There is no other Provincial Civil Establishment in the Colony. Most of the above mentioned Officers have Fees appertaining to their Offices, the amount of which (if within the object of the present Enquiry) can only be ascertained by the Respective Officers. The Province has a Court of Chancery, the Governor is Chancellor, and the Officers of the Court are a Master of the Rolls newly created :—Two Masters: -Two Clerks:-a Register:— An Examiner, and a Sergeant at Arms.—There is also a Prerogative Court of which the Governor is Judge: It's Officers are a Register and one or more Surrogates in every County.— In each of the Cities of New York and Albany there is a Mayor, Sheriff, Clerk and Coroner, and in each of the other Counties of the Province there are Three or more Judges, and a number of Justices of the Peace: One Sheriff, one Clerk and one or more Coroners.— None of these Officers have any Salary but have Fees annexed to their Offices and they are all appointed by the Governor. Military Establish ments Military Establishments have only taken place in Time of War. The Province during the late War, raised, cloathed and paid a large Body of Forces, which was disbanded at the Peace, and there is at present no Provincial Military Establishment unless the Militia may be regarded as such; The Officers of this Corps are as already observed appointed by the Governor, and having no pay their Offices must be rather expensive than lucrative. The Militia are not subject to Garrison Duty, and all the posts where any Garrisons are kept are occupied by the King's Troops. London, 11th June 1774. Wm Tryon (N° 1.) Deed to King George the First reciting the surrender by the Five Nations of their Beaver Hunting Country; and containing an actual Surrender of the Castles or Habitations of the Senecas, Cayougas and Onondagas. (N° 2.) [For this Document, see V., 800.] List of Inhabitants in the Several Counties in the Province of New York taken in the Year 1771. City and County of New York. 3720 5083 280 3779 5864 18,726 568 890 42 552 1085 3137 21,863 Ulster Dutchess ||34,877 37,302 4,314 33,492 38, 139 148, 124|4,4165,372 848 4,050 5,197 19,888||168,007 2253 177 9740 9822 1136 9086 9045 38829 876 1100 250 671 980 3877 42,706 1360 22,404 662 10,092 3430 21,745 2 12 8,947 722 Males under 16 Sir (N° 6.) Johnson Hall, Oct 22a, 1773. I am just honored with your Excellency's letter of the 29ih Ult concerning the Dispatches you received from the Earl of Dartmouth, & inclosing me such of his Lordship's Queries as are connected with my Department. On this subject, I shall most willingly transmit your Excellency all the Intelligence that can as I conceive be deemed necessary, so far as the present state of the Indians within this Province can be known at this time. You are doubtless sensible that the Indians who formerly possessed Long Island and the rest of this Province below Albany are now reduced to a small number, and that they are for the most part so scattered & dispersed & so much addicted to wandering that no certain Ace' can be obtained of them. It will be therefore sufficient to observe that they are Remnants of the following Tribes, Montocks & others of Long Isleand, Wappingers of Dutchess County, Those of Esopus Papagonk &ca in Ulster County, and a few Skachticokes, All these last have generally been denominated River Indians, and may make Three Hundred fighting Men they speak a Language radically the same, and are understood by the Delawares, being originally of the same race, most of these people at present profess Christianity, & adapt as far as they can our Customs, and the greater part of them attended our Armies during the late War, tho' not with the same reputation with those who are still Hunters. The next People to be considered are the Mohawks the first Nation in Rank of the Six Nation Confederacy, 'tho now much reduced in Numbers, they originally occupied the Country Westward from Albany to the German Flats and had many Towns, but having at different times been prevailed on to dispose of their lands, & suffered many Impositions, they have verry little property remaining except to the Northward, and are reduced to Two Villages on the Mohawk River and a few Families at Scohare, The lower Mohawks are One Hundred and Eighty Five Souls, & those of Conojohare Two Hundred and Twenty One, making together Four Hundred & Six Souls, They are and have been faithfully attached to the English on which Ace' they suffered great losses during the late War. The Nation beyond & to the Westward of the Mohawks are the Oneidaes, The villages of their residence including Onoaughquage are at a small distance beyond the present limits or Boundary Line of this Province, but their property within it except to the Northward has also been sold, This Nation will make at least fifteen Hundred Souls, & they are faithfully attached to the English. The rest of the Nations of that Confederacy living farther beyond the Limits of the Government do not appear to be the Object of the present Enquiry, it may however be proper to observe that the whole Six Nations are about Two Thousand Fighting Men, making at least Ten Thousand Souls according to the latest Returns, & that the Senecas alone are one Half of that number. The Indians North of this Province near Montreal, with those living on the River S' Lawrence near the 45th Degree of Lattitude make about Three Thousand Five Hundred, they are allied to & much regarded by the rest, are good Warriors, & have behaved well since they entered into an Alliance with Us, previous to the Reduction of Canada. — The Indians within Massachusets Bay, Connecticut, Rhode Isleand &ca. are at present under much the same predicament with those denominated River Indians. The Stockbridge Indians living on the Eastern Border of this Government, may indeed be considered as within it, as they claimed the lands near Albany & do still lay some claims in that way, they served as a Corps in the late War, and are at least Three Hundred Souls. Of those Tribes living West of this Province on Susquehana Many are retired farther Westward, amongst which were some not well affected to the English, They are all Allies & Dependants of the Six Nations.