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Manitowaning, 9th August, 1836 No. 45. MY CHILDREN: Seventy snow seasons have now passed away since we met in Council at the crooked place (Niagara), at which time and place your Great Father, the King, and the Indians of North America tied their hands together by the Wampum of friendship. Since that period various circumstances have occurred to separate from your Great Father many of his red children, and as an unavoidable increase of white population, as well as the progress of cultivation, have had the natural effect of impoverishing your hunting grounds it has become necessary that new arrangements should be entered into for the purpose of protecting you from the encroachments of the whites. In all parts of the world farmers seek for uncultivated land as eagerly as you, my red children, hunt in your forest for game. If you would cultivate your land it would then be considered your own property, in the same way as your dogs are considered among yourselves to belong to those who have reared them; but uncultivated land is like wild animals, and your Great Father, who has hitherto protected you, has now great difficulty in securing it for you from the whites, who are hunting to cultivate it. Under these circumstances, I have been obliged to consider what is best to be done for the red children of the forest, and I now tell you my thoughts. It appears that these islands on which we are now assembled in Council are, as well as all those on the north shore of Lake Huron, alike claimed by the English, the Ottawas and the Chippewas. I consider that from their facilities and from their being surrounded by innumerable fishing islands, they might be made a most desirable place of residence for many islands who wish to be civilized, as well as to be totally separated from the whites; and I now tell you that your Great Father will withdraw his claim to these island and allow them to be applied for that purpose. Are you, therefore, the Ottawas and Chippewas, willing to relinquish your respective claims to these islands and make them the property (under your Great Father’s control) of all Indians whom he shall allow to reside on them; if so, affix your marks to this my proposal.
MANITOWANING, 9th August, 1836. F.B. HEAD, J.B. ASSEKINACK, MOKOMMUNISH, (totem) TAWACKKUCK, KIMEWEN (totem), KITCHEMOKOMON (totem), PESCIATAWICK (totem), PAIMAUSEGAI (totem), NAINAWMUTTEBE (totem), MOSUNEKO (totem), KEWUCKANCE (totem), SHAWENAUSEWAY (totem), ESPANIOLE (totem), SNAKE (totem), PAUTUNSEWAY (totem), PAIMAUQUMESTCAM (totem), WAGEMAUQUIN (totem).
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