Oil the Se7ieca Indian Lands. 



135 



States with the Senecas was made in open violation of the settled 

 policy of Xew York in dealing with them. 



The final result of all the negotiations and disputes was, that very 

 few of the Seuecas or Tuscaroras removed beyond the Mississippi ; 

 and the Ogden Company, in view of the various difficulties which 

 were raised in their path, consented to a compromise, by which the 

 Senecas retained 52,000 acres of the 119,000 in controversy, being the 

 two reservations which they now possess in Allegany and Cattaraugus 

 counties. This act was what is called the treaty of 1842. 



In consequence of these treaties of 1838 and 1842, there occurred 

 a revolution in the Seneca tribe. They adopted something like a con- 

 stitution and new laws, with a complete system of government. A 

 very valuable report made to the Legislature, January 22, 1857, from 

 the judiciary committee of the Senate, represents the rights of the 

 Senecas to their lands as absolute, through a series of conveyances 

 down to that date from the State of Massachusetts, from Phelps and 

 from Morris; and that no parties had now any pre emptive rights in 

 iheir lands. Thus out of the law of 1838 and the treaty of the same 

 year had proceeded the law of 1845 of the State of New York, which 

 guaranteed to the Senecas their lands. So that if that treaty was 

 evil, a power for good has been seen to proceed from things evil in 

 this case, as in multitudes of other cases in human affairs. 



I have not been so rash as to form an opinion as to the expediency 

 or justice of these transactions with so little opportunity of studying 

 them. The facts are many, and the documents are voluminous. 

 So far as New York alone is concerned, I had little occasion to be so- 

 licitous. Her relations to the Indians under her jurisdiction are 

 abundantly justified by the Society of Friends, who constituted 

 themselves the special agents to defend their rights in this very case. 

 In the report of the joint committee of four yearly meetings in 1847, 

 six years after the close of the dispute, they acknowledge explicitly 

 the kindness of New York to the Indians within her jurisdiction. 

 They say : 



" The uniform justice and compassion of Kew York toward the Six 

 Nations who were located on its territory present in retrospect one of 

 the most pleasant scenes on the pages of our history."* 



It may be felt by some that these Dearborn documents refer to dead 

 issues, and that they have no relation to the live questions of the day, 

 and are therefore worthless. Still, if the value put upon historical 

 researches be not a delusion, if to secure the materials by means of 



* Proceedings of Joint Coramittee, 1847. 



