OCTOBER 7:

1992 San Antonio Texas - Michael Wilson initials NAFTA- North American Free Trade Agreement- with Mexico and USA; symbolic ceremony attended by Mulroney, Bush and Salinas.

1869 Klukwan BC - Kohklux, chief of the Chilkat Indian village of Klukwan, draws US scientist George Davidson a highly detailed and accurate map of the Yukon/Alaska interior; impressed with Davidson's prediction of a total solar eclipse.

October 7, 1758: According to some reports, a peace conference is held for the next two days between representatives of the British in New Jersey and the Minisink Indians.

1661 Quebec Quebec - Daniel Uvil shot for selling alcohol to the Indians. 

1535 Trois-Rivieres, Quebec - Jacques Cartier plants a cross at the mouth of the St. Maurice River and claims the land for France; calls the river the Fouez. 
 

BACKGROUND:

From http://www.dickshovel.com/wap.html
 

In the meantime, the King George's War (1744-48) broke out between Britain and France. The Iroquois, except the Mohawk, chose to remain neutral. The Wappinger and Mahican made a similar decision, but French allies from Canada raided settlements in Vermont, New Hampshire, and the Hudson Valley north of Albany. Warned of impending attacks on the lower river, the colonists massacred several peaceful Munsee families near Walden, New York during the fall of 1745. The Munsee and Wappinger immediately left the area and remained in Pennsylvania until 1746. That year, a French army of 960 men under Philippe de Vaudreuil captured Fort Massachusetts on the Hoosic River which exposed the entire Hudson Valley to attack. Apologies were quickly sent explaining that the incident at Walden the year before was a terrible mistake, and the Wappinger and Mahican suddenly found they were welcome in the Hudson Valley to defend it against the French. No invasion came except for a battle near Schenectady in 1748.

The good feelings lasted until the outbreak of the French and Indian War (1755-63). In August, 1755 Abenaki raiders from St. Francois (Quebec) grabbed the last New England refugees at Schaghticoke and took them back to Canada and the French alliance. The Mahican, Munsee and Wappinger families there probably went with them. Their sudden departure cast suspicion on the loyalty of all natives still living along the Hudson. In December, the Munsee and Wappinger families living along the Hudson were ordered to leave the back country and move closer to white settlements for their own "protection."

On March 2nd, 1756, a group of white vigilantes led by William Slaughter (appropriate name) killed nine peaceful Munsee. Remembering 1746, the 300 remaining Munsee and Wappinger fled north to the Iroquois. A total of 196 Wappinger and Munsee moved in among among the Mohawk and Oneida in 1756; others settled near the Moravian missions for the Mahican and Delaware at Freidenshutten and Gnadenhutten in Pennsylvania; and the remainder with the Mahican at Stockbridge. None would ever return to their homeland.

During the summer of 1757, frontier settlements in Orange and Duchess Counties, New York and northern New Jersey were attacked by Munsee warriors still angry about being cheated out of their lands near Minisink. The following year, New York responded by confiscating all of the remaining native lands in the Hudson Valley. Whites immediately moved into the abandoned lands, and when the Moravian missionaries protested, they were arrested as French agents and banished from New York. The Munsee and Delaware raids were not prompted by any desire to help the French, but to avenge themselves against the British for being cheated out the their lands.

Realizing this, William Johnson, the British Indian Commissioner, convened a conference at Easton, Pennsylvania in 1758. Hostilities ended for the most part after Pennsylvania relinquished its claim to Ohio and New Jersey agreed to pay the claims of the Delaware and Munsee within its borders. Besides the Munsee, Delaware, and Iroquois, the Wappinger also signed this treaty. By 176O there were 300 Mahican, Munsee, and Wappinger living with the Oneida in upstate New York. They served with distinction as scouts for Sir William Johnson and the British for the remainder of the war. However, their demands that the St. Francois (French allies) compensate them for the warriors they had lost delayed peace with the Abenaki until 1762.
 

*****
 

Excerpt from  "History of the Lackawanna Valley" by H Hollister, MD, printed 1869, at http://www.rootsweb.com/~paluzern/towns/lacka1.htm
 

A treaty of peace was held at Easton, November 8, 1756, with great pomp and ceremony, when the conflicting interests of either party were long talked over and harmoniously adjusted amid the clattering of tongues and the smoke of the calumet. To cripple the French, against whom the English had formally proclaimed war in 1756, or rather to render the treaty of any practical value, the Iroquois, proud of their stength, never wielded in vain, and conscious of the wrongs of their fathers, they were impatient to redress, had first to be reconciled and consulted.

"The influence of Sir William Johnson", says Miner, "agent of Indian affairs, was invoked to bring the Six Nations to a new Congress. Neither presents nor promises were spared, and in October, 1758, there was opened at Easton one of the most imposing assemblages ever beheld in Pennsylvania. Chiefs from the Six Nations were there, namely, Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, Senecas, and Tuscaroras. There were also present embassadors from the tributary tribes of Minisinks, Mohicans, Wapingers, and Shawanese. Both the Governors of Pennsylvania and New Jersey attended; with Sir William Johnson and George Crogan, Esq, sub Indian agent, a deputation from the Provincial Assembly at New Jersey, and a large concourse of eminent citizens from Philadelphia and the neighboring counties.

Teedyuscung, on the way to the conference having fallen in company with the chief who had commanded the expedition against the Gnadenhutten and Fort Allen, high words arose between them, when the king raised his tomahawk and laid the chief dead at his feet. From that moment, though vengeance might slumber, he was a doomed man, a sacrifice alike to policy and revenge.

At the Congress Teedyuscung, eloquent and of imposing addres, took at first a decided lead in the debates." But one of the chiefs of the Six Nations, says Chapman, "on the other side expressed in strong language his resentment against the British colonists, who had killed and imprisoned one of his tribe, and he, as well as other chiefs of their nations, took great umbrage at the importance assumed by Teedyuscung, whom, as one of the Delawares they considered in some degree subject to their authority. Teedyuscung, however, supported the high station which he held, with dignity and firmness, and the different Indian tribes at length became reconciled to each other. The conference having continued eighteen days and all causes of misunderstanding between the English and Indians being removed, a general treaty of peace was concluded on the twenty-sixth day of October.

At this treaty the boundaries of the different purchases made from the indians were more particularly described, and they received an additional compensation for their lands, consisting of knives, hats, caps, looking-glasses, tobacco- boxes, shears, gun-locks, combs, clothes, shoes, stockings, blankets, and several suits of laced clothes for their cheiftains, and when the business of the treaty was completed, the stores of rum were opened and distributed to the Indians, who soon exhibited a scene of brutal intoxication."

Although for many years afterward, the tomahawk hung over the Lackawanna and Susquehanna setlements like a shadow over the mountain, the decline of the Indian empire in America can be dated from the last-mentioned treaty, while the power of the hitherto victorious French, then marching through the forest with General Forbes to attack Fort Du Quesne, was so suddently shaken by the desertion of their allies, as to result in their defeat in this expedition, and their final overthrow in Northern America.

During this year, many of the Delawares and Monseys, and most of the Shawanese removed from the valley westward.