Page:A Century of Dishonor.pdf/63

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
THE DELAWARES.
45

in the year 1783,” with the exception of four tracts of land. But it was stated to the Indians that these reservations were not made “to annoy or impose the smallest degree of restraint on them in the quiet enjoyment and full possession of their lands,” but simply to “connect the settlements of the people of the United States,” and “to prove convenient and advantageous to the different tribes of Indians residing and hunting in their vicinity.”

The fifth Article of the treaty is: “To prevent any misunderstanding about the Indian lands now relinquished by the United States, it is explicitly declared that the meaning of that relinquishment is this: that the Indian tribes who have a right to those lands are quietly to enjoy them—hunting, planting, and dwelling thereon so long as they please without any molestation from the United States; but when those tribes, or any of them, shall be disposed to sell their lands, or any part of them, they are to be sold only to the United States; and until such sale the United States will protect all the said Indian tribes in the quiet enjoyment of their lands against all citizens of the United States, and against all other white persons who intrude on the same.”

The sixth Article reiterates the old pledge, proved by the last three years to be so worthless—that, “If any citizen of the United States, or any other white person or persons, shall presume to settle upon the lands now relinquished by the United States, such citizen or other person shall be out of the protection of the United States; and the Indian tribe on whose land the settlement may be made may drive off the settler, or punish him in such manner as they shall think fit.”

The seventh Article gives the Indians the liberty “to hunt within the territory and lands which they have now ceded to the United States, without hinderance or molestation, so long as they demean themselves peaceably.”

The United States agreed to pay to the Indians twenty