62 FROM THE REPORT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE AND PLANTATIONS ON THE WESTERN PROBLEM 1 7 March 1768 TO THE KING'S MOST EXCELLent Majesty. In obedience to your Majesty's commands signified to us by a letter from the Earl of Shelburne, one of your Majesty's principal Secretaries of State, dated the 5th of October last, we have taken into our most serious consideration the several memorials, letters, and other papers therewith referred to us, containing objections to, and observations upon the present Plan 2 for the management of our commerce and connexions with the Indians in North America; stating the great expense attending as well that branch of service, as the present disposition of the troops for Indian purposes, and urging the expediency and propriety, in various lights, of establishing certain new governments upon the Mississippi, the Ohio, and at the Detroit, between the Lakes Erie and Huron. We have also conferred, upon this occasion, with such of your Majesty's military servants, as have been employed in North America, and with such merchants and others as are most intelligent in the North American and Indian trade. Whereupon we humbly beg leave to represent to your Majesty, That the subject matter, to which these papers refer, and the questions arising thereupon, stated to us in the Earl of Shelburne's letter, appear to us to lead to a consideration of no less consequence and importance, than what system it may be now proper for your Majesty to pursue, with respect to that vast and extensive country in North America, which, on account of the Indian War raging within it, was made by the Proclamation of the 7 October 1763, the object of mere provisional arrangement. The advantages arising from the Treaty of Paris, are in no 1 Public Record Office, C.O. 5, 69, pp. 119–71. Printed in Documents relative to the Colonial History of New York, viii. 19–31. As this report is drawn up in the excessively redundant style affected by the Lords of Trade, it has been pruned by the editor as much as was possible without affecting the substance. 2 The Plan of 1764. See Introduction. part of it more distinguished than in those stipulations, which by obtaining from France and Spain cessions to your Majesty of those important possessions in North America, which, by their situation, gave most alarm and annoyance to the British Colonies, laid the foundation of lasting security to your Majesty's Empire in North America, and of relief to this country by a reduction of that heavy expense, with which it was necessarily burthen'd for the defence and protection of those colonies. And, although the unfavourable impressions left upon the minds of the Indians by the event of the war, and the representations of the French that we meant to extirpate them, did for sometime involve us in a war with them, that rendered necessary the continuance of a large military establishment; yet, that war being happily ended, the Treaties of Peace and Friendship to which all the various tribes have acceded, having been finally concluded, it is now become of immediate importance to examine, how far the alteration which has thus taken place in the state of your Majesty's Dominion in North America, may require or admit of any proportionable alteration in the system, by which that part of your Majesty's service is to be carried on for the future. The parts of the Service for which we are more immediately called upon by the Earl of Shelburne's letter to give our attention, are, (1) the present Civil Establishment regarding the Indians; (2) the disposition of the troops for Indian pur poses; and lastly, the establishment of certain new colonies. We are directed to state our opinion, how far the present expense of the civil establishment regarding the Indians may with safety and propriety be reduced, by entrusting the Indian trade, and all other Indian affairs, to the management of the several colonies. In considering this question it may be proper to observe, that the institution of Superintendants for the affairs of Indians appears to have been a measure originally adopted principally with a view to counteract the designs of the French in 1754, who by sowing the seeds of jealousy amongst the Indians, and exciting them to resent injuries, for redress of which they had in vain solicited the colonies, had well nigh entirely weaned them from the British interest, and at the same time by uniting the force and conducting the enterprizes of the savages, had rendered them an overmatch for your Majesty's colonies standing single and disunited. фигу Upon a carefull examination into the state of Indian affairs after the conclusion of peace, it appears that the two principall causes of the discontent, that still rankled in the minds of the Indians and influenced their conduct, were the encroachments made upon lands which they claimed as their property, and the abuses committed by Indian traders and their servants. The necessity which appeared . . . induced the Proclamation of October 1763; which very prudently restrained all persons from trading with the Indians without licence; and forbid, by the strongest prohibitions, all settlement beyond the limits therein described as the boundary of the Indian hunting ground, putting both their commerce and property under the protection of officers acting under your Majesty's immediate authority, and making their intervention necessary in every transaction with those Indians. These, however, being, as we have before observed, mere provisional arrangements adapted to the exigence of the time, it is become now necessary to consider what may be more permanently requisite in both the cases to which they apply. The giving all possible redress to the complaints of the Indians in respect to encroachments on their lands, and a steady and uniform attention to a faithful execution of whatever shall be agreed