On the Seneca Indian Lands, 



129 



open day, upon this defenseless and much-injured people. The nat- 

 ural feelings of man and the sense of public justice are violated and 

 appalled at the narration of their proceedings. * * * The Georgia 

 treaty with the Oherokees, so justly held up to execration, is a white 

 page compared with the treaties of 1838 and 1842, which were forced 

 upon the Senecas. This project has already, however, in part, been 

 defeated by the load of iniquity which hung upon the skirts of these 

 treaties."* 



In another passage, in the same volume, he remarks: 



"The (United States) government bartered away its integrity to 

 minister to the rapacious demands of the Ogden Land Company."f 



The author is an adopted member of the Seneca tribe. 



In view of this and similar declarations, I conckided that it was 

 certainly for the interest of the State, that in a transaction where the 

 good name of the United States, of Massachusetts and of New York, 

 were all more or less implicated, the original documents belonging to 

 one of the chief parties to the transaction, the State of Massachusetts, 

 should enter into the possession of the State of New York. And 

 accordingly, the three volumes, of about 1,100 pages of manuscript, 

 letter-sheet size, were purchased at the auction for about twenty 

 dollars each. On examination, I found them to be a valuable addition 

 to the historical records of the State, and well worthy of being pre- 

 served for reference. 



Before describing the MSS., let me very briefly mention a few of 

 the antecedent historical facts regarding our relations with these 

 Indians, for the sake of some of the younger members in the audi- 

 ence, who may not be familiar with them. Massachusetts and New 

 York, under their original powers from Great Britain, claimed juris- 

 diction from their western boundaries to the Pacific ocean. This 

 interfering claim of Massachusetts was settled by an agreement or 

 contract of that State with New York, December 16, 1786, at Hart- 

 ford, Conn., by which the territorial jurisdiction of New York was 

 acknowledged, while Massachusetts only retained the right to buy the 

 4,000,000 acres which she claimed, from the Indians, at such times as 

 they were willing to sell. This pre-emptive right was one which 

 Massachusetts could dispose of in portions to other parties. The first 

 great sale was made to Messrs. Phelps & Gorham, in 1788, and next in 

 time, 1,250,000 acres to Robert Morris, the great financier, the nation's 

 great benefactor, in 1791. He formed the Holland Land Company to 

 facilitate the sale of the land. It was this purchase which brought 

 upon Morris those financial embarrassments which could and did 



♦Morgan's League of the Iroquois, Roch . , 1851, p. 33. +The same, n. 458. 



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