On June 23, 1683, a treaty of friendship between white settlers and Indians was signed on the territory of the modern United States. The founder of the Pennsylvania colony, British William Penn, until the last days of his life fulfilled the terms of the agreement, without infringing on the rights of the indigenous people of North America. However, this attitude towards the natives was an exception to the rule. European colonialists, seeking to occupy the best territories of the New World, drove the Indians back to the West. All means were used - from bribery, political intrigue and fictitious "peace" treaties to mass murders.
When white settlers were just beginning to colonize the Atlantic coast of North America, they almost immediately "got acquainted" with several large groups of Indian peoples: Algonquins, southern Iroquois and eastern Muscogs. In these tribes, power belonged to the elders, who appointed leaders as soon as a military threat arose. The most powerful force in the region was the Iroquois League, which, according to scientists, created a pre-state formation. Nevertheless, at first, the unusual appearance and technical achievements of white foreigners confused the Indians, but very soon they became convinced that they were dealing with ordinary people.
Scientists call the period from the beginning of the 17th to the beginning of the 18th century "the first wave of Indian wars." The Indians at this time had a serious numerical superiority, and they had a chance to prevail over the first invaders. Therefore, the colonialists had to use not only weapons. Alcohol, European diseases, the setting off of various tribes among themselves and the "peace" treaties worked no less effectively.
William Penn and the three runners
The Puritans and representatives of some other religious movements that participated in the colonization of North America often called the Indians "children of the devil", not hiding their antipathy towards them. However, Native Americans paid them in the same coin. Therefore, most of the British colonies on the Atlantic coast in the 17th century were in a state of almost constant war with local Indians. In the 1620s and 1630s, peoples such as the Pimas, Pequots and Pequos were completely destroyed.
King Philip's War.
A successful war against the whites was launched by the Wampanoag chief Metakom, also known as King Philip. He managed to develop his own metallurgical production and conclude an alliance with local leaders, after which he began a brutal war, besieging 60 and destroying 12 settlements of the colonialists. In these battles, one in five white men died. However, Metakom himself was killed in an accidental skirmish, and most of his people were destroyed.
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However, there were exceptions among the white settlers. For example, the prominent British public figure and Quaker William Penn, founder of the Pennsylvania colony. Taking advantage of the fact that the crown owed his father a large sum of money, Penn asked to return the debt with American lands. Unlike many of his compatriots, the influential Quaker decided to negotiate with the Indians for a peaceful distribution of land.
In 1682, he made the first deal with the Lenape Indians (or Delaware - this is the name that Fenimore Cooper used in his novels). And on June 23, 1683, William Penn signed a comprehensive treaty of friendship with the Lenape. At the same time, he fulfilled all obligations undertaken before the Indians, using only the lands purchased from them, paying bills and allowing them to enter the "white" territory.
Jean Leon Jerome Ferris. Birth of Pennsylvania. 1680.
In 1718 Penn died and the land was inherited by his children. Those humanistic views of their father did not share. In 1736, they presented the Lenape with a "treaty" supposedly concluded 50 years earlier by Penn, according to which the white lands were retreated for a day and a half west of the Pennsylvania border. According to historians, this document was fake, but the Indian leaders were still persuaded to admit it.
The Indians, based on their own ideas, calculated that we are talking about a distance of 60 km. However, Penn's heirs, measuring out the ground, launched the three best runners in the colony along a previously cleared road. As a result, the border of their lands moved by about 113 km. The Indians complained about the fraud to the English king, and in the 19th century they filed a lawsuit in an American court, but this did not help them.
In the XVII-XIX centuries, the Lenape were partially destroyed, the rest were resettled to the West forcibly.
The strength of the treaty
“The Indians either sold the land themselves, or it was taken from them by force, or they died out. The land was heavily undervalued in transactions. In theory, the Indians themselves could let farmers into their land and take rent from them. But in practice, this was impossible, since the attitude of whites towards the Indians was extremely negative and they almost always lost any legal disputes to the Europeans, Stepkin said in an interview with RT.
