ment of trading posts. All land east, south and west of the
above boundaries was acknowledged to be the property of the government,
and none of the above tribes were to settle upon it. Further
reservations for trading posts were made at Detroit and Michillimacinac.
The Wyandots, Delawares, Ottawas and Chippewas were granted peace, and
at the same time were made to acknowledge the absolute sovereignty of
the United States. Any Indian committing a murder or robbery upon any
citizen of the United States was to be delivered to the nearest post for
punishment according to the laws of the nation. The third and last
treaty before the Ordinance, affecting the northwest, was held at the
mouth of the Great Miami, on January 31st, 1786, between George Rogers
Clark, Richard Butler and Samuel H. Parsons, commissioners, and the
murderous and horse-stealing Shawnees, and but for the cool daring and
intrepidity of Clark, there probably would have been a massacre. Some
restraint was sought to be imposed on the Shawnee raiders who constantly
kept the frontiers of Kentucky and Virginia in a turmoil. Owing to their
absolute hostility, however, and the influence of the British agents at
Miamitown and Detroit, only a few of the younger chiefs attended the
conference. The Shawnees were made to acknowledge the United States as
the "sole and absolute sovereigns of all the territory ceded to them by
a treaty of peace, made between them and the king of Great Britain, the
fourteenth day of January, one thousand seven hundred and eighty-four,"
and in turn were granted peace and protection. They were allotted
certain lands to live and hunt upon, on the headwaters of the Great
Miami and the Wabash rivers.

But a fundamental error had crept into all these negotiations, and that
was, that the Indians' ancient right of occupancy was not recognized.
That right of present enjoyment and possession, although claimed by
savages who had waged war without mercy, against women and children,
was still a right. In the years to come, and after the new constitution
of the Union came into force and effect, the Supreme court of the United
States, sitting in solemn judgment upon this very question, would have
to pronounce that the Indian tribes had an unquestioned right to the
lands they occupied, "until that right was extinguished by a voluntary
cession to the government," notwithstanding the fact that the ultimate
fee in the soil rested in the government. To declare