Franklin Attends Conference of Indians in Carlisle, September 22, 1753

During the summer of 1753 the Six Nations, Shawnee, Delaware and Twightwee held a great treaty in Virginia, where they were called by Governor Dinwiddie, but who much offended them by his failure to attend the conference in person.

On their return the Indians sent word to Governor James Hamilton, at Philadelphia, that they desired to negotiate a new treaty at Carlisle. The Governor learned that Dinwiddie had not met them in Virginia and he thought Carlisle too far distant to travel on such a mission, so Isaac Norris, Speaker of the Provincial Assembly, Richard Peters, the secretary, and Dr. Benjamin Franklin were commissioned September 22, 1753, to meet and treat with the Indians.

Those who today wander through the streets of historic old Carlisle cannot realize that Franklin and his companions found little more than a frontier fort. John O'Neal, in a letter to Governor Hamilton, dated May 27, 1753, says there were only five houses in the town and but twelve men in the garrison.

Fort Lowther, on High street, near the Public Square, was a harbor of refuge for pioneer families so frequently exposed to Indian attack. Court was held in a log building on the northeast corner of Center Square.

Franklin never forgot his experience at Carlisle and referred to it frequently. His visit to help make a new treaty with the Ohio Indians was a mission of much importance. Through daring wiles of the French, England’s position in the New World was being imperiled more and more.

What attitude the Indians would take in a contest between English and French was of vital importance, not only to the King, but more especially to Pennsylvania settlers, who well knew the terror of Indian massacres and wars.

The Indians attending the Carlisle pow-wow wanted fire water as soon as the commissioners arrived, but Franklin and the other members were shrewd enough to promise rum only when the conference had been completed.

Scarouady, an Oneida chief, sometimes called Half King, who was a person of great weight in their councils, went into caucus with the commissioners before formal sessions began.

He regretfully advised that deliberations could not proceed until belts, strings and goods sent by the Pennsylvania Assembly as condolences 658arrived “to cover the graves of braves killed by the French and their Indians, and were spread out on the ground” before the assembled red men.

The commissioners wanted to begin work at once and offered to furnish a list and inventory of the delayed presents. It was then agreed to confer with the chiefs of the “Shawnee and Delaware on the state of affairs in Ohio,” pending arrival of the condolences.

Conrad Weiser and Andrew Montour acted as interpreters between the commissioners and Indians, while several magistrates and freeholders attended the conference, which was formally opened on the morning of October 1, after the gifts costing £800, which had arrived that morning, had been laid out on the ground.

During the three days following, when Indians and commissioners were not passing presents to one another, speeches were delivered according to the customary procedure of such gatherings.

At the closing of the first day, as is briefly mentioned in the report, “the goods allotted for each nation as a present of condolence were taken away by each.”

The forms of the condolences depended entirely on Indian custom and were settled in conference with Scarouady and Cayanguileguoa, a sensible Indian of the Mohawk Nation, and accordingly the proper belts and strings were made ready.

But the commissioners had been compelled to await until the condolences had arrived before they were able to assuage the Indian grief.

After the Oneida chieftain had offered the suggestion, “We dig a grave for your warriors killed in your country and we bury their bones, decently wrapping them in these blankets, and with these presents we cover their graves,” the Indians aired their complaints and protestations of loyalty to the English.

In return for all the delicate niceties of Indian procedure, which the wise Franklin had been careful to observe the red men covered graves of the English with a beaver skin blanket and offered as occasion required a string or two of wampum, belts and bundles of skins.

A shell, painted green on the concave side, with a string of wampum attached, was given the commissioners as evidence that the assembled Indians had but a single heart and that “green and good and sound.”

The calumet, a pipe decorated with fine feathers, was offered in proof that the Indians cherished no resentment against the English because of French inroads.

They made Andrew Montour a counselor for the Six Nations, presented him with a belt in token of their confidence and gave notice in a speech that a horn had been set upon his head as evidence of Indian respect for one of their number who served the English.

Franklin thus speaks of this treaty in his autobiography: “Being commissioned, we went to Carlisle and met the Indians accordingly. 659As these people are extremely apt to get drunk, and when so are very quarrelsome and disorderly, we strictly forbade the selling of any liquor to them; and when they complained of this restriction, we told them, if they would continue sober during the treaty, we would give them plenty of rum when the business was over. They promised this, and they kept their promise, because they could get no rum, and the treaty was conducted very orderly and concluded to mutual satisfaction. They then claimed and received the rum; this was in the afternoon.

“They were near one hundred men, women and children, some were lodged in temporary cabins, built in the form of a square, just without the town. In the evening, hearing a great noise among them, the commissioners walked out to see what was the matter.

“We found they had made a great bonfire in the middle of the square; they were all drunk, men and women quarreling and fighting. Their dark-colored bodies, seen only by the gloomy light of the bonfire, running after and beating one another with firebrands, accompanied by their horrid yellings, formed a scene the most resembling our ideas of an inferno that could be well imagined.

“There was no appeasing the tumult, and we retired to our lodgings. At midnight a number of them came thundering at our door, demanding more rum, of which we took no notice. The next day, sensible they had misbehaved themselves in giving us that disturbance, they sent three of their old counselors to make their apology.”

He concludes: “That if it be the design of Providence to extirpate these savages in order to make room for the cultivators of the earth, it seems not impossible that rum may be the appointed means. It has already annihilated all the tribes who formerly inhabited the seacoast.”