Treaty of Fort Pitt

Context

The document was created when the United States, still embroiled in the War of Independence, entered into negotiations and subsequently a treaty with the Delawares at Fort Pitt on September 17, 1778. At this time the colonial period and British rule were coming to an end, but independence had not yet been secured. The United States thus was in need of allies and was striving to limit the number of their potential enemies.

The colonial rivalry between England and France in North America, which had most recently manifested in the French and Indian War between 1754 and 1763, had ended with the Treaty of Paris of 1763 and the loss of the better part of the French empire. This had left Great Britain the predominant power in North America. In the wake of this conflict, antagonism soon grew between the American colonies and the imperial center. Through the royal Proclamation of 1763 Britain sought to curb the westward expansion of the colonists and thereby preserve the peace with the Indians and avoid costly confrontation with the native populations. Westward expansion thus was hindered by Britain as well as by the Indian occupation of the lands in question. Possibly encouraged by the temporary quality of the language of the proclamation, however, the colonists often refused to accept this artificial dividing line and intruded onto Native American lands in spite of it, making illegal purchases or simply taking lands.

These recurring intrusions eventually contributed to the outbreak of Pontiac's Rebellion (or War) in 1763. Even though the Indian alliance under Pontiac was initially very successful, Britain eventually prevailed in this conflict, and English forces put down the so-called rebellion. Partly as a result of this recent military clash with Indians, Britain adopted the opinion that the colonies should contribute to the costs of the war and also to those of the army of which, according to the British view, the colonists were the main beneficiaries. This, among other issues, led to an argument over taxes and eventually contributed to the debate over taxation without representation, as for instance in the debates surrounding the Stamp Act of 1765 (repealed in 1766) and the Tea Act of 1773. The latter resulted in the Boston Tea Party of 1773, in which colonists, some of them disguised as American Indians, threw tea into the harbor.

Colonial opposition to British policies and disobediences like these led to a gradual transfer of power from the king's government to the colonists through a series of conflicts beginning in the 1760s. In 1774 the First Continental Congress convened at Philadelphia in opposition to the Coercive Acts (or Intolerable Acts), as the colonists called a series of laws made by Great Britain, and it also adopted a colonial bill of rights. Britain turned to force to repress the colonies, as for instance in armed confrontations at Lexington and Concord, and eventually declared that it considered the colonies to be in rebellion. The colonies could defend themselves militarily only by calling on a third power, France, and by trying to persuade Indians either to join the colonists' cause against Britain or at least to remain neutral in the conflict. However, to pursue an alliance with France, the colonies first had to declare their independence, as France's interest was to reduce the British Empire rather than to save or rebuild it. Such practical considerations, as well as the general mood captured and expressed in the 1776 publication of Thomas Paine's pamphlet Common Sense, eventually led the Continental Congress to consider declaring the colonies independent, and it approved the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776.

American chances to win an outright war with Britain seemed slim at best. British military might was far superior to anything the colonies could have expected to muster as the latter were seriously lacking in manpower. To persuade more colonists to enlist into the Continental army, land had to be promised to those who stayed for the duration of the war. Military fortunes at first rested firmly with the British forces but, later on and especially farther inland, turned to the Americans. As a result of the improved military performance of the Continental army, in February 1778 France decided to side openly with the colonies against its former imperial rival, Britain, and thus significantly strengthened the colonies militarily.

It was in September of the same year that the United States signed the Fort Pitt treaty with the Delawares. This treaty, the first known treaty between the United States and a Native American nation, reflected the continued need of the United States for allies as well as its desire to keep other tribes, like the Delawares, neutral. The Continental Congress tried to attract native allies or at least to avoid having American Indian tribes join the British enemy forces, which might have swung the fortunes of the war and thus of the colonies. The Delawares, the so-called grandfather tribe of the Northeast, were considered important allies even though they had come under the partial control of the Iroquois Confederacy (also known as the Six Nations or the Haudenosaunee). They had already begun, however, to extract themselves from this confederacy. The 1778 treaty with the United States, and especially its promise of a creation of an Indian state of the Union with the Delawares at its head, is reflective of just how important Indians were in military and political matters during this period. Similar to the situation during the heyday of colonial competition between France and England, once again there was a fierce competition for Native American allies, only now it was the United States and Britain who were competing.

Because the Continental Congress still lacked a constitution, it did not have the power to create new states, and it is therefore doubtful that the country intended to fulfill the somewhat qualified promises made to the Delawares. It is possible that the primary objectives were to gain safe passage through Delaware territory, to concentrate the Delaware warriors in one place, and to secure Delaware neutrality and that the promises made to the Delawares were merely supposed to provide the necessary incentive to make them agree to these objectives.

Only when Great Britain was increasingly losing its military advantage and saw the colonies enter into an alliance with France did the country become more conciliatory and offer to repeal a number of laws. By this time it was too late, however, as the colonies were by then firmly set on achieving their independence. When the British general Charles Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown in October 1781 Britain initiated peace negotiations, having become tired of a costly war that seemed to lead nowhere and where the tide of military fortune was increasingly turning against British forces. Peace and American independence from Britain were secured in the 1783 Treaty of Paris. In this document Britain also ceded lands to the United States, some of which were subsequently sold off to meet war-related debts. Through this land cession, American settlements also came to expand.