NYYM_scrapbook_087b

provided the annuities paid to them were applied as they ought to be. Our Society have engaged in this important Concern, under an apprehendsion of Religious duty, and in the prosection of which, they have been careful not to mix with the policy or the funds of the Government--and we have been well satisfied, many times, that this and this only, was safe ground for us to move on, and are induced to believe that it remains, and will remain, so to be. Under these views, we feel easy to rest the subject, as it relates to the Indians on the Holland Purchase, for the present, and suggest the propriety of a full and free Conference being at a suitable time had with your and our Committees, in which a plan may be digested matured &; adopted, calculated to effect the results so desirable to us all. You have kindly invited us to a free communication of our sentiments, and we have accordingly, used much freedom &; candor in the foregoing, in order that we may have a clear &; distinct understanding of each others sentiments--believing that it will require not only the unity of sentiment, but the Cooperation of exertion in the friends of the Indians, to secure to them, the small, the very small, pittance of the great abundance of land which they or their Ancestors once possess'd. My Red Children, I am glad to learn by your friends Samuel Bettle, Thomas Wistar, Thomas Stewardson and John Cook, that you no longer live in that miserable and destitute state which you once did. They say that most of you have become sober, and industrious; that you have got good houses to live in, and that by cultivating the ground and raising cattle, you have now a plenty to eat. This is to me very good news--as I shall always rejoice to hear of the happiness of my red Children My Red Children You cannot become civilized 'till you have advanced one step further, you know that among my white children each one has his own land separate from all others. You ought to do the same; you ought to divide your land among families, in lots sufficiently large to maintain a Family according to its size. Your good friends the Quakers, would, no doubt, enable you to make a just and equitable division. By this dividing your land, each one could then say, this is mine; and he would have inducements to put up good houses on it, and improve his land by Cultivation. My Red Children I have annexed the seal of the United States to this talk, so that you may know it comes from your father the President sign'd James Monroe 15 Jan 1819 To the Seneca Indians living on the Alleghany Reservation (It is desirable no copies of this should be permitted to be taken at present) We subjoin a Copy of the writing received from the President of the United States, and are affectionately, your friends Thomas Eddy Richard Mott Tho. Stewardson Thomas Wistar Philadelphia 1 Mo. 10 1819