—As the rest of the Nations do not appear to be concerned in this enquiry, it will be sufficient to add that the whole Indians within my Department amount to Twenty Five Thousand, Four Hundred and Twenty Fighting men, & will be about 130000 Souls, Extending Westward to the Mississipi. — I could not be more particular concerning some of the Tribes, for the reason I gave in the beginning of this letter, but I presume this will fully satisfy yr Excellency on the subject. And I remain with great Esteem I am highly gratified on finding from your Lordship's Dispatch (N° 7) which I had lately the honor to receive, that His Majesty is so well satisfied with my conduct in bringing the Senecas to make restitution & altonement for the murder committed on Lake Ontario. — In my letter of last month (N° 8) I gave some farther particulars respecting that affair with Gen Haldimand's concurrence in opinion that on restitution of the goods plundered the two Senecas should be discharged. This proves a work of time, because according to their agreement the skins are to be collected in due proportion from their severall scattered villages, and this delay joyned to the close confinement so unusual to Indians has brought a disorder on one of the Prisoners which is so rigid that he is deemed past recovery, and many of the Indians naturally suspicious have insinuated that he has been poisoned, this report with many others occasioned by their long imprisonment, I have been at much pains to remove, which I had nigh effected, when I received the verry disagreable & unexpected intelligence that a certain Mr Cressop1 an inhabitant of Virginia had trepanned and murdered forty Indians on Ohio, for the most part of 1 Captain Michael Ckcsap was the son of Colonel Thomas Cresap who immigrated from Yorkshire early in the last century to this country and settled in Maryland, in the western part of which Province the subject of this sketch was born 29 June, 1742. After finishing his education he married a Miss Whitehead, of Philadelphia, and returned to the western frontier of Maryland, where he set up as a trader and failed. He moved thence to the Ohio in 1774, and commenced clearing land. Difficulties with the Indians followed and Cresap returned to Maryland and received a commission of Captain in the Virginia militia, and afterwards served in the expedition under Dunmore against the Western tribes. In July, 1776, he was commissioned Captain of a rifle company required from Maryland under a resolution of Congress, and proceeded to Boston, where he joined the army under Washington. He was obliged, by ill health, to return to New-York, and died in that city, of fever, on the 18th of October, 1775, at the early age of 33. His remains were buried, with military honors, in Trinity Church yard. Captain Cresap's name has been immortalized in the celebrated speech of Logan, the Indian Chief, and in Jefferson's Notes of Virginia. Mayer's Discourse on Logan and Crtsap, before the Maryland Historical Society, 1851. - Ed. the 6 Nations, and this was followed by dispatches brought by two trusty Indians from my Agent at Fort Pitt across the country, by which I understand that the Traders have in consequence thereof been driven out of the Country by the Shawanese, except a few whom it is feared have fallen a sacrifice to their resentment, and that the unworthy author of this wanton act, is fled, together with a considerable number of the inhabitants on the confines of Virginia. The Extracts which I herewith enclose will give your Lordship more particular information respecting this & other matters, which excited much commotion and which must prove very alarming to the Frontiers of Virginia and Pensilvania and may extend much farther unless the steps I am now taking may prevent it, concerning which I must have great doubt, from the warmth of the Indians resentment, the disorderly measures of the inhabitants, & the present imbecility of the American Governments, who are I fear as unable to procure, as their people are unwilling to afford justice for the Indians. Your Lordship will please to recollect that in my last dispatch I mentioned my expectations of a favorable issue to the prior differences that arose in that quarter thro the address of Kayagshota, and the Embassy that then accompanied him for these salutary purposes, and from the known influence and approved fidelity of that cheif supported by the name and heads of the six Nations, I had good reason for such expectations, but the least ill consequence that can attend the unlucky obstruction to this business occasioned by the cruelty & baseness of Cressop, is, the present disappointment of the object intended by that Embassy, for altho some of the Indians in that quarter have spoken fairly & profess to believe it was meerly a private act, they in reality regard it in a verry different light, the professions we are often necessitated to make of the advantage derived from our laws, & of our authority over our people, will strengthen their suspicions, and the disorderly behaviour of the Frontier Inhabitants will confirm them, neither is there any hopes that those who have occasioned these troubles, will contribute to the defence of the country, for I have had occasion often to observe, & now find it true, that those who disturb the public tranquility, thro' mistaken and ill timed zeal against the Indians, are the first to abandon their settlements.