Pennsylvania. Indian Treaty (Lancaster) | A brilliant copy of an Indian Treaty marking "a great diplomatic defeat for the French"

Pennsylvania. Indian Treaty (Lancaster)

A Treaty held at the Town of Lancaster, in Pennsylvania, by the Honourable the Lieutenant-Governor of the Province, and the Honourable the Commissioners for the Provinces of Virginia and Maryland, with the Indians of the Six Nations, in June, 1744. Philadelphia: Printed and Sold by B. Franklin, at the New-Printing-Office, near the Market, M,DCC,XLIV (1744)

Pot folio (321 x 200 mm, uncut). Title printed within double rule; gathering E browned, a few leaves with marginal dampstaining, small hole or paper flaw in lower fore-edge corner of title-page, tiny rust hole to G1 not affecting text. Contemporary English calf-backed marbled boards, spine in five compartments with red morocco title label in second, plain pastedowns and edges, title-page endorsed with directions to the binder: "Marble paper uncut Letter'd"; boards a little abraded. Half blue morocco slipcase, chemise.

The brilliant Siebert copy of the first edition of the third of thirteen Indian treaties issued from Franklin’s press, from the library of William Windham, the eminent British Whig statesman and close ally of the British Superintendent of Indian Affairs, Sir William Johnson.

The Lancaster treaty is important not only for its insights into Indian diplomacy, but for illuminating Franklin’s practices as a businessman/printer/publisher. “The war with France made the Lancaster Indian treaty (22 June to 4 July) crucial. If the Six Nations sided with France, the Americans would have had a war on the frontier and could have lost the interior of the continent to the French. Fortunately, through the agency of the Indian expert Conrad Weiser and Governor Thomas, the treaty not only renewed Pennsylvania's alliance with the Six Nations but also extended the alliance to include Maryland and Virginia. … In the future the Six Nations would protect the frontiers of the English settlements from New England to Virginia. It was a great diplomatic defeat for the French. One could also view it as the beginning of cooperation among the colonial American colonies” (Lemay, Life 2:347). Interspersed throughout the treaty are rather mild complaints from the Indian representatives about mistreatment and mistrust, which were acknowledged, if never rectified; for example, “After we left Albany, we brought our Road a great deal more to the West, that we might comply with your Proposal; but, tho' it was of your own making, your People never observed it, but came and lived on our Side of the Hill … and we … altered the Road again, and brought it to the Foot of the Great Mountain, where it now is; and it is impossible for us to remove it any further to the West, those Parts of the Country being absolutely impassable by either Man or Beast.”

Lemay further explains that although the Pennsylvania Assembly hired Franklin only to print about one hundred copies of A Treaty held at the Town of Lancaster, he “printed hundreds more. Though he did not have to pay for proprietors and their officers in England, and the British chain of command setting the type, he paid for the additional paper, ink, and labor. The large number of additional copies was a publishing gamble” Lemay, Life 2:394). Franklin advertised the Treaty for sale in the Pennsylvania Gazette on 6 September 1744, and he sent one hundred and twenty-five copies (in three shipments) to printer Jonas Green in Annapolis, twenty-five copies to his New York partner James Parker, hundreds more to connections in Boston, Connecticut, and Rhode Island—even three hundred copies to William Strahan in London. In addition to the 464 copies itemized in Franklin’s extant accounts, Lemay believed that he issued at least 300 more to sell, altogether printing close to one thousand copies of this pivotal treaty. Despite this, A Treaty held at the Town of Lancaster is surprisingly scarce: Rare Book Hub records just eight copies sold in the past eighty years.

REFERENCES

Miller 364; ESTC W29577; Evans 5416; Hildeburn 907; Campbell 308; De Puy 22; Sabin 60736

PROVENANCE

William Windham (armorial bookplate) — (Frank T. Siebert, acquired from Rosenbach, 1950; Sotheby’s New York, 21 May 1999, lot 520)