Talk of the Secretary of War to the Chiefs and Warriors of the Chickasaw Nation. The President your father has considered the Talk delivered by Opioiamingo, Chinataha, Minkamataha, Major George Colbert, Thomas Brown, John Brown and George Augusta, the 24^th November last. In that Talk it is said that your Chiefs on their way to see him, found the road crowded with People going to Cumberland, and that they wished the Boundary line between your Nation and the United States to be run. Your father knows that a great many people go back every year towards the Indian country, these cannot be kept at home; but he will as soon as possible have the Boundary line run and marked that so none of them shall have any excuse for trespassing on your land from ignorance. He will besides employ all the means in his power to protect your land from intrusion, which he hopes will prove effectual. Since the departure of Opioiamingo your father has had a Talk with those who remained after him. They have wished to know when the Spaniards would leave the Chickasaw Bluff. This your father could not tell them. He has made a treaty with the King of Spain, a copy of which he has sent to you by M^r McGhee, in which the King of Spain has promised to leave that Post; but as the order is to come a great way to the Garrison, the evacuation may not be as soon as has been promised. By the same treaty, as you will see in it, the United States and the King of Spain have agreed to run and mark the boundary line which is to divide their Country from the United States. — The running of this line is very important to all the Indian Nations as well as the United States, because it will take away, in future, all pretext from Spain for interfering on our side of the line. Your Chiefs have asked that the fort at the Chickasaw Bluff should be demolished when given up by the Spaniards. To this it has been answered if the Spaniards should leave it before the Boundary line shall be settled between the United States and Spain, that it will only be held by the United States, till such time as that line is run and settled. If however the Chickasaws will be less [undecipherable: probable reading "hived"] to the United States than Spain and are not willing that they should hold it for that short time, their father will not insist upon it. — But, he expects that the Nation will consider fully his request and send their answer to him, or his Agent M^r Hawkins, or to M^r Dinsmoor, or the commanding Officer at Fort Masiac. Some of your Chiefs have stated to your father a claim against the State of South Carolina for land of theirs which that State had confiscated upon the plea that the Indians to whom it belonged had joined the British Army during the great War which the United States had with England. As your father wishes to see justice done, he will instruct his Secretary of War to state the claim to South Carolina and will employ his good offices to obtain compensation to them for the land. George Colbert has also a claim upon the Cherokees for three Negroes of his, retained by some Individual of that Nation. Your father understands that some of the Chickasaws retain property taken from the Cherokees and that the Negroes are withheld, till that account can be settled. If this account cannot be settled, the President recommends it to the Chickasaws to pay George Colbert the value of his Negroes out of the annual present made to the Nation. Your father has requested the Secretary of War to mention to the Chickasaw Nation that it will be proper that they should in future and every year meet together before delivery of the Presents which he has promised them, to fix upon the Persons who ought to receive them. In order to avoid confusion in this business, let their Interpreter write down the Names of those the Nation shall so fix upon, and give their names to the person whom the President shall appoint to distribute the Goods, of which, information will be given them. But that this and every thing else may be done according to the intention of the United States, he will send his beloved Agent Benjamin Hawkins whom he has appointed to reside among the Creeks for the purpose of watching over the peace and interests of all the Southern Indians, to visit his beloved Chickasaws from time to time to see that his presents have been properly distributed among them, and that nothing is wanting to their happiness which the United States can afford them. The President requests his children the Chickasaws to listen to this beloved Man, as often as he may find it convenient to visit them or write to them, and as often as they want any thing from the United States to send their Talks to him or M^r Dinsmoor who resides with the Cherokees, or to such Person as M^r Hawkins may appoint to live near or with them. The President now wishes his children a pleasant Journey and a happy meeting of their friends and families in the Nation. Given at the War Office in Philadelphia this Nineteenth day of December, one thousand seven hundred and Ninety Six, and in the Twenty first Year of the Independence of the United States of America. — signed, James McHenry Sec.^y of War. [Conference]