There sat the Seneca between nations. To the west lay the British. To the east stood Americans who could not even agree among themselves who possessed authority over the region.
On paper, Western New York belonged to everyone. Massachusetts had its colonial charter mandate. New York cited both conquest and treaty. Recalcitrant Connecticut clung to its thin claims. Congress may have possessed the authority, but it lacked the means to settle the matter.
These interstate disputes, however, remained largely theoretical. Traders still moved freely through Western New York. British troops still held Fort Niagara on one end and Fort Ontario on the other.
Most importantly, it was the Seneca who still occupied the Genesee Country.
The diplomats had drawn lines on maps. The people living in Western New York had not necessarily agreed to them.
The struggle over who controlled the region was only beginning.
Washington had ordered Sullivan to destroy the Seneca’s ability to wage war. He had not ordered the destruction of the Seneca people themselves.
Sullivan succeeded in his mission. But, like Denonville before him, razing Seneca villages didn’t raze the Seneca Nation. The keepers of the western door of the Iroquois Confederacy merely reestablished themselves in new villages. Those new villages remained in Western New York, this time primarily west of the Genesee River.
The British had long considered the Iroquois to be the King’s subjects. When Great Britain negotiated the Treaty of Paris, the Crown failed to include any representatives of the Confederacy at the negotiating table.1 Worse for the Iroquois, they failed to include any provisions in the Treaty of Paris on behalf of their former allies.2
The Confederacy itself was mystified by this oversight. Joseph Brant, in particular, complained vehemently to the Royal Administration, stating, “we were struck with astonishment at hearing we were forgot in the Treaty.”3 Furthermore, he asserted that “though we have been told peace has long since been concluded between you and them, it is not finally settled with us, which causes great uneasiness through all the Indian nations.”4
The Treaty of Paris may have ended the war between Britain and the United States, but the Seneca had neither signed it nor considered themselves bound by its provisions.
The Seneca understood their predicament. British agents still sought their friendship. Americans desired peace. New York claimed jurisdiction. Massachusetts claimed ownership. Everyone wanted something. The Seneca wanted only to preserve their independence. For the moment, the confusion among the British and Americans worked to their advantage.
Notwithstanding Mohawk Chief Joseph Brant’s lead in this, we cannot overlook the most important fact regarding the state of Greater Western New York following the Treaty of Paris: for all the claims to the land, it was only the Seneca who occupied it. And they were worried about maintaining that possession.
The Mohawk had a strong kinship with the British. They had clearly lost their ancestral homeland and required new territory. The Seneca offered their brothers a tract in the Genesee Valley, but Brant “did not wish to reside within the boundaries of the United States.”5 Instead, he negotiated with the British, who granted him lands along the St. Lawrence River north of Lake Ontario.6
News of this alarmed the Seneca. They feared their closest Iroquois allies would be too distant. Since the Seneca weren’t sure if their hostilities with the Americans might continue—after all, no treaty had been signed—they wished for the Mohawks to remain closer. Brant and the British agreed to this request. The Mohawks relocated to the Canadian portion of the Niagara peninsula just west of the Niagara River.7
It’s not like the Seneca didn’t have a right to be worried. After all, they had lost the war, and America had every right to displace them. More ominously, the New York State legislature considered passing a very aggressive act that would expel the Six Nations from its boundaries.8 Generals Schuyler and Washington both opposed this. Washington, who had not yet resigned his commission, wrote to James Duane on September 7, 1783:
“It is needless for me to express more explicitly because the tendency of my observns. evinces it is my opinion that if the Legislature of the State of New York should insist upon expelling the Six Nations from all the Country they Inhabited previous to the War, within their Territory (as General Schuyler seems to be apprehensive of) that it will end in another Indian War. I have every reason to believe from my enquiries, and the information I have received, that they will not suffer their Country (if it was our policy to take it before we could settle it) to be wrested from them without another struggle. That they would compromise for a part of it I have very little doubt, and that it would be the cheapest way of coming at it, I have no doubt at all. The same observations, I am perswaded, will hold good with respect to Virginia, or any other state which has powerful Tribes of Indians on their Frontiers; and the reason of my mentioning New York is because General Schuyler has expressed his opinion of the temper of its Legislature; and because I have been more in the way of learning the Sentimts. of the Six Nations, than of any other Tribes of Indians on this Subject.”9
It was a “you get more flies with honey than vinegar” approach. Washington told Duane that Great Britain would continue to woo its allies unless America offered a better bargain. Veteran and emerging leaders from the Seneca, like Farmer’s Brother, Cornplanter, and Red Jacket, would soon supplant Joseph Brant as key figures in this new diplomacy. Each approached the Americans differently, but all shared the same objective: protecting their native land.
Washington also suggested that only states and the Federal government should be allowed to negotiate with the Indians. Furthermore, he suggested to Duane that any individuals who bypassed this approach should be charged with a felony.
Washington’s response goes a long way in explaining why, if America won the war, it didn’t simply take over the land. The bottom line is that it couldn’t in any practical way.
Victory did not automatically produce control.
The United States claimed the frontier. The Seneca occupied much of it. The British eyed it.
Once Washington resigned, effectively disbanding the Continental Army, Congress lost its best enforcement mechanism.
Besides that, the Articles of Confederacy were more like the Articles of Ambiguity. Despite Washington’s certainty in who should negotiate with the Iroquois, it was less than clear who should be negotiating with the members of the Iroquois Confederacy. Congress? New York? Massachusetts? Independent speculators?
At this point in the young nation’s life, the nuances between state and federal authority had yet to be worked out. The Federalist Papers—the essays that would later define and defend those distinctions—would not begin appearing until 1787. But in 1786, no one possessed unquestioned authority. Much was left to be determined before the Genesee Country could be settled.
Not the least of which was resolving the dispute between New York and Massachusetts.
1 Hubbard, J. Niles, An Account of Sa-go-ye-wat-ha Or Red Jacket and his People, Joel Munsell’s Sons, Albany, NY, 1886, p. 122.
2 Morgan, Lewis H., League of the Ho-de-no sau-nee or Iroquois, Herbert Lloyd, Ed., Dodd, Mead and Company, 1904 [reprint, 1851], p.27.
3 Stone, William L., Life of Joseph Brant – Thayendenegea Including the Border Wars of the American Revolution, H.&E. Phinney, Cooperstown, 1838, p.253, [Letter from Joseph Brant to Lord Sydney, His Majesty’s Secretary for the Colonial Department, January 4, 1786].
4 Ibid.
5 Ibid., p. 238.
6 Ibid., p. 239.
7 Ibid.
8 Stone, William L., The Life and Times of Red-Jacket, Wiley and Putnam, New York and London, 1841, p. 23.
9 Fitzpatrick, John C., ed., The Writings of George Washington Vol. XXVII. June 11, 1783-November 28,1784, United States Government Printing Office, Washington,1938, p. 135.
Speak Your Mind