Note (return) — X. NEGOTIATIONS WITH UNION INDIANS

Almost simultaneously with Ross's first application came an offer from the oppressed Delawares to look for a new home in the far west, in Washington Territory. The majority preferred to go to the Cherokee country.665 Some of the tribe had already lived there and wanted to return. Had the minority gained their point, the Delawares would have traversed the whole continent within the space of about two and a half centuries. They would have wandered from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from the Susquehanna River to the Willamette, in a desperate effort to escape the avaricious pioneer, and, to their own chagrin, they would have found him on the western coast also. Never again would there be any place for them free from his influence.