"
Once more, speaking of the pre-emptive right and the assurance given them
that their lands were desired only in return for a fair equivalent of
their value, he called their attention to the great cessions the Indians
had already made, together with the solemn declarations that they should
not be importuned to relinquish their remaining reservations, he said:
"You tell us of your claim to our land, and that you have purchased it
from your State. We know nothing of your claim, and we care nothing for
it. Even the whites have a law by which they cannot sell what they do not
own. How then has your State, which never owned our land, sold it to you?
We have a title to it, and we know that our title is good; for it came
direct from the Great Spirit, who gave it to us, his red children. When
you can ascend where he is," pointing toward the skies, "and will get his
deed, and show it to us, then, and never till then, will we acknowledge
your title. You say you came not to cheat us of our lands, but to buy
them. Who told you that we have lands to sell? You never heard it from
us."
Then rising up and giving Mr. Ogden a look of deep earnestness, if not of
indignation, he said:
"Did I not tell you the last time we met, that whilst Red Jacket lived,
you would get no more lands of the Indians? How then, while you see him
alive and strong," striking his hand violently on his breast, "_do you
think to make him a liar?_"
The persistence with which the Senecas were importuned to sell their
lands, led them to make an appeal to the president, and afterward to the
governor of New York.
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