It would be a very strange thing if Six Nations of Ignorant
Savages should be capable of forming a Scheme for such an
Union and be able to execute it in such a manner, as that it
has subsisted Ages, and appears indissoluble, and yet a like
Union should be impracticable for ten or a dozen English
colonies.
By 1744, Benjamin Franklin had lived in Philadelphia little
more than two decades. Having fled what he regarded as
Boston's spirit-crushing Puritan orthodoxy, Franklin's
iconoclastic wit found a more comfortable home in Quaker
Philadelphia. The city was only a quarter century old when
Franklin arrived at the age of seventeen, a dirty, penniless
young man looking for work as a printer's
apprentice. During the two decades between his 1723 arrival
and 1744, Franklin not only found work, but set up his own
press, and prospered along with the Quaker capital. With
10,000 residents and a fertile hinterland much larger and
more productive than Boston's, young Philadelphia already
was approaching the older city in size.
By
1744, his thirty-eighth year, Franklin had a thriving
printing business that published one of the largest
newspapers in the colonies, the Pennsylvania Gazette,
as well as Poor Richard's Almanack, which appeared
annually. As the province's official printer, Franklin ran
off his press all of Pennsylvania's paper money, state
documents and laws, as well as job printing. As the
postmaster, he had free access to the mails to distribute
his publications. If a family, especially a Pennsylvania
family, kept printed matter other than the Bible in the
house, it was very likely that whatever it was -- newspaper,
almanac or legal documents -- bore Franklin's imprint.
Franklin
had done more for Philadelphia than fill its book
stalls (one of which he owned) with literature. He had
helped clean the city's streets and construct a drainage
system unparalleled in its time; he had helped form a city
fire department, a hospital, and a library; he would soon be
testing electricity, and was already thinking of how it
might be used for household lighting. While he detested
religious orthodoxy (especially the Puritan variety) he
shared one Puritan attribute with the merchants of young,
bustling Philadelphia. He believed that hard work warmed
God's heart or, as he wrote in Poor Richard for
1736: "God helps those who help themselves."
Like
any publisher of ambition, Franklin always kept a
sharp eye out for salable properties. During 1736, he had
started printing small books containing the proceedings of
Indian treaty councils. The treaties, one of the first
distinctive forms of indigenous American literature, sold
quite well, which pleased Franklin. Filling the seemingly
insatiable appetite for information about the Indians and
the lands in which they lived that existed at the time on
both sides of the Atlantic, Franklin's press turned out
treaty accounts until 1762 when, journeying to England to
represent Pennsylvania in the royal court, he found
several English publishers in competition with him.
One
warm summer day in 1744, Franklin was balancing the
books of his printing operation when Conrad Weiser, the
Indian interpreter and envoy to the Iroquois, appeared at
his door with a new treaty manuscript -- the official
transcript of the recently completed meeting between
envoys from Pennsylvania, Virginia, Maryland, and the
sachems of the Six Nations confederacy at nearby
Lancaster. Weiser, an old friend of Franklin's, explained
that this was probably the most interesting and noteworthy
treaty account he had ever brought in for publication. At
last, said Weiser, the Iroquois had made a definite
commitment toward the Anglo-Iroquois alliance that
Pennsylvania and other Colonial governments had been
seeking for more than ten years.
The
Iroquois, explained Weiser, were being careful. If
they were to ally with the English, they wanted the
colonials to unify their management of the Indian trade,
and to do something about the crazy patchwork of diplomacy
that resulted when each colony handled its own affairs
with the Iroquois.
Taking
the handwritten manuscript from Weiser, Franklin
sat at his desk and quickly thumbed through it, reading a
few passages, bringing to life in his mind the atmosphere
of the frontier council. The treaty had two main purposes,
Franklin surmised. The first was to deal with a recurring
problem: Indian complaints that Englishmen, mostly
Scotch-Irish frontiersmen, were moving onto Indian land
without permission, disrupting hunting and social
life. The second, and more important, objective was to
polish the covenant chain, to secure the alliance against
the French.
The
Iroquois party consisted of 245 chiefs, warriors, women,
and children. Weiser met the party outside Lancaster,
throwing his arms around his friend Canassatego who, at age
sixty, was entering his last years as speaker of the great
council at Onondaga. Weiser bid all the Iroquois welcome to
Pennsylvania, joking in the Iroquois language with the
chiefs, who counted him as one of their own, an adopted
Mohawk who often traveled to Onondaga to sit in on the
councils of the league.
