Treaty of Fort Pitt

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In the Treaty of Fort Pitt, the United States is represented by Andrew Lewis and Thomas Lewis, commissioners for the United States, and the Delawares by Captain White Eyes; Captain John Kill Buck, Jr.; and Captain Pipe, identified as chief men of the Delaware nation. As it was the product of some negotiation, it is likely that all of these men as well as others had a part in authoring the treaty, even though the written version of the treaty probably was more the product of the delegates of the United States than those of the Delawares. It is also probable that Colonel George Morgan, a United States agent for Indian affairs at Fort Pitt, would have been involved in making the treaty or at least in the preliminaries to it and that he and White Eyes (also known by his Delaware name of Koquethagechton, or “that which is put near the head”) had a significant influence, especially on Article VI of the document.

The Delawares initially were neutral in the War of Independence, even though the Moravian missionaries (members of a Protestant Christian denomination) living among some of them were sympathetic to the Americans and their cause. Captain Pipe (also known as Kogieschquanoheel, or “causer of daylight”), however, was leaning toward the British side, as he believed that the Americans were scheming for Delaware lands. The Delawares were thus divided, but White Eyes, who wielded considerable influence within the tribe and was a personal friend to Colonel Morgan's, held firmly to the neutrality of the tribe, resisting efforts by Wyandots and members of the Six Nations/Haudenosaunee/Iroquois to bring the Delawares over to the British side.

The United States itself was sending mixed signals, and the changing allegiances among Europeans may have been confusing to the Indians. At first the Continental Congress had assured the Indians that the conflict was just a family dispute of which they did not have to take any notice, but later both the English and the Americans attempted to win over the Indians. The United States arranged for a meeting at Fort Pitt in 1778 because the Americans wanted to move against Fort Detroit. To do this they would have to move their forces through Delaware territory, but they were unwilling to do so without guarantees that they would be unopposed. The commissioners realized that other tribes would interpret this as the abandonment of neutrality by the Delawares, something that could put them in considerable danger from tribes who were allied with the British. It was possibly in an attempt to persuade the Delawares to agree to this danger that the commissioners felt compelled to offer certain incentives. The document signed on September 17, 1778, provided for an extensive alliance between the United States and the Delawares, gave U.S. troops free passage, and arranged for the construction of a fort to protect the tribe. Most important, Article VI of the treaty permitted the Delawares the creation of a fourteenth state of the Union with a representation in Congress, albeit subject to the approval of Congress.

It appears, however, that the commissioners were unwilling to take any risks and resorted to additional methods besides offering special incentives to reach the desired agreement. Colonel Morgan reported that liquor was distributed and that treaty clauses were misrepresented deliberately in the translations. Some Delawares later asserted that the document had not been written down correctly and did not conform to what they had been told during the negotiations. Nonetheless, White Eyes, who had probably been one of the main proponents of the American cause, offered his services as a guide for the American troops. He reportedly died of smallpox on the march. In a letter to Congress, however, Colonel Morgan stated that White Eyes had been murdered, although in his correspondence he did not disclose the reasons or the circumstances of the death of his friend.