Header img
Beyond Penn's Treaty

Letter, account of Canandaigua Treaty negotiations

Page out of 3
To the Meeting for Sufferings
Dear Friends

Agreeably to our prospect of attending the Treaty to be
held with the Indians of the Six Nations

at Canandaque in New York
Government, we left this City the 15th of the 9th Mo: and reached that
place on the 26th of the same: On our arrival we found but about 160
collected, and these chiefly of the Oneida Tribe, with whom we had divers
conferences before the others came in; we also found about 30 Members of
our religious Society settled within the compass of fifteen Miles of the place
of Treaty who had emigrated chiefly from the New England Governments,
these friends in their distant & scattered situation appeared glad to see us
and engaged our attention & concern. We had Meetings on the
first Days of the Week during our continuance there, which were held to
satisfaction and attended by our fellow professors & many others both
Indians & Whites; amongst these people we apprehend a few Books might
be profitably distributed.

All the Indians who were expected being at length assembled
to the amount of 1600 and upwards, the Treaty commenced; we attended
all the public Councils as well as some which were held by the Commissi
oner more privately, and had frequent & satisfactory opportunities of
conference with the Sachems & other Chiefs, in which we endeavoured
to impress thier Minds with a sense of the advantages to be derived from
living in peace one with another and with all Men, and of the expedi-
ency of leading a more sober & quiet Life, that they might draw down
the divine Blessing upon them; they heard us with attention and we
hope it was not without some good effect. They still retain a
lively remembrance of the the just & friendly treatment thier forefathers
experienced from the first founders of Pennsylvania, continue to dis-
tinguish him by the name of Onas

and consider friends as his de-
scendants, expressing that if we deceive them they can no more place
any confidence in mankind

As an enquiry had been made in time past respecting the
original Owners of the Land about Hopewell

in Virginia , soon after
the Indians were collected, some of the principal Cheifs of the different