British forces were all concentrated on Canada, and still more how absolutely necessary to have a large body of Indians to pioneer the way for them through the woods, without which their army would be sure to be cut off by the French Indians—great endeavours were now made to conclude treaties of peace and mutual aid with all the great tribes in the British American colonies. Such treaties had long existed with the Five Nations, now called the Six Nations, by the addition of the remainder of the Tuscarora Indians who had escaped from our exterminating arms in North Carolina, and fled to the Five Nations; and also with the Delaware and Susquehanna Indians. Conferences were held with the chiefs of these tribes and British Commissioners from Pennsylvania, Maryland, New York and Virginia, and, ostensibly, a better spirit was manifested towards the Indian people. The most celebrated of these conferences were held at Philadelphia in 1742; at Lancaster in Pennsylvania in 1744; and at Albany, in the state of New York, in 1746. The details of the conferences develope many curious characteristics both of the white and the red men. Canassateego, an Onondaga chief, was the principal speaker for the Indians on all these occasions, and it would be difficult to point to the man in any country, however civilized and learned, who has conducted national negotiations with more ability, eloquence, and sounder perception of actual existing circumstances, amid all the sophistry employed on such occasions by European diplomatists—
That lead to bewilder, and dazzle to blind.—Beattie.
It had been originally agreed that a certain sum should be given to the Indians, or rather its value in
