r possession of the fertile, beckoning wilderness was indisputable, the Europeans needed moral justification for their seizure of Indian lands "which formed an obstacle to the westward advance of the white settlers" (Prucha, 1962, p. 1). They easily persuaded themselves that white, western, Christian civilization was superior to that of mere savages. The Swiss philosopher Emmerich de Vattel argued that the cession by the Indians (then in the hunter gatherer stage of development) of most of their lands to whites who could put natural resources to more productive use was a fair exchange for receiving the blessings of European civilization (Taylor, 1983, p. 241). The 19th century New England orator Edward Everett expressed the common Anglo belief in the superiority of the white race when he said "the Europeans came; and by causes as simple and natural, as they are innocent -- the barbarous population . . . has been replaced by one much better, much happier" (Dippie, 1982, p. 7).
Unlike, however, the Spanish who took what they wanted in
Terra Nova with little regard for the consent of the Indians, the English in North America "treated the Indian tribes as nations, as manifested by the treaty process. The treaties were agreements signed between equal nations offering mutual obligations" (Ragsdale, 1985, p. 65).
Indian Treaties and the Policy of Separation (1778-1829)
Prior to the Revolutionary War, the power to make treaties with Indian tribes was vested exclusively in the English Crown. The British Government entered into at least 175 treaties with the North American tribes (Utter, 2001, p. 80). Their primary purpose was to guarantee peace on the frontier and to secure Indian allies against the French and Spanish. In 1763, England issued the Royal Proclamation of Paris, which declared that all Indian lands west of the Appalachian Mountains were in 'Indian Country' off limits to colonial settlers. The Indians whom the British...