Weiser
knew that the Iroquois expected their protocol to be
followed. As guests, this meant that they had a right to
adequate food and lodging after the long and tiring
trip. Weiser promptly ordered a steer killed for
them. While the steer was being carved into steaks, he
purchased 300 pounds of flour, as well as other provisions,
charging all of it to the provincial government. He
treated the chiefs to "a glass of rum," and then
another. The chiefs, "desireous . . . to have one more
dram which I could not deny them," asked for more, and
Weiser again bought drinks all around. The next day, he
entered on his expense ledger a half-dozen sheep, 250
pounds of flour, bread, and "other necessities."
The
Iroquois delegates arrived at Lancaster's courthouse
Friday, June 22, 1744. A group of Colonial delegates, led
by George Thomas, Esq., were waiting with "Wine, Punch,
Pipes and Tobacco." The Colonial delegates "drank to the
health of the Six Nations" and then adjourned the meeting
until Monday to give the Iroquois an opportunity to rest.
For
most of the next two weeks, the Iroquois and
Colonial delegates discussed the invasion by squatters of
the eastern slopes of the Appalachians. The delegates from
Maryland and Virginia attended because both colonies
claimed the land in question. Governor Thomas opened the
first business session of the council Monday, June 25, by
observing that during a treaty council at Philadelphia two
years earlier, the Iroquois had requested a meeting with
the governors of Maryland and Virginia "concerning some
lands in the back parts of [those] Provinces which they
claim a right to from their Conquests over the Ancient
Possessors, and which have been settled by some of the
Inhabitants of those Governments [Maryland and Virginia]
without their [Iroquois'] consent, or any purchase made
from them." Thomas reported that "an unfortunate skirmish"
had taken place between colonists' militia and war parties
from the Six Nations in the disputed territory. Thomas
asserted that this problem ought to be solved because the
Iroquois were strategic to the British defense against
the French in North America: "by their Situation . . . if
Friends [the Iroquois] are capable of defending [Colonial]
settlements; if enemies, of making cruel Ravages upon
them; if Neuters, they may deny the French a passage
through their country and give us timely Notice of their
designs."
The
representatives of Maryland were not as conciliatory
as Thomas. Speaking to the Iroquois, they said:
The
Iroquois waited a day, until June 26, to reply, as was
their custom. The day's delay was meant to signal grave
concern over the issue at hand. In some cases, the delay
was just a matter of being polite; in this case, however,
it was sincere. On Tuesday afternoon, Canassatego rose
before the assembly, assuming the posture that had caused
many colonists to compare him to their imagined Roman and
Greek ancestors. He said:
Canassatego continued his argument, saying that some
Europeans assumed, in error, that the Indians would have
perished "if they had not come into the country and
furnished us with Strowds and Hatchets, and Guns, and
other things necessary for the support of Life." The
Indians, the sachem reminded the colonists, "lived
before they came amongst us, and as well, or better, if
we may believe what our forefathers have taught us. We
had then room enough, and plenty of Deer, which was
easily caught."
By
July 2, the Iroquois had been given vague assurances by
the Colonial commissioners that the flow of settlers into
the disputed lands would be controlled as much as possible,
a promise the Colonial officials did not have the armed
force to implement. A few other matters that had
precipitated conflict between the Iroquois and the English,
such as the murder of Indian trader John Armstrong by the
Delawares, were discussed. As the treaty council entered
its last few days, talk turned to cementing the alliance,
shining the covenant chain. Canassatego assured the
Colonial delegates that "we will take all the care we can
to prevent an enemy from coming onto British lands." To
insure the continuance of alliance, the sachem also
suggested that the colonists put their own house in order
by combining into a single federal union. Closing his
final speech on July 4, 1744, Canassatego told the
assembled Iroquois and colonial commissioners:
Governor
Thomas's final response, which followed
Canassatego's, did not mention the sachems' proposal that
the colonies unite into a confederacy on the Iroquoian
model. Thomas also seemed to have missed Canassatego's
assertion on June 26 that the colonists ought to consider
the Iroquois their elder brethren. "We are all subjects,
as well as you, of the great King beyond the Water,"
Thomas said. The Iroquois, following their custom of
granting each speaker his say without interruption, did
not dispute Thomas's assertion, although Canassatego had
made it clear that they did not submit to the king's
authority. The Iroquois regarded themselves as
independent, beholden to no European power. They were,
in fact, courted eagerly during the two decades before
1763 by both England and France.
The
1744 treaty, one of the more dramatic during this
period, impressed Franklin when the interpreter's record
was delivered to him a few weeks later. He printed 200
extra copies and sent them to England. Within three years
after he printed the proceedings of the 1744 treaty, with
Canassatego's advice on Colonial union, Franklin became
involved with Cadwallader Colden on the same subject. A
new edition of Colden's History of the Five Indian Nations
Depending on the Province of New York in America, first
published in 1727, was issued during 1747. Franklin was a
frequent correspondent with Colden at this time; both had
similar interests in politics, natural science, and
Deism. They got on together well and often until 1765 when
Colden, then lieutenant governor of New York, was burned
in effigy for enforcing the Stamp Act.
