Receipt for land purchased from the Six Nations, 1769

This document records that the representatives of the Six Nations, who signed using totems to designate individuals and tribes, received $10,000 as payment from the Penns for land the tribes had ceded in the Treaty of Fort Stanwix in 1768:

Received from the honorable Thomas and Richard Penn Esq^rs. true and absolute Proprietaries of Pennsylvania by the hands of the honorable Sir William Johnson Baronet the sum of ten thousand Dollars being the full consideration of the Lands lately sold to them by the Indians of the six Nations at the late Treaty of Fort Stanwix We say received this Twenty Eighth day of July—Anno Domini 1769—for ourselves and the other Indians of the six Nations and their confederates and dependant Tribes for whom we act and by whom we are appointed and empowered—

The British authorities hoped to prevent further conflicts between White settlers and American Indians by forbidding the continued migration of White settlers and paying for lands they had already occupied. After giving up their land, the Six Nations dispersed, with some staying in western New York and others traveling north to Canada and west to Wisconsin. This dispossession of the Native American peoples was an integral part of the story of European colonization of the Americas, beginning with the first Spanish incursion in the late fifteenth century.

A full transcript is available.

Transcript

Received from the honorable Thomas and Richard Penn Esq^rs. true and absolute Proprietaries of Pennsylvania by the hands of the honorable Sir William Johnson Baronet the sum of ten thousand Dollars being the full consideration of the Lands lately sold to them by the Indians of the six Nations at the late Treaty of Fort Stanwix We say received this Twenty Eighth day of July—Anno Domini 1769—for ourselves and the other Indians of the six Nations and their confederates and dependant Tribes for whom we act and by whom we are appointed and empowered—

A Receipt from the

Six Nations for

₤[1]000 Curr^cy or

10’000 Dollars.—