Five Nations at Albany, New York (1726)

What happened

This is a colonial record from 1726, long before the United States existed. The National Archives series on ratified Indian treaties includes it because, in the Archives' words, United States treaty-making followed a custom established by Great Britain and the colonial governments.

On 14 September 1726, at Albany, New York, sachems (leaders) of the Seneca, Cayuga and Onondaga signed a deed addressed to King George. The deed says the Five Nations' leaders had given up their beaver-hunting land to the king in 1701, in a meeting with New York's lieutenant governor John Nanfan, asking him to be their protector and defender there. The 1726 deed ratified and confirmed that grant.

It also granted the king a strip of land sixty English miles deep, running inland from the water along Lake Ontario and the Niagara River. The strip began at a creek on the lake the deed calls Oswego. The deed says it took in the Castles (the main towns) of the three nations.

The key term is the trust. Both grants are written as land to be protected and defended by the king, for the use of the three nations and their heirs. The deed was recorded in New York's secretary's office on 9 November 1726. The deed does not record how the British government later used the grant.

Good to know. The deed is often labeled as made by the Five Nations, but it names only the Seneca, Cayuga and Onondaga.

Summarized with AI assistance from 5 sources and checked against their words; not yet reviewed by historians or by the nations. Report an error