The press of population growth and economic…

The press of population growth and economic development in the wake of the French and Indian War has turned the attention of investors and land speculators to the area west of the Appalachians.

British authorities, in response to demands by settlers and speculators, had soon begun pressing the Iroquois and Cherokees for cessions of land in native country.

Natives, no longer able to play off rival colonial powers, have been reduced to a choice between compliance and resistance.

The Iroquois Confederacy, weakened by the recent war, chooses to sign away lands in the Ohio Valley, hoping thereby to deflect English settlement away from their own homeland.

The Treaty of Fort Stanwix, an important treaty between North American natives and the British Empire, is negotiated between Oliver Wolcott and representatives of the Six Nations (the Iroquois) and signed in 1768 at Fort Stanwix, located in present-day Rome, New York.

The purpose of the conference is the adjustment of the boundary line between native lands and British colonial settlements set forth in the Royal Proclamation of 1763.

The British government hope a new boundary line might bring an end to the rampant frontier violence, which has become costly and troublesome.

Natives hope a new, permanent line might hold back British colonial expansion.

The final treaty is signed on November 5 with one signatory for each of the Six Nations and in the presence of representatives from New Jersey, Virginia and Pennsylvania as well as Sir William Johnson, the British Superintendent of Indian Affairs.

The natives receive £10,460 7s. 3d. sterling.

The treaty establishes a Line of Property which extends the earlier proclamation line much further west.

The Iroquois have effectively ceded the Kentucky portion of the Colony of Virginia to the British, but the natives who actually use the Kentucky lands, primarily the Shawnee, Delaware, and Cherokee, have no role in the negotiations.

The Fort Stanwix treaty of 1768, rather than secure peace, helps set the stage for the next round of hostilities along the Ohio River, which are to culminate in Dunmore's War.

The treaty also settles land claims between the Six Nations and the Penn family, the proprietors of Pennsylvania.

The final treaty line will not be fully agreed upon for another five years, however, due to disputes about the physical boundaries of the settlement.