as may be known from the different colors of our Skin and of our Flesh; and that which you call Justice may not be so amongst us: you have your Laws and Customs, and so have we. The Great King might send you over to conquer the Indians, but it looks to us that God did not approve of it; if he had, he would not have placed the Sea where it is, as the Limits between us and you. . . . You know very well when the White People came first here they were poor; but now they have got our Lands, and are by them become rich, and we are now poor; what little we have had for the Land goes soon away, but the Land lasts forever.”[1]
The Governor having told the Indians that the English
had recently beat the French in a war on sea and land, the
chief said: “You tell us you beat the French; if so, you
must have taken a great deal of Rum from them, and can
the better spare us some of that Liquor, to make us rejoice
with you in the victory.” The Governor and Commissioners
ordered a dram of rum to be given to each in a small
glass, calling it a French
glass.[2]
The great object of this Council, after settling cessions of territory in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia, was to pledge the Six Nations to alliance with the English, or at least to neutrality, in apprehended further hostilities from the French. Canassateego, on the next day, desired a dram out of an English glass. Governor Thomas answered: “We are glad to hear you have such a dislike for what is French. They cheat you in your glasses as well as in everything else.” Reminding the Indians that they had almost drunk out a good quantity of spirit brought so far from their “Rum Stores,” he said that there was still enough left for English glasses; and so, with bumpers, closed the Council. A deputation of the Osages at Washington, being pressed to adopt civilized ways, a chief said: —
“I see and admire your manner of living, your good, warm
houses, your large fields of corn, your gardens, your cattle, your