Fort Stanwix, Treaty of (1768)

The Treaty of Fort Stanwix between the British and Six Nations, or Iroquois, in 1768 ceded much of the land south of the Ohio River to European-American settlement. The treaty was created as a response to further colonial demands for Native American lands west of the Appalachian Mountains. According to the Proclamation of 1763, British-American settlement had been forbidden beyond the Appalachians. Many people ignored the law and began moving to present-day Kentucky and Tennessee. The British government and the Virginia colonial legislature sought to obtain the lands through treaty and regulate settlement in the West. Pennsylvania wanted more land on its western frontier. Speculators also hoped for a new boundary, which would open land for sale.

In 1768, British superintendent of Indian affairs Sir William Johnson organized a treaty council with the Iroquois at Fort Stanwix, now Rome, New York. The conference began on October 24, 1768, and ended on November 5 with the signing of the Treaty of Fort Stanwix. The new boundary ran from Fort Stanwix southward to the Delaware River. The line then followed the Western Branch of the Susquehanna River to the Allegheny River in modern Pennsylvania. The largest tract of land acquired by the British extended from Pittsburgh down the length of the Ohio River to the mouth of the Tennessee River. Even though the Iroquois claim to the lands south of the Ohio River was not particularly valid, the Iroquois received all of the compensation for the lands, which was almost ?10,000 worth of money and goods. The Iroquois saw themselves as the “conquerors and protectors” of the Ohio Indians and therefore could speak for the Ohio tribes who actually lived in and hunted in Kentucky, including the Delaware, Shawnee, and Mingo. These tribes did not recognize Iroquois land rights in Kentucky, but the British decided to use the Iroquois to acquire the land and did not let the Ohio Indians speak for themselves, allowing only them to observe the treaty council. The British also chose to ignore the claims to lands north of the Tennessee River made by the Cherokee, who regarded the area as their hunting grounds. The Ohio Indians were not satisfied with the treaty, and the region would be marked by warfare for decades as the Native Americans in the area resisted European Americans encroaching on their land.

A second Treaty of Fort Stanwix was signed in 1784 between the newly independent United States and the Six

Nations, reaffirming the stipulations of the 1768 treaty. It, too, had little basis in the real situation in the Ohio Valley, which remained in turmoil for years to come.

Further reading: Daniel K. Richter, Facing Ea. st from Indian County: A Native History of Early America (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2001); Jack M. Sosin, The Revolutionary Frontier, 1763-1783 (New York: Holt, Rinehart &Winston, 1967).