In the 18th century, European colonialists from France, Great Britain and the United States actively used Indians in their wars. After the emergence and final formation of the United States of America, the attack of the whites on the West became even more decisive. In the 1790s, a series of regulations were adopted to transfer the function of concluding treaties with Indians exclusively to the central authorities in Washington.
In 1823, the US Supreme Court officially approved the de facto "doctrine of discovery", according to which all Indian lands were declared not owned by anyone, and those colonizers who occupied a particular territory were the first to become their owners. And in 1830, a law was passed on the resettlement of the Indians. According to him, not only the wild, but also the so-called civilized Indian peoples, who had previously been guaranteed immunity, were subject to expulsion to the arid lands west of the Mississippi. Since 1831, the American army has driven the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscovite and Seminole Indians westward. Thousands died on the way, never reaching their new "homeland".
In the second half of the 19th century, when more fertile areas had already been seized, the Americans began to seize the last "ownerless" land - the Great Plains in the center and mountainous areas in the south and west of the continent.
Karl Wimar. Kidnapping of Jemima Boone, daughter of Daniel Boone. 1853 year.
The combination of military force with pseudo-diplomatic negotiations was again brought into play. The Lakota, Apache and Comanche Indians fiercely resisted the invaders, but the predominance of whites was already too great.
Those who refused to obey were ruthlessly exterminated by the American authorities and colonists. The army and detachments of volunteers slaughtered entire settlements, killing women, old people and children. Whites actively practiced scalping, made souvenirs for themselves from the parts of the bodies of killed Indian girls. Carrying out a formal order, the military easily shot from cannons and rifles the villages of peaceful Indians who received security guarantees from Washington.
By 1890, the Indian Wars were over. The resistance of the legitimate owners of American soil was suppressed. If back in 1800 they made up about 15% of the population of the territory that later became part of the United States, then in 1900 no more than 0.5% of the total number of people living there remained on these lands.
From 1776 to 1900, about 600 million hectares of land were taken from the Indians in the United States, which is about 25 times the area of Great Britain, from where the colonialists came to the New World. This takeover was formally legalized through a variety of treaties. From 1777 to 1868, 368 such documents were signed.
Secrets of American Diplomacy
“You need to understand that for example, the inhabitants of the Great Plains at the beginning of the 19th century were still practically in the Stone Age. They did not know metals, they did not see the wheels. And when they were offered to sign some kind of agreement, they simply did not understand what they wanted from them, since they had a completely different idea of property. They did not think that someone could own the land, Indianist Andrei Golenkov said in an interview with RT.
According to him, each conclusion of the contract was accompanied by the presentation of gifts. Indian chiefs and elders came, received something useful from the whites and put a cross on paper, not understanding what they were talking about.
According to Valery Korovin, director of the international non-profit foundation Center for Geopolitical Expertise, the white colonialists initially looked at the practice of concluding agreements with a fair amount of cynicism.
“If the Indians began to simply take away the land, they resisted. The invaders, of course, did not like this. In an effort to avoid war, the colonialists imitated attempts to negotiate. However, those who signed these agreements on behalf of the British and US authorities, initially did not even intend to implement them. As soon as the situation allowed, the whites switched to forceful methods of seizing land,”Korovin emphasized.
Painting by Charles Schreifogel. 1908 year.
Andrei Golenkov noted that in the 19th century, contractual relations with the Indians were used in American society and for domestic political purposes.
However, according to the expert, when discussing the text of agreements with the Indians, American officials and the military did not particularly risk anything.
“I had to read the texts of these agreements in the original. So, they are written so intricately, with such turns that it was not easy for me, a person of the 21st century with a higher education, to figure out what it is about. And what could the illiterate Indian leaders understand? - asks Golenkov.
Experts note that the attitude of Western powers towards representatives of other civilizations has practically not changed over time, which is clearly demonstrated by the modern foreign policy of the same USA.
“By signing any agreements, they imply that at the first opportunity they will not fulfill them,” Korovin summed up.
Svyatoslav Knyazev
