“Since We Came out of This Ground”

Over time, Natives and settlers not only came to appreciate the political implications of treaties but also learned to manipulate each other’s legal concepts. Craig Yirush shows the Iroquois’ skill at sequentially deploying indigenous and English concepts during negotiations with delegates from Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Maryland in 1744. The Iroquois defended their claims to land in Maryland and Virginia by invoking their conquest of it and their long possession (prescription). Arguments from conquest and prescription, familiar in European colonial discourses, constituted part of the settlers’ case at the treaty negotiations. The Iroquois reworked these arguments to their own advantage, mixing them with appeals rooted in Native legal and rhetorical traditions. Switching between Native and English legal ideas was at once a mechanism for gaining advantages in negotiations, defending interests, outmaneuvering rivals, and enriching intermediaries.