Sir William Johnson and the Six Nations by William Elliot Griffis

Author:William Elliot Griffis [Griffis, William Elliot]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Literary, Historical, General
ISBN: 9783752348262
Google: PlDzDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand
Published: 2020-07-27T00:29:20+00:00

It seemed now, at least, eminently proper that the Congress of Colonies should be in the state settled first by people from a republic, and at Albany, the ancient place of treaties, and at the spot in English America where red and white delegates from the north, east, west, and south can even now assemble without climbing or tunnelling the Appalachian chain of mountains.

By direction of the Lords of Trade, the governments of all the colonies were invited to meet at Albany, so that a solemn treaty could be at one time made with all the Indian tribes, by all the colonies, in the name of the king.

For treaty-making with the Iroquois, the most powerful of all the Indian tribes, there was only one place—Albany. Dinwiddie, of Virginia, vainly wanted it at Winchester, Va., while Shirley, of Massachusetts, jealous of New York, and a genuine politician, wished to keep himself before the voters, and to come after the elections were over. His party was more than his province or the country. As the Indians had already, according to orders from England, been notified, the New York Assembly declined to postpone time or place.

In Albany the streets were cleaned and repaired by order of the City Council, and the delegates were given a public dinner at the municipal expense. The Congress met in the City Hall on the 19th of June, 1754, twenty-five delegates from nine colonies being present; and whether in personal or in representative dignity formed the most august assembly which up to this time had ever been held in the Western World. The colonies were named in the minutes according to their situation from north to south. All were represented, except New Jersey, the Carolinas, and Georgia.

The business proper began when Johnson read a paper, which was the official report of the Board of Commissioners on Indian Affairs, in which the political situation was exposed. In it propositions were made to build forts in the Onondaga and Seneca countries, with a missionary in each place; to forbid the sale of rum, and to expel and keep the Frenchmen out of the Indian castles. The speech, prepared as the voice of the Congress, was delivered June 28 to the Indians who were present, and who had to be urged by the governor to attend. After various conferences and much speech-making on either side, including an address by Abraham, a scorching philippic by King Hendrick—both Mohawk sachems and brothers—and the distribution of gifts, the Indians went home apparently satisfied. To the edification of delegates from some of the colonies, where Indians were deemed incapable of understanding truth and honour, they found that Governor De Lancey and Colonel Johnson treated them as honest men who understood the nature of covenants. Whereas the laws of Joshua and Moses had been elsewhere applied only too freely to Indian politics by the elect of Jehovah, the New York authorities really believed that the Ten Commandments and the Golden Rule had a place in Indian politics.

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