George Washington Papers
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Henry Knox to Tobias Lear, 29 January 1793

Henry Knox to Tobias Lear

[Philadelphia] January 29. 1793.

Dear Sir.

Please to submit to the President of the United States the enclosed draft of a speech for the Wabash indians.1 Yours sincerely—

H. Knox

LS, DLC:GW; LB, DLC:GW.

1Neither the enclosed draft nor the final version of GW’s address to the Wabash and Illinois Indians of 1 Feb. has been found. These Indians sent a delegation to Philadelphia following a council with Gen. Rufus Putnam in September 1792. After a peace treaty was signed, Putnam informed the Indians that “Our great Chieff General Washington is very desirous to see a Number of Your Chieffs . . . at his Council fire” (“A Journal of the Proceedings at a Council Held with the Indians of the Wabash and Illinois at Post Vincennes, by Brigadier General Putnam,” in Buell, Putnam Memoirs, description begins Rowena Buell, ed. The Memoirs of Rufus Putnam and Certain Official Papers and Correspondence. Boston and New York, 1903. description ends 335–67; ASP, Indian Affairs, description begins Walter Lowrie et al., eds. American State Papers. Documents, Legislative and Executive, of the Congress of the United States. 38 vols. Washington, D.C., Gales and Seaton, 1832–61. description ends 1:319–20, 338–40). A delegation of eighteen Indians subsequently arrived in Philadelphia on 26 Dec. 1792, but they apparently did not meet officially with GW until 1 Feb. 1793 (see Knox to U.S. Senate, 8 Nov. 1792, ASP, Indian Affairs, description begins Walter Lowrie et al., eds. American State Papers. Documents, Legislative and Executive, of the Congress of the United States. 38 vols. Washington, D.C., Gales and Seaton, 1832–61. description ends 1:319; Pennsylvania Gazette [Philadelphia], 2 Jan. 1793; JPP, description begins Dorothy Twohig, ed. The Journal of the Proceedings of the President, 1793–1797. Charlottesville, Va., 1981. description ends 40–41). See also the speeches of the Wabash and Illinois Indians to GW, 1–4 Feb. 1793, which were given in reply to GW’s address of that same date.

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