BUFFALO SOCIETY OF NATURAL SCIENCES 287 



sidered the Six Nations as a conquered nation and dealt with 

 them according^. In 1784 by treaty the United States extin- 

 guished the Iroquois claim to the western land, by obtaining from 

 them a cession of all lands west and south of a line drawn from 

 a point on Lake Ontario, four miles east of the mouth of the 

 Niagara River, to the mouth of Buffalo Creek, thence southward 

 to the northern boundary line of Pennsylvania, thence, following 

 this boundary line west and south to the Ohio River. 



Two years later the conflicting claims of Massachusetts and 

 New York in western New York were compromised, and in 1788 

 Massachusetts sold the preemption rights of all the land which 

 under the compromise had fallen to it, to two men, Messrs. - 

 Phelps and Gorham. Owing to the appreciation of United States 

 money these were unable to make payment in full for the tract, 

 so they retained a portion of it and returned the remainder to 

 Massachusetts. This remaining portion was then bought by 

 Samuel Ogden, as agent for Robert Morris. 



In 1794, by a treaty signed at Canandaigua the United States 

 secured to the Senecas all lands west of the Phelps and Gorham 

 tract. 



In 1792 and 1793 Robert Morris had conveyed to a party of 

 capitalists whose headquarters were at Amsterdam, Holland, a 

 tract of 3,600,000 acres in western New York. This was known 

 later as the Holland Purchase. To perfect their title to this tract 

 it was necessary to extinguish the title of the Senecas.' This was 

 accomplished by the Big Tree treaty in 1797, when they, for a 

 consideration, relinquished to Robert Morris all claim to the land 

 thus conveyed to the Holland Company, reserving, however, ten 

 separate tracts for their own use. Of these ten, two, viz. the 

 Cattaraugus and the Tonawanda Reservations, besides that already 

 occupied on Buffalo Creek, lay on or near the Niagara Frontier. 

 The Buffalo Creek Reservation was about lYz miles from north 

 to south and eighteen miles from east to west. In it were included 

 the present townships of West Seneca, Elma, Marilla, the southern 

 part of Cheektowaga, Lancaster and Alden, and the northern 

 portion of Hast Hamburg, Hamburg, Aurora and Wales. The 

 Cattaraugus Reservation at that time lay along the shores of Lake 

 Erie from near Dunkirk about to Angola. 



In 1802 the Holland Company obtained most of this from the 

 Senecas, giving them in return for the lake frontage the present 

 Cattaraugus Reservation. The Company reserved the preemp- 



