Pittsburgh benefited from the Treaty of Stanwix
Pittsburgh was founded in 1758 by Scottish Gen. John Forbes when he took control over the area from the French. It is named in honor of the British statesman William Pitt. During that time, the New York-based Iroquois Confederacy had primary control over the region. The Iroquois were able to fight off other interested hunting parties all the way to the Ohio Valley.
After the British defeated the French, King George III issued the Proclamation of 1763, which was designed to stop colonial settlement west of the Appalachian Mountains following the French and Indian/Seven Years War. However, it was a complex time, as colonists largely ignored the decree and that lead to widespread violence with steadfast Native Americans in the region.
By 1768, the 13 colonies were expanding rapidly, and frontier violence wasn’t letting up. Ruling as the world power at the time, the British wanted to establish a permanent boundary between themselves and the natives.
Sir William Johnson, the British Crown’s superintendent of Indian affairs for the Northern Colonies, was taxed with arranging a large conference to develop a western boundary line between the British and Native Indians. The treaty was to take place at the Fort Stanwix military post.
In early September 1768, a group of leaders, including Pennsylvania Gov. John Penn (William Penn’s grandson) and the royal governor of New Jersey, Benjamin Franklin’s son William, traveled via sloop on the Hudson River to Albany, N.Y. to join Johnson for negotiations with the Iroquois. Waiting there were some 2,000 Native Americans from six different clans. The British delegation reportedly waited more than a month as the Seneca Indians were detained due to the death of a great, albeit unnamed chief. The number of natives would swell to 3,000.
Newspaper accounts say that the Indians were “very quiet” and “kept to themselves” as they awaited for their leaders and others. Other sources say traders and those on boats shipped in provisions, livestock and alcohol to “entertain” the Indians. There were wagonloads of trade goods to distribute to the natives. The largess was meant to help sway the Indians into compromising over land deals.
Governor Penn kept busy while that was going on, preaching to the natives on Sundays, baptizing 15 and marrying three couples. An Oneida chief later honored Penn with the name Sagorighweyoghsta (Great Arbiter or Doer of Justice).
The goal of the Treaty was to establish a “Line of Property” from Fort Stanwix in New York to a large swath of Pennsylvania and into moder-day West Virginia and even Kentucky. Critics say that the treated drastically altered the influence of Native Americans. When the Treaty was signed on Nov. 5, 1768, between the Six Nations and Johnson, as well as Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Virginia, native lands ceded in Pennsylvania extended to the northern branch of the Susquehanna River to “the Manor of Pittsburgh.” Payment in gifts was described as the largest ever between the British and Native Indians.
The Indians kept only a small part of the Allegheny Valley and that was damaging to those with homesteads in the lower Allegheny, Juniata, Susquehanna and Wyoming valleys. In 1769, newspaper articles detailed how the natives were already unhappy with the terms of the Treaty.
The Treaty helped the burgeoning Pittsburgh by establishing a permanent boundary line between colonial settlements and Native American hunting grounds. According to the Heinz History Center, “Pittsburgh was a rugged, volatile frontier outpost centered around the formidable British Fort Pitt at the convergence of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers. Home to a few hundred European settlers and traders, the settlement was characterized by rough living conditions, border disputes, and intense cultural exchanges with Indigenous tribes.”
At the time, Pittsburgh’s Fort Pitt was the British Empire’s strongest western fortification and strategic outpost. The settlement served as a trading post, which relied on the ever-increasing river transportation. Only those directly related to Fort Pitt were to live there. With the Treaty, a residency in and around Fort Pitt was now allowed. Land ownership near Fort Pitt was legal for the first time. Because of the access to river travel and trade, Pittsburgh grew quickly.
By ceding the lands south of the Ohio River to the British, the treaty legally opened the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers to speculators that eagerly wanted to travel west on the Ohio River. Shawnee and Delaware natives in what would become Ohio were excluded from the treaty and they would fight to save their land until the 1790s.
The Seneca (Iroquoian) were the first to call the waterway the “ohi yo” river. Translated, the river’s name meant “good river,” “great river” or “beautiful river.” French explorers were the first to record the river’s name in 1669.
The Treaty also allowed the Penn family to purchase the modern region from the Iroquois. Two decades earlier, the Penns were accused of swindling Indians for land.
In 1769, a survey referred to “The Manor of Pittsburgh” and both the Providence of Pennsylvania and Colony of Virginia claimed the land. In 1771, Bedford, Pa., would be created as the governmental hub of the area. The joint Pennsylvania/Virginia claim would remain that way until 1780 when a redrawn Mason-Dixon line placed Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania.
Among the most influential other land speculators was colonial agent Benjamin Franklin, who wielded power (including crafting a phonetic alphabet) from London. Franklin, who owned land throughout Pennsylvania and had been a friend of “The Manor” since at least 1755 when he aided Gen. Edward Braddock with the Wagon Affair, never owned property in Pittsburgh. He did; however, have particular interest in the Ohio Valley. He had plans to develop a 14th British colony that he dreamed was “Vandalia.” The plans were to spread just south of Pittsburgh into what is now West Virginia and northeastern Kentucky.
As adventurers and colonists continued to stretch to the west, the authorities knew they needed to strike deals with the Iroquois and Cherokee. The Treaty of Lochaber came in 1770, where more cessions were made.
There was a second Treaty of Fort Stanwix, this one in 1784. It was a peace agreement between the newly formed United States and the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy.
By 1810, Pittsburgh was the third largest city in Pennsylvania, behind only Philadelphia and Lancaster.
