8411. TERRITORY, Purchases of Indian.—[further continued].
On this side the Mississippi,
an important relinquishment of native
title has been received from the Delawares.
That tribe, desiring to extinguish in their people
the spirit of hunting, and to convert superfluous
lands into the means of improving what they
retain, have ceded to us all the country between
the Wabash and the Ohio, south of, and including
the road from the rapids towards Vincennes,
for which they are to receive annuities in animals
and implements for agriculture, and in
other necessaries. This acquisition is important,
not only for its extent and fertility, but
as fronting three hundred miles on the Ohio,
and near half that on the Wabash. The produce
of the settled countries descending those
rivers will no longer pass in review of the Indian
frontier but in a small portion, and with
the cession heretofore made with the Kaskaskias,
nearly consolidates our possessions north
of the Ohio, in a very respectable breadth, from
Lake Erie to the Mississippi. The Piankeshaws
having some claim to the country ceded
by the Delawares, it has been thought best to
quiet that by fair purchase also.—
Fourth Annual Message. Washington ed. viii, 37.
Ford ed., viii, 330.
(Nov. 1804)