upon for that salutary purpose, is a consideration of very great importance. It is a service of a general nature, in which your Majesty's interest, as Lord of the Soil of all ungranted lands which the Indians may be inclined to give up, is deeply and immediately concerned, and with which the general security of your Majesty's possessions there is in some measure connected. It is an object comprehensive of a variety of cases, to which the separate authority and jurisdiction of the respective colonies is not competent, and it depends upon negotiation, which has always been carried on between Indians and officers acting under your Majesty's immediate authority, and has reference to matters which the Indians would not submit to the discussion of particular colonies. For these reasons we are of opinion, that the execution of all measures and services, respecting the complaints of the Indians touching their lands, should be continued to be entrusted to the Superintendants at present acting under commission from your Majesty, reserving to the Governor and Council of every particular colony, which may be interested in any measure that has reference to this general service,] a right to interpose their advice, and making their concurrence necessary to the ratification of every compact that shall be provisionally made, until your Majesty's pleasure shall be known upon it. In a plan for the management of Indian affairs prepared by this Board in 1764, the fixing a boundary between the settlements of your Majesty's subjects and the Indian country was proposed to be established by compact with the Indians, as essentially necessary to the gaining their good will and affection, and to preserving the tranquility of the colonies. This plan having been communicated to the Superintendants, they have in the consequence thereof made the proposition of such a boundary line an object of their particular attention, and of negotiation and discussion with the several tribes of Indians interested therein. [A description of the then incomplete negotiations for a boundary line follows.] Upon the whole it does appear to us, that it will be greatly for your Majesty's interest as well as for the peace, security, and advantage of the colonies, that this boundary line should as speedily as possible be ratified by your Majesty's authority, and that the Superintendants should be instructed and impowered to make treaties in your Majesty's name with the Indians for that purpose, and enabled to make such presents to the Indians as the nature and extent of the concessions on their part shall appear to require. Care, however, should be taken in the settlement of this business, that the agreement for a boundary line be left open to such alterations as, by the common consent, and for the mutual interests of both parties, may hereafter be found necessary and expedient. We humbly submit whether it may not be further necessary that the colonies should be required to give every sanction to the measure in their power and to provide by proper laws for the punishment of all persons, who shall endanger the publick peace of the community, by extending settlements or occupying lands beyond such line. We humbly submit, that there are other branches of duty and service, which . . . require the intervention of officers acting under your Majesty's immediate authority; and which ... cannot be provided for by the Provincial Laws. Such are the renewal of antient compacts or covenant chains made between the Crown and the principal tribes of savages in that country; the reconciling differences and disputes between one body of Indians and another; the agreeing with them for the sale or surrender of lands for public purposes not lying within the limits of any particular colony; and the holding interviews with them for these and a variety of other general purposes, which are merely objects of negotiation between your Majesty and the Indians.. Antecedent to the establishment of the present plan of Superintendants, the management of these interests was entrusted to the Governors of the colonies which were principally connected with the Indians. But when we consider the dependent state of such Governors; that the other duties of their stations must interfere with this very important one; how greatly the objects of this service are increased by alliances with those numerous nations heretofore under the dominion of France; and how necessary it is that a constant watch should be kept upon their motions and designs; and that your Majesty's servants should be constantly and regularly informed of the true state of affairs and of all transactions in the Indian country; we cannot but be of opinion . . . that the office of Superintendants should for the present be continued for these purposes; and that they should be enabled by a stated annual establishment confined to a certain sum, to make such presents as have been usual and customary [and] therefore .. absolutely necessary upon all occasions of treaties held with the Indians for publick purposes; the expence of which, including salaries to the two Superintendants, need not, according to the calculations and estimates made by them, exceed eight thousand pounds annually. . . . It must be admitted that a proper plan of trade with the Indians is an object deserving great attention not only from the commercial benefit resulting from it, but also from the effect that it . . . must have upon the temper and disposition of the savages. . . We are convinced, however, upon the whole of this consideration, I. That no one general plan of commerce and policy is or can be applicable to all the different nations of Indians of different interests and in different situations. 2. That the confining trade to certain posts and places, which is the spirit and principal of the present system, however expedient and effectual with respect to the southern |