2213. DETROIT, Territory acquired.—
The posts of Detroit and Mackinac, having
been originally intended by the governments
which established and held them, as mere depots
for the commerce with the Indians, very
small cessions of land around were obtained or
asked from the native proprietors, and these
posts depended for protection on the strength
of their garrisons. The principle of our government
leading us to the employment of such
moderate agrrisons in time of peace, as May
merely take care of the post, and to a reliance
on the neighboring militia for its support in
the first moments of war, I have thought it
would be important to obtain from the Indians
such a cession of the neighborhood of these
posts as might maintain a militia proportioned
to this object; and I have particularly contemplated,
with this view, the acquisition of the
eastern moiety of the peninsula between the
Lakes Huron, Michigan, and Erie, extending
it to the Connecticut reserve, as soon as it
could be effected with the perfect good will of
the natives. By a treaty concluded at Detroit,
on the 17th of November last, with the Ottawas,
Chippewas, Wyandotts, and Pottawatomies, so
much of this country has been obtained as ex
tends from about Saginaw bay southwardly to
the Miami of the lakes, supposed to contain
upwards of five millions of acres, with a prospect
of obtaining, for the present, a breadth
of two miles for a communication from the
Miami to the Connecticut reserve. The Senate
having advised and consented to this treaty, I
now lay it before both Houses of Congress for
the exercise of their constitutional powers as to
the means of fulfilling it.—
Special Message. Washington ed. viii, 94.
(Jan. 1808)
