The Chickasâs occupied and claimed the country east of the Mississippi, from the mouth of the Ohio to the mouth of the Yazoo, and westward to the Cumberland Mountains on the north, and to the Tombigby and Black Warrior on the south. The claims of this nation included all the western half of Kentucky and Tennessee, and the northern half of Mississippi. Subsequently, in the year 1787, their strength was estimated at twelve hundred warriors.*

The Choctâs, one of the most powerful nations of the South, occupied all the country south of the Chickasâs and west of the Cherokee and Creek territories. Their limits comprised all the regions drained by the Lower Tombigby and the western tributaries of the Black Warrior, and westward to the Mississippi, including the whole country drained by the Pearl and Pascagoula Rivers. Their fighting men were estimated at six thousand.

[A.D. 1787.] The treaty of Fort Stanwix, signed October 22d, 1784, had been a source of great dissatisfaction and complaint with the Six Nations. The chiefs persisted in their declarations that they had been deceived by the commissioners of the United States, both as to the amount of territory relinquished and the line fixed in the treaty, as well as in the consideration which they believed was stipulated in the same. They declared, also, that, coerced by threats of war upon their people, and the destruction of their towns, they had been induced to sign the treaty against their will; that they had been thus compelled to relinquish more territory to the United States than they were authorized to cede, and that the nations would not ratify the cession.

They declared, moreover, that they had been defrauded out of the goods stipulated in the treaty, and, consequently, the same was not binding upon them. The government endeavored, without success, to satisfy them on these points. In the mean time, notwithstanding their remonstrances and protestations, the whites continued to advance upon the lands claimed to have been ceded by the treaty. At length, finding all their efforts unavailing, they had seriously contemplated a league offensive and defensive with the western tribes, for resisting by force of arms the encroachments of the whites. To this measure they were strongly incited by the western tribes.

* See American State Papers, Indian Affairs, vol. i., p. 48; also, p. 432, &c.

The latter upbraided them with a want of courage in surrendering their own lands, and being compelled to fall back upon those tribes who had the courage to defend and hold their country. On this subject the British agents and traders at Niagara and Detroit neglected no opportunity to poison the minds of the savages, for the purpose of exciting animosity against the border settlements of the United States.

[A.D. 1788.] Under these circumstances, the frontiers had been almost continually harassed by depredations, murders, and thefts, constituting a series of petty hostilities, perpetrated by lawless bands of Indians, almost from the signing of the treaty of Fort M'Intosh. To allay this feeling of dissatisfaction on the part of the Six Nations, the government issued instructions to General Arthur St. Clair, governor of the Northwestern Territory, to assemble the sachems, warriors, and head men of all the northwestern tribes and nations in general convention at Fort Harmar, at the mouth of the Muskingum, for the purpose of negotiating a new treaty and satisfying any demands which they might urge for further compensation under the treaty of Fort Stanwix.

Agreeably to the invitation of Governor St. Clair, the Indians began to assemble near Fort Harmar early in the winter. Negotiations were opened and conducted by the governor as Commissioner Plenipotentiary of the United States. The sachems, chiefs, and warriors of the "Five Nations," exclusive of the Mohawks, of the Wyandots, Delawares, Ottawâs, Chippewas, Potawatamies, and Sauks, attended on the part of the hostile tribes. The negotiations resulted in the Treaty of Fort Harmar, signed on the 9th day of January, 1789.*

The treaty of Fort Harmar consisted of two separate parts:

Description of Fort Harmar.-Fort Harmar was erected, under the superintendence of Major John Doughty, in the autumn of 1785. It was situated upon a second bottom, six or eight feet above the first bottom, extending across from the Ohio to the Muskingum. The outline was that of a regular pentagon, including about three fourths of an acre of ground. The curtains, or main walls, were constructed of large timbers horizontally raised to the height of twelve or fourteen feet, and were each one hundred and twenty feet long. Bastions, also pentagonal, and fourteen feet high, were made of large timbers set upright in the ground, and tied by cross timbers, tree-nailed, to each upright piece. The fifth, or inner side, was occupied by dwellings, or quarters, for the officers; and the main sides, or curtains, by the barracks, or quarters, for the soldiers. The roofs inclined inward, and each house was divided into four rooms. The quarters for the officers was a large two story house, built of hewed logs. Upon the roof of the barracks, facing the Ohio, was a cupola, or square tower, surmounted by a flag-staff and occupied by a sentinel. An arsenal of large logs, covered with earth, formed a place of security as a magazine. At a short distance were highly-cultivated gardens. See plate-American Pioneer, vol. i., p. 25, 26.

first, a treaty with the Five Nations, the Oneidas, Onondagas, Tuscaroras, Cayugas, and Senecas; second, a treaty with the six northwestern tribes before enumerated.

[A.D. 1789.] The treaty with the Five Nations of the Iroquois was designed to confirm and ratify the treaty of Fort Stanwix, and to establish the boundaries designated in that treaty. Therefore the United States stipulated to pay to the Indians the additional sum of three thousand dollars, to be properly distributed among them. Besides this amount, in cash or its equivalent, various presents of valuable goods and necessary articles of Indian costume were made to the chiefs and warriors. Upon these conditions, they ratified and confirmed the former treaty.

In like manner, the treaty with the six northwestern tribes stipulated for peace and friendship between their people and those of the United States, and for the recognition of the treaties of Fort Stanwix and Fort M'Intosh, and the lines establised by them respectively. For and in consideration of said recognition, and relinquishment of all claim to said designated territory, the United States stipulate to pay them, for distribution, six thousand dollars, besides sundry valuable presents to the chiefs and warriors.*

The Shawanese, and some other bands upon the head waters of the Wabash and Maumee, still maintaining a hostile attitude, refused to attend the treaty or to sanction its provisions. These dissenting tribes and bands soon after resumed their hostilities against the frontier settlements of Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Kentucky, embracing the settlements east and south of the Ohio River, from the Monongahela to Green River.

From the close of the war of Independence, the Indian tribes, instigated by British agents and traders at Detroit and other western posts within the United States, had urged the Ohio River as the proper boundary between the white man and the Indian, as fixed by the English treaty of Fort Stanwix, under Sir William Johnson, in 1768. Hence it is evident that the British cabinet, in retaining the northwestern posts, had not abandoned the hope that circumstances might yet compel the United States to recognize the Ohio River as their northwestern boundary.†

* American State Papers, Indian Affairs, vol. i., p. 5.

† See Cincinnati in 1841, p. 167. Also, Burnett's Letters, p. 100, &c. VOL. II.-P