Its bearing on his nation and race, he deeply scans, and
treasures up those burning thoughts, with which he is to electrify, and
set on fire the bosoms of his countrymen.
Of the proceedings of this council, little is known aside from the bare
treaty itself. By this treaty perpetual peace and amity were agreed upon
between the United States, and the Iroquois, and the latter ceded to the
United States, all their lands lying west of a line commencing at the
mouth of a creek four miles east of Niagara, at a place on Lake Ontario
called Johnson's Landing; thence south, in a direction always four miles
east of the portage, or carrying-path, between Lakes Erie and Ontario, to
the mouth of Buffalo creek, on Lake Erie; thence due south to the north
boundary of the state of Pennsylvania; thence west to the end of said
boundary; thence south along the west boundary of the state of
Pennsylvania to the Ohio river.
In consideration of this surrender to the United States of their claim to
western lands, the Iroquois were to be secure in the peaceful possession
of the lands they inhabited in the state of New York.
This treaty Red Jacket strenuously resisted. He regarded the proposed
cession of lands as exorbitant and unjust, and summoned all the resources
of his eloquence to defend his position. The course of his argument and
the various means he took to enforce it, we have no means of adequately
presenting. A few hints respecting it, and the testimony of those present
as to the effect produced, is all we have to guide us in forming any
estimate of its merits.
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