THE OHIO VALLEY-GREAT LAKES ETHNOHISTORY
ARCHIVES: THE MIAMI COLLECTION
It is noted that the following work from the Miami Archives should be read and
considered within the historical context in which it was composed and printed.
The opinions expressed and the language used do not reflect the opinions or
standards of the Glenn A. Black Laboratory of Archaeology, but are, rather,
indicative of thought in that historical moment during which the document was
published.
Gage to Croghan
(April 16, 1766)
Gage, Thomas in: Massachusetts
Historical
Society, Pontiac Miscellanies, 1765-1778
and Alvord & Carter, British Series,
Vol. II, pp. 215-217.
You are to proceed as soon as practicable after the receipt of this with the presents for the Indians; You shall have purchased at Phila to Fort Pitt, where a boat & provisions will be supplied you from whence you will pursue your rout to Fort Chartres in the Ilinois Country.1
Before your departure from Fort Pitt you will transmit me an exact list of the quantity of merchandise, silver-ware, wampum &c &c, that you take with you for to conciliate the affections of the Indians on the Missi & you will follow the mode before prescribed to you in the distribution thereof, by delivering them in the presence of the commanding officers of the several posts where your presence may be required & obtaining from them certificates of the delivery of the several articles which you will transmit to me as accounting for the same.
On your arrival at Fort Chartres you will communicate to the commanding officer of the 34th Regt these my instructions to you as likewise give him a list of the presents in your charges & consult & act in concert with him relative to the treatment to be held toward the Savages of whom you will make it your particular business to gain every intelligence relative to their numbers, to their trade & disposition toward the English.
You will pay attention to what I before mentioned to you relative to the Indians being persuaded by any ill-disposed person to lay any claims to the lands either in the environs of Fort Chartres or Kaskaskias & Ohio Rivers. These lands I am persuaded were never theirs. They followed the French there & sat down upon them for the sake of being protected by the French from the incursions of their enemies who had drove them from their own Country & they never claimed or received from the French any acknowledgement from them.2 You will therefore reconcile them either to our erecting forts (if they shall be found necessary) or making establishments upon any of these lands & check in them any expectation of their ever being (page 217) bought from them. You will likewise be pleased to enquire into the conduct of Mr. Sinnott & La Gauterais during their residence at the Ilinois & upon what acct & for what reason the former was induced to fly away from it with so much precipitation. I can not recommend too strongly to you to act with the greatest economy possible in your Dept, without disgusting or driving away the Indians. You know the large sums that have been already expended on this & on the other side to procure a safe passage to the troops & this matter being now effected the expences will be expected to be near at an end. In the matter pointed out to you as well as in every thing else that may occur regarding His Majesty's service in the Dept. entrusted to you, you will give me regular & constant information, advising me from time to time of every thing you shall think worth observation, keeping always an attentive eye to the proceedings of our opposite neighbors who may be but too well inclined to prejudice us in the eyes of the Indians & to incite them to molest & disturb us.
Given under my hand, at Head Quarters, April 16th 1766.
|
THOS. GAGE. |
MORGAN3 TO BAYNTON AND WHARTON4
[P.H.S., Wharton MSS.- L.S.]
|
LANCASTER- Monday Morning |
DEAR PARTNERS
I rec the within by Mr Henry of this Place, he see [sic] Dobson open the Goods & says they are much damaged. Pray dont pay any Part of the Waggonage untill you hear from me.
I am just about to set out & hope to reach Mr Callenders to
______________________________
1 For other information about this trip see post, 290, 311, 315, 73, 487. Croghan's journal, if he kept one, has not been preserved.
2 In this matter Gage was mistaken. The Tamaroa, a tribe of the Illinois confederacy, had settled the country about the mouth of the Illinois and Missouri rivers as early as 1680. They were always on friendly terms with the French, frequently entertaining them. (American Indians, 2:682.) The Kaskaskia tribe also settled near the mouth of the Kaskaskia River in 1700. Ibid., I:662. Letter of Gravier in Thwaites, Jesuit Relations, 65:103.
3 (1, p. 217) George Morgan was a native of Philadelphia who through the influence of his father-in-law, John Baynton, was associated early in his career with the Philadelphia firm of Baynton and Wharton. This firm of merchants had been heavy losers on the Pennsylvania border in the French and Indian War. At the close of the Indian hostilities in 1765, the firm decided to establish a branch in the far West in the Illinois country with the view of retrieving former losses through the exploitation of the Indian trade. Morgan, the junior member of the firm, was commissioned to execute the design, and in the spring of 1766 he embarked at Fort Pitt with the first cargoes of goods for the opening of the trade. Alvord, Cahokia Records (I. H. C., 2), xxvii.
4 (2, p. 217) This letter is without date. It is written on the back of a letter from Joseph Dobson to George Morgan, dated April 5, 1766 (ante, 211). Morgan refolded the paper and readdressed it as above. April 15 was Friday, so that probably the above was not written before April 22.
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