deserted after the War of 1812 were essentially pawns in British imperial policy.
The military power of the last remaining major Indian tribes in the colonial northeast, the members of the Iroquois League, who allied themselves with the British in the 1770s, was destroyed after they suffered a series of military defeats at the hands of the Continental army and colonial militias. Article I, Sec. 8 of the new Constitution reserved the regulation of Indian affairs to the federal government. Congress confiscated much Indian land in the northeast and parts of the South as booty of war. President George Washington and the Congress sought to regularize relations with the remaining Indian tribes east of the Mississippi through a series of treaties and laws regulating trade with the Indians. Between 1778 and 1869 the USG entered into 394 treaties with the Indians (Costo & Henry, p. x).
Nature and Purposes of Indian Treaties
According to Costo & Henry, Indian treaties took a variety of forms and served many different purposes: "treaties were
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