Notes on Indian Affairs, Tripoli, and Great Britain, 8 January 1805
Notes on Indian Affairs, Tripoli, and Great Britain
1805. Indian affairs.
| Jan. 8. ✓ | Sac murderer pardon him. | |
| Osages. their mill to be built. | ||
| the seceders under le grande piste. persuasn not force. | ||
| Sioux. Sacs. Ayouas. recieve their visit. | ||
| Commerce. forts at Chickago & mouth of Ouisconsing to prevt interlopers | ||
| with nations bordering on us, the US. to carry it on | ||
| with distant nations let individuals | ||
| license none but natives of American territory | ||
| permit no liquor | ||
| Chambers’s idea as to Choctaws of annl paimt in lands | ||
| Little Turtle. let a joint right to lands be proved & we will pay. | ||
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| Tripoli. | ||
| new instrns not to give a dollar for peace. | ||
| if the enterprise in the spring does not produce peace & delivery of prisoners, ransom them. | ||
| G. Britain. countervail their duty on exports, by refusing entry to merchandise which has pd a greater export duty coming here, then would have been paid going to any other forn country | ||
| countervail their prohtn to our vessels to carry our produce to their possns by not permittg. their vessels to do it after the 21st. of May 1805. | ||
| Gov. Harrison’s lre Dec. 14. property stolen by Indns. arrears to be pd by public | ||
| Hawkins do. Dec. 15. road thro Creeks to N.O. | ||
MS (DLC: TJ Papers, 155:27109); entirely in TJ’s hand; precedes, on same sheet, Notes on Spanish Actions and Indian Affairs, at 21 Feb.
For the case of the Sac murderer, see Pierre Chouteau to TJ, 12 Oct., 7 Nov., and TJ to the Senate, 31 Dec. 1804. Writing to William Henry Harrison on 12 Feb. 1805, Dearborn enclosed a presidential pardon for the unidentified offender, explaining that the act was an expression of the administration’s desire to promote good relations with the native people of upper Louisiana “in such manner as to show not only our regard for justice, but our benevolent and tender feelings for the unhappy.” The individual’s name and tribe were left blank on the pardon, and Dearborn asked Harrison to supply them (DNA: RG 107, MLS; FC of pardon, 14 Feb. 1805, in Lb in DNA: RG 59, GPR). The pardon did not reach Harrison until mid-April and he immediately forwarded it to St. Louis. Before it arrived, however, the man escaped. Harrison subsequently learned that he had been mortally wounded in the attempt and his body found several miles from his place of confinement (Harrison to Dearborn, 27 May, DNA: RG 107, LRMS; Robert M. Owens, Mr. Jefferson’s Hammer: William Henry Harrison and the Origins of American Indian Policy [Norman, Okla., 2007], 91).
For the mill, the seceders, and the proposed visit by a delegation of Iowas, Sioux, and Sacs, see Chouteau to TJ, 7 Nov. and 19 Nov.
Chambers’s idea: see TJ to Dearborn, 3 Jan.
Little Turtle: see TJ to Dearborn, 16 Dec.
Harrison’s lre Dec. 14: a letter from Harrison, dated Vincennes, 14 Dec., was received by the War Department on 24 Jan. The letter has not been found, but a clerk recorded that it enclosed three letters from William Wells to Harrison and Harrison’s replies, concerning “the conduct of the Little Turtle” regarding the recent treaty with the Delawares and Piankashaws (DNA: RG 107, RLRMS).
Hawkins do. Dec. 15.: a letter from Benjamin Hawkins, dated Creek Agency, 15 Dec., was received by the War Department on 23 Jan. The letter has not been found, but a clerk recorded that it related to the murder of an Indian and a white man and the “Claim of the Spaniards in the Floridas.” Hawkins also wished to send “a deputation of Chiefs” to Washington (same).