- for more than ten years past the most dissolute fellows united with debtors, and persons of a wandering disposition have been removing from Pensilvania & Virginia &c* into the Indian Country, towards & on the Ohio, & a considerable number of settlem's were made as early as 17G5 when my Deputy was sent to the Tlinois from whence he gave me a particular account of the uneasiness it occasioned amongst the Indians, many of these emigrants are idle fellows that are too lazy to cultivate lands, & invited by the plenty of game they found, have employed themselves in hunting, in which they interfere much more with the Indians than if they pursued agriculture alone, and the Indian hunters (who are composed of all the Warriors in each nation) already begin to feel the scarcity this has occasioned, which greatly encreases their resentment. The Cession to the Crown at the Treaty in 1768 was secured by the plainest & best natural boundaries, and the Indians freely agreed to make it the more ample that our people should have no pretext of narrow limits, and the remainder might be rendered the more secure to themselves & their posterity, neither did they expect that we should push settlements imediately over the whole of their cession, and His Majesty with great wisdom and discretion was pleased to direct that none should be now made below the Great Kanhawa River, with which I acquainted the Indians agreable to my orders, but numbers of settlements had been made there previous to the cession, attempts made since to form others on the Mississipi, and great numbers in defiance of the cession, or the orders of Government in consequence thereof, have since removed not only below the Kanhawa, but even far beyond the limits of the Cession, and in a little time we may probably hear that they have crossed the Ohio wherever the lands invite them; for the body of these people are under no restraint, they perceive that they are in places of security, and pay as little regard to Government, as they do to title for their possessions, whilst at the same time not only individuals but bodies of men are interested in the growth of these settlements, however injurious to the old colonies, & dangerous to all; but 'till better order is restored elsewhere, little can be expected in that quarter, & in the interim these settlements increase, and what is much worse the disorders of which the Indians principally complain grow to an enormity that threatens us with fresh wars.-under such circumstances, my Lord, I fear the most that can be done, is to prevent the evil from being loo generall, to encourage the fidelity of those Nations on whom I can rely, with those that will joyn them, & secure as much of the frontiers as possible from incursion, should the various methods I am now taking to ward off the impending evil, in any part fail. My Lord, I have daily to combat with thousands who by their avarice, cruelty or indiscretion are constantly counteracting all judicious measures with the Indians, but I shall still persevere, the occasion requires it, and I shall never be without hopes, 'till I find myself without that influence which has never yet forsaken me, on the most trying occasions. Since the news of the murders committed by Cressop and his banditti, the Six Nations have sent me two Messages requesting the enlargement of the two Senecas who are confined, & representing that it is in their opinion a reasonable demand, after the late loss they have sustained, for which they have such slender expectations of satisfaction, & I trust I shall be enabled to gratify them in a few days, as they are daily collecting skins, & firrs as a retribution for the robbery. The Cheifs of the whole Confederacy have likewise signified that they request to hold a congress with me imediately on the present critical situation of Affairs, above two hundred of them are already arrived for that purpose and the rest are on the road to the amount of three or four hundred more.—I have discovered from some private conferences with the principal men, that many of them are sensible of the Artifices practiced for some time past by the Shawanese and their adherents, it is therefore my design at the Congress to strenghten that opinion and shew them that the conduct of these people have not a little contributed to produce the late unhappy disorders, and I shall do everry thing in my power for rendering the Congress advantageous at this critical juncture; the issue of which I shall transmit to your Lordship as soon as possible. I beg to be honoured with your Lordship's commands, signifying His Majesty's pleasure on any matter contained in this letter, and I remain with the utmost respect, Extract from the Journal of Alexander McKee, Sir William Johnson's Resident on the Ohio &ca March the 8th 1774. A Shawanese Speaker address'd Mr McKee as follows. |