George Washington Papers

To George Washington from the Commissioners for Indian Affairs, 10 July 1793

From the Commissioners for Indian Affairs

Niagara, 10th July. 1793.

Sir,

General Knox will of course lay before you our Communications of this date.1 We address you that we may literally comply with our promise to the Deputies of the Western Indians, “that we would desire you to issue fresh orders to General Wayne, not only to abstain from hostilities, but to remain quietly at his Posts, untill the event of the treaty should be known.”2 Our sentiments on this subject are fully expressed in our letter to the Secretary of war, to which we must beg leave to refer. Those sentiments your own solicitude for peace will sufficiently enforce. We are, sir, with great respect, yr &c.

B.L.

B.R.

T.P.

LB, MHi: Pickering Papers; copy, MHi: Pickering Papers.

1. Henry Knox sent GW these materials “Late at night” on 19 July 1793 (JPP description begins Dorothy Twohig, ed. The Journal of the Proceedings of the President, 1793–1797. Charlottesville, Va., 1981. description ends , 204). For the journal and other letters enclosed with the commissioners’ first letter to Knox of 10 July, see ASP, Indian Affairs, description begins Walter Lowrie et al., eds. American State Papers. Documents, Legislative and Executive, of the Congress of the United States. 38 vols. Washington, D.C., Gales and Seaton, 1832–61. description ends 1:349–51. On the assignment given to Benjamin Lincoln, Beverley Randolph, and Timothy Pickering to negotiate a peace treaty with the Indians of the Northwest Territory, see Knox to GW, 16 Feb., n.1, and Cabinet Opinion on a Proposed Treaty at Lower Sandusky, 25 Feb. 1793.

2. This quotation is a paraphrase from a speech made by the commissioners at Niagara on 8 July in response to one given by the Mohawk chief Joseph Brant on behalf of the western Indians, and it is repeated in the commissioners’ first letter to Knox of 10 July 1793 (ibid.).

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    Washington Papers
    Title
    To George Washington from the Commissioners for Indian Affairs, 10 July 1793
    Author
    Commissioners for Indian Affairs
    Recipient
    Washington, George
    Date
    10 July 1793

    Reference

    Cite as
    “To George Washington from the Commissioners for Indian Affairs, 10 July 1793,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/05-13-02-0133. [Original source: The Papers of George Washington, Presidential Series, vol. 13, 1 June–31 August 1793, ed. Christine Sternberg Patrick. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2007, p. 195.]

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