On April 19, 1793, New York Governor George Clinton sent to Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson this abstract of the 1785 Treaty at Fort Herkimer. The text provides an example of the many land transfer agreements the state had negotiated with the Iroquois Confederacy, or Six Nations, since the end of the Revolutionary War.
In the 1785 treaty, the Oneida and Tuscarora had relinquished to New York State some 300,000 acres in present-day Broome and Chenango Counties. In exchange, they received $11,500, food, and rum.
New York’s demand for land cessions deeply unsettled the two Iroquois nations that had fought for the patriot cause during the American Revolution. State and Federal officials had promised them that their land rights were inviolable. But New Yorkers coveted Iroquois lands, and promises to Indians withered under pressure from the state’s 240,000 non-Native residents.
