SIOUAN 

 MOONKY 



] ALBANY TREATY OF 1722. 45 



111 conclusion they asserted that the report that they intended to attack 

 the Saponi or the whites of V^irginia was false, and tliat they desired 

 to be friends of the Englisli and of their Induiii allies, and proposed 

 that coinmissioners might be sent from Virginia to meet them at Albany 

 and conclude a firm and lasting peace (N. Y., 9). 



As a result of tins mutual desire for peace a conference was held at 

 Albany, New York, in September, 1722, which was attended by repre- 

 sentatives of the Five Nations of Iroquois, with their allies, the Tuska- 

 rora, Shawnee, and others, then living- on the Susiiuehanna, and by 

 the governors of iSIew York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, including- Gov- 

 ernor Spotswood himself. A treaty was there concluded between the 

 Iroquois and their allies on the one side, and Virginia and her tribu- 

 tary Indians, including- those of Carolina, on the other, by which an end 

 was made to the exterminating warfare that had so long been waged 

 between the northern and southern tribes; and the Potomac and Blue 

 ridge were made the boundaries between the two parties. The Iro- 

 quois agreed that in their southern excursions they would keep within 

 the mountains and would not cross the Potomac or come beyond the 

 Blue ridge vv'ithout the knowledge and consent of Virginia, and Gov- 

 ernor Spotswood, on behalf of the southern tribes, iiromised that they 

 would not go beyond the same boundaries to the northward without the 

 same i)ennission. To render the agreement more binding, Sjiotswood 

 made it a provision of the treaty that any of the Iroquois who were 

 found within the proscribed limits without authority should be hanged 

 or transported as slaves. To this hard condition the Five Nations will- 

 ingly consented, but magnanimously declared for themselves that should 

 they meet any of the southern tribes on the northern side of the boundary 

 they would give them food and treat them as friends, in order that peace 

 might remain assured. It is clear that the Iroquois had some rudi- 

 mentary i^hilanthropy not learned from the whites. 



The Virginia tribes for whom Governor Spotswood particularly 

 engaged are named as "The Nottoways, Meherins, Nanemonds, I'amun- 

 keys, Chichominys, and the Christanna Indians whom you call Todirich- 

 roones that we comprehend under the name, the Saponies, Ochinee- 

 ches, Stenkenocks, Meipontskys and Toteroes, all the forenamed Indians 

 having their present settlements on tlie east side of the high ridge of 

 mountains and between the two great rivers of Pptomack and Itoanoke" 

 (N. Y., 10). Although small parties several times violated the agree- 

 ment then made, tlie Iroquois as a body always respected it, and the 

 long war which they had waged against the Virginia tribes thus came 

 to an end. The Shawano and other tribes of Ohio valley, however, 

 kept up their raids on the Catawba to the close of the French and 

 Indian war. 



In 1728 (1729 by an error in the Byrd manuscript) the boundary line 

 between Virginia and North Carolina was run by commissioners and 

 surveyors Irani each colony. William Byrd was the chief commis- 

 mmv foy Yirgiaia ^uU U^a left us a valuable accouut of their advent- 



