneida Lake to the central part of the valley of the Ohio. In 1768 the boundaries were adjusted at Fort Stanwix, between representatives of the English government, on the one part, and the Six Nations, the Delawares, the Shawanese, the Mingoes of Ohio, and other dependent tribes, on the other. A deed of the land to the east and south of a line which ran from a point just west of Fort Stanwix south to the Susquehanna, thence up the West Branch and across to Kittanning on the Alleghany, thence down that river and the Ohio to the mouth of the Tennessee, was then duly executed to the king of England. An exception from its terms was made of the land occupied by the Mohawks, whose settlements were all to the east of the agreed boundary line. The hunting-grounds comprised within the limits of the States of Kentucky and Tennessee were claimed by the Six Nations as conquered territory, and they paid no regard to the claims of the Cherokees, who had arranged a boundary with Stuart, the Indian agent, to a part at least of the same region, the northern termination of which was the mouth of the Kanawha River. It was understood by the Indians that no white man was to settle to the west of the line agreed upon.[1267]