THE INDIAN TRIBES

THE WAR OF

REHABILITATION OF THE LENAPES THE CONSPIRACY OF PONTIAC.

AND SHAWANOES |

HE treaty of Aix la Chapelle was a very imperfect paper.

By its

Acadia,

with

Great Britain

stipulations its

;

"all Nova Scotia, or

dependencies,"

was ceded

to

the " subjects of France, inhabit

ants of Canada," were not to " disturb or molest in any man ner whatever," the Five Indian Nations which were " subject to

Great Britain," nor the " other American allies" of that govern

ment

;

the boundaries between the English and French posses

sions, along the rivers St.

Lawrence and

Mississippi, and the

of Nova Scotia, one of the original causes of the left war, were entirely undetermined, and no provision was made for the removal of the forts which the French had erected limits even

Lake Champlain, and at Niagara. The key to its interpretation, if such it had, was the status of the " Five Indian Nations" claimed as " subjects to Great Britain." " If the nations referred to were not subjects to Great Britain,"

at Crown point, or

then were the prohibitions of the treaty void, so far as they circumscribed the operations of the French or defined the boundaries of their possessions. interpretation, the

French

Availing themselves of this

forstalled the English

by securing from the Onondagas, Senecas, Cayugas^and Qneidas, the declara tion already quoted that they were independent tribes, and re

sumed the prosecution of the policy, which they had inaugurated as early as 1731, of connecting the St. Lawrence with the gulf of Mexico by a chain of forts along that river to Detroit and