SEPTEMBER 5:

1990 Montreal Quebec - Mercier Bridge through the Kanawake reserve opens after 55-day Mohawk standoff.

September 5, 1871:  The White Mountain Reservation is chosen as the site where the Apache indians of Arizona can be "collected, fed, clothed ... provided for and protected".  This decision was made by Vincent Colyer, Commissioner, Board of Indian Affairs, Department of the Interior.

September 5, 1785:  Georgians continue to trespass on Creek lands. Chief Alexander McGillivray writes Congress demanding that they protect his people from the settlers which previous treaties has promised.

1684 Ontario - Joseph-Antoine Le Febvre de La Barre 1622-1688 meets Iroquois, and gets them to keep peace with Miamis in the Ohio Valley.

1534 St-Malo France - Jacques Cartier 1491-1557 returns to St. Malo with Iroquois youths Domagaya and Taignoagny; after harrowing 137 day voyage, his first to Canada. 
 

BACKGROUND:
 

From http://www.mindspring.com/~jtu3/pickett/23pickett.html
 

LITTLE TALLASE,* 5th Sept., 1785.

"Sir-I am favored with your letter by Brandon, who, after detaining it near a month, sent it by an Indian, a few days ago. He, perhaps, had some reasons for keeping himself from this region.

"The notification you have sent us is agreeable to our wishes, as the meeting is intended for the desirable purpose of adjusting and settling matters, on an equitable footing, between the United States and the Indian nations.

"At the same time, I cannot avoid expressing my surprise that a measure of this nature should have been so long delayed, on your part. When we found that the American independence was confirmed by the peace, we expected that the new government would soon have taken some steps to make up the differences that subsisted between them and the Indians during the war, to have taken them under their protection, and confirmed to them their hunting grounds. Such a course would have reconciled the minds of the Indians, and secured the States their friendship, as they considered your people their natural allies. The Georgians, whose particular interest it was to conciliate the friendship of this nation, have acted, in all respects, to the contrary. I am sorry to observe that violence and prejudice have taken place of good policy and reason, in all their proceedings with us. They attempted to avail themselves of our supposed distressed situation. Their talks to us breathed nothing but vengeance, and, being entirely possessed with the idea that we were wholly at their mercy, they never once reflected that colonies of a powerful monarch were nearly surrounding us, to whom, in any extremity, we might apply for succor and protection, and who, to answer some ends of their policy, might grant it to us. However, we yet deferred any such proceeding, still expecting we could bring them to a true sense of their interest; but still finding no alteration in their conduct towards us, we sought the protection of Spain, and treaties of friendship and alliance were mutually entered into-they guaranteeing our hunting grounds and territory, and granting us a free trade in the ports of the Floridas.

"How the boundary and limits between the Spaniards and the States will be determined, a little time will show, as I believe that matter is now on foot. However, we know our limits, and the extent of our hunting-grounds. As a free nation, we have applied, as we had a right to do, for protection, and obtained it. We shall pay no attention to any limits that may prejudice our claims, that were drawn by an American, and confirmed by a British negotiator. Yet, notwithstanding we have been obliged to adopt these measures for our preservation, and from real necessity, we sincerely wish to have it in our power to be on the same footing with the States as before the late unhappy war, to effect which is entirely in your power. We want nothing from you but justice. We want our hunting grounds preserved from encroachments. They have been ours from the beginning of time, and I trust that, with the assistance of our friends, we shall be able to maintain them against every attempt that may be made to take them from us.

"Finding our representations to the State of Georgia of no effect, in restraining their encroachments, we thought it proper to call a meeting of the nation, on the subject. We then came to the resolution to send out parties, to remove the Georgians and their effects from the lands in question, in the most peaceable manner possible.

"Agreeably to your requisition, and to convince you of my sincere desire to restore a good understanding between us, I have taken the necessary steps to prevent any future predatory excursions of my people against any of your settlements. I could wish the people of Cumberland showed an equal good disposition to do what is right. They were certainly the first aggressors since the peace, and acknowledged it in a written certificate, left at the Indian camp they had plundered.

"I have only to add, that we shall meet the commissioners of Congress whenever we shall receive notice, in expectation that every matter of difference will be settled, with that liberality and justice worthy the men who have so gloriously asserted the cause of liberty and independence, and that we shall, in future, consider them as brethren, and defenders of the land.**

"I am, with much respect, sir, "Your obedient servant,

"ALEXANDER McGILLIVRAY"
 

* Little Tallase, four miles above Wetumpka, on the east bank of the Coosa, was one of the residences of Colonel McGillivray and from that point he wrote most of his able letters. Colonel Howell Rose now owns the site of Little Tallase, which is embraced in a cotton plantation.

** Indian Affairs, vol. 1, pp. 17-18.
 
 

*****
 

From http://www.nativepubs.com/nativepubs/Apps/bios/0053McGillivrayAlexander.asp
 

Alexander McGillivray c. 1759-1793
 

Alexander McGillivray (ca. 1759-1793) was the American Indian chief of the Creek nation during the period of Spanish and American rivalries for Florida.

Alexander McGillivray lived until the age of 14 at his father's trading post on the Tallapoosa River. His mother belonged to a clan of the Creek Indians and was half French; his father, a Scot, was a trader with political influence among the Creeks. In 1773 McGillivray went to Charleston, S.C., and then to Savannah, Ga., where he received a good education. He then worked in a mercantile firm and continued to study history.

During the American Revolution, McGillivray's father served the British. Because he was a loyalist, his property was confiscated, and he fled to Scotland; McGillivray returned to his mother's people. After the war, McGillivray's alliance with British traders in Spanish Florida against the Americans was of great importance, for, at his mother's death, the council chose him as their tribal leader. Soon he was called Emperor of the Creek Nation, a title he fancied.

McGillivray's goal was to form an alliance of southern Indians and use aid from England and Spain to force the United States to withdraw from Georgia, Kentucky, and Tennessee. In 1784 he signed a treaty with Spain making him a colonel on a salary of $50 per month. In return Spain would monopolize trade with the Creeks, and McGillivray was to expel the Americans.

Hating the Americans for confiscating his family's property, McGillivray began a war on the United States; battles soon were being fought from Georgia to Cumberland, Tenn. This war was so successful that in 1787 a congressional agent visited McGillivray. Possibly the Creek chief suggested that the Creeks be organized and admitted as a state. That same year the Spaniards stopped supplying munitions to McGillivray. This supplying resumed in 1789, but the Spaniards never fully trusted him again.

With the organization of a stronger U.S. government, President George Washington sent agents to negotiate with the Creeks. The first attempt failed. But in 1790 McGillivray was persuaded to journey to New York City; there he repudiated his treaty with Spain and signed an agreement with the United States ceding some Creek lands and making him a brigadier general with pay of $1,200 per year. With his income McGillivray became owner of three plantations and 60 slaves. Soon after his return from New York, McGillivray made a new agreement with Spain repudiating the Treaty of New York; he received $2,000 per year from the Spaniards (raised later to $3,500 annually). On Feb. 17, 1793, while negotiating with the Spaniards to raise another Indian confederation to oppose the United States, he died of a fever.

SOURCES: The best work on McGillivray is John Walton Caughey, McGillivray of the Creeks (1938). Other details may be secured from John Pope, A Tour through the Southern and Western Territories of the United States (1792), and David H. Corkran, The Creek Frontier, 1540-1783 (1967).