Kind and Friendly Treatment of the Indians

During the mid-1790s the Indian policy of the federal government under George Washington was to accommodate the southern Indian tribes as much as possible. Even though the northern Indians had been defeated in 1794, it still behooved Washington and his advisers to avoid conflict with the southern tribes so as not involve the United States in another costly Indian war. Also it seemed that Washington genuinely wanted to treat the Indians as fairly as he would other Americans. Evidence of that attitude can be seen in a document contained in the William Irvine Papers of the Papers of the War Department. In a lengthy letter, dated 11/26/1795, sent to James Byers, who was to be in charge of two new trading posts in Georgia and the Southwest Territory, Secretary of War Timothy Pickering describes in detail how the Indians are to be treated as they do business at the two posts. Business with the Indians should manifest the “liberality and friendship of the United States” which he hoped would “lay the foundation of a lasting peace.” “Unfair dealing” was strictly prohibited and the value of the skins traded by the Indians should be the same as their market value in Philadelphia. The use of credit by either the traders or the Indians was strictly regulated and allowed on a case-by-case basis only by the War Department. Those who were employed at the posts were to maintain “a character of perfect probity and sobriety.” Pickering would have preferred that whiskey not be sold to the Indians but, if sales could not be avoided, whiskey was to be sold in “such small quantities as may guard them against drunkenness.” He closes this five-page letter, by stressing “the necessity of kind and friendly treatment of the Indians who may visit your station.”