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A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774-1875
Senate Executive Journal --FRIDAY, January 15, 1808.
The following written messages were received from the President of the United States, by Mr. Coles, his Secretary:
To the Senate of the United States:
The posts of Detroit and Mackinac having been originally intended, by the governments which established and held them, as mere depôts for commerce with the Indians, very small cessions of land around them were obtained or asked from the native proprietors, and these posts depended for protection on the strength of their garrisons. The principles of our government leading us to the employment of such moderate garrisons, 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 in 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 lakes Michigan and Huron, comprehending the waters of the latter, and of Detroit river, so soon as it could be effected with the perfect good will of the natives. Governor Hull was therefore appointed a Commissioner to treat with them on this subject; but was
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instructed to confine his propositions, for the present, to so much of the tract, before described, as lay south of Saguina bay, and round to the Connecticut Reserve, so as to consolidate the new with the present settled country. The result has been an acquisition of so much only, of what would have been acceptable, as extends from the neighborhood of Saguina bay to the Miami of the Lakes, with a prospect of soon obtaining a breadth of two miles for a communication from the Miami to the Connecticut Reserve. The treaty, for this purpose, entered into with the Ottoways, Chippeways, Wyandots, and Pottawattamies, at Detroit, on the 17th of November last, is now transmitted to the Senate; and I ask their advice and consent, as to its ratification.
I communicate herewith, such papers as bear any material relation to the subject.
TH: JEFFERSON.
January 15th, 1808.
To the Senate of the United States:
Although it is deemed very desirable that the United States should obtain from the native proprietors, the whole left bank of the Mississippi, to a certain breadth, yet to obliterate from the Indian mind an impression deeply made in it, that we are constantly forming designs on their lands, I have thought it best, where urged by no peculiar necessity, to leave to themselves, and to the pressure of their own convenience only, to come forward with offers of sale to the United States.
The Choctaws being indebted to certain mercantile characters beyond what could be discharged by the ordinary proceeds of their huntings, and pressed for payment by those creditors, proposed at length to the United States, to cede lands to the amount of their debts, and designated them in two different portions of their country. These designations not at all suiting us, their proposals were declined for that reason, and with an intimation that if their own convenience should ever dispose them to cede their lands on the Mississippi, we should be willing to purchase. Still urged by their creditors, as well as by their own desire to be liberated from debt, they at length proposed to make a cession, which should be to our convenience. James Robertson, of Tennessee, and Silas Dinsmore, were thereupon appointed Commissioners to treat with them on that subject, with instructions to purchase only on the Mississippi. On meeting their chiefs, however, it was found that such was the attachment of the nation to their lands on the Mississippi, that their chiefs could not undertake to cede them; but they offered all their lands south of a line to be run from their and our boundary, at the Omochita, eastwardly to their boundary with the Creeks, on the ridge between the Tombigbee and Alabama, which would unite our possessions there from Natchez to Tombigbee. A treaty to this effect was accordingly signed at Pooshapekanuk, on the 16th of November, 1805. But this being against express instructions, and not according with the object then in view, I was disinclined to its ratification; and, therefore, did not, at the last session of Congress, lay it before the Senate for their advice, but have suffered it to lie unacted on.
Progressive difficulties, however, in our foreign relations, have brought into view considerations other than those which then prevailed. It is now, perhaps, become as interesting to obtain footing for a strong settlement of militia along our southern frontier, eastward of the Mississippi, as on the west of that river, and more so than higher up the river itself. The consolidation
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of the Mississippi Territory, and the establishing a barrier of separation between the Indians and our southern neighbors, are also important objects. The cession is supposed to contain about five millions of acres, of which the greater part is said to be fit for cultivation, and no inconsiderable proportion of the first quality, on the various waters it includes, and the Choctaws and their creditors are still anxious for the sale.
I therefore now transmit the treaty for the consideration of the Senate, and I ask their advice and consent as to its ratification. I communicate, at the same time, such papers as bear any material relation to the subject, together with a map, on which is sketched the northern limit of the cession, rather to give a general idea, than with any pretension to exactness, which our present knowledge of the country would not warrant.
TH: JEFFERSON.
January 15th, 1808.
The treaties, and papers accompanying them, were read.
Ordered, That they lie for consideration.
Mr. Reed, from the committee appointed on the 24th of December, made a further report. Whereupon,
Resolved, That the Senate do advise and consent to the appointment of Robert Rankin, and also to the appointments of the Surgeons and Surgeon's Mates, contained in the nominations of the message of the 21st of December.
Ordered, That the Secretary make a return to the President of the United States, on the nominations in the message of the 21st December.
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