Shortly
after its publication in 1747, Franklin asked
Colden for a copy of his new edition, and read and
appraised it for its author. Franklin then began his own
fervent campaign for a federal union of the British
colonies, a cause he did not forsake until the United
States was formed a quarter-century later.
Franklin
requested a copy of Colden's book at a time when
alliance with the Iroquois was assuming a new urgency for
Pennsylvania. During 1747, French and Dutch privateers
had raided along the Delaware River, threatening
Philadelphia itself for a time. In response, Franklin
organized a volunteer militia that elected its own officers
(a distinctly Iroquoian custom). The militia grew year by
year, repeatedly electing Franklin its colonel until the
British, worried about the growth of indigenous armed
forces in the colonies, ordered it disbanded in 1756.
Franklin
thought enough of Colden's history to ask for
fifty copies to sell through his own outlets. Franklin did
not, however, approve of the fact that the book had been
"puffed up" with "the Charters &c of this Province, all
under the Title of the History of the Five
Nations." Franklin deplored such padding, which he
called "a common Trick of Booksellers." Such puffery
notwithstanding, Franklin was concerned that one
bookseller, by the name of Read, was not giving Colden's
work sufficient advertising in Philadelphia. "In our last
two Papers he has advertis'd generally that he has a parcel
of books to sell, Greek, Latin, French and English, but
makes no particular mention of the Indian History; it is
therefore no wonder that he has sold none of them, as he
told me a few days since." Franklin complained that no one
in Philadelphia except himself had read the book, and he
thought it "well wrote, entertaining and instructive" and
"useful to all those colonies who have anything to do with
Indian Affairs."
As
early as 1750, Franklin recognized that the economic and
political interests of the British colonies were diverging
from those of the mother country. About the same time, he
began to think of forms of political confederation that
might suit a dozen distinct, often mutually suspicious,
political entities. A federal structure such as the Iroquois
Confederacy, which left each state in the union to manage
its own internal affairs and charged the confederate
government with prosecuting common, external matters,
must have served as an expedient, as well as appealing,
example. As Franklin began to express his thoughts on
political and military union of the colonies, he was already
attempting to tie them together culturally, through the
establishment of a postal system and the American
Philosophical Society, which drew to Philadelphia the
premier Euro-American scholars of his day.
During
1751, Franklin read a pamphlet written by Archibald
Kennedy titled "The Importance of Gaining and Preserving
the Friendship of the Indians to the British Interest
Considered." Kennedy, collector of customs and receiver
general for the province of New York at the time that he
wrote the brochure, maintained that alliance with the
Iroquois was "of no small importance to the trade of Great
Britain, as to the peace and prosperity of the
colonies." Indian traders, called "a tribe of harpies" by
Kennedy, "have so abused, defrauded and deceived those
poor, innocent, well-meaning people." Kennedy asserted
that fraud in the Indian trade could be reduced if that
trade were regulated through a single Indian commissioner,
instead of a different one for each colony, which was the
existing system. As with Kennedy, so also with the
Iroquois; they too much resented the behavior of the
traders. Canassatego had told the Colonial commissioners
at Lancaster in 1744 that the Indians would be poor "as
long as there are too many Indian traders among
us." Resolution of this problem was the key to maintaining
the Anglo-Iroquois alliance in Kennedy's opinion. The
appointment of a single Indian commissioner would also be
a small step along the road to Colonial confederation for
mutual defense. The Iroquois had been advocating a
unified Colonial military command for at least seven
years -- since Canassatego's speech to the 1744 Lancaster
treaty. Under Kennedy's scheme, each colony would have
contributed men and money to the common military force
in proportion to its population.
Franklin
was sent Kennedy's brochure by James Parker, his
New York City printing partner, from whose press it had
been issued. Following the reading of the brochure,
Franklin cultivated Kennedy's friendship; the two men
consulted together on the Albany Plan of Union (which
included Kennedy's single-Indian agent idea). At the
Albany congress itself, Franklin called Kennedy "a
gentleman of great knowledge in Public Affairs."
After
he read Kennedy's brochure, Franklin wrote to Parker
that "I am of the opinion, with the public-spirited author,
that securing the Friendship of the Indians is of the
greatest consequence for these Colonies." To Franklin,
"the surest means of doing it are to regulate the Indian
Trade, so as to convince them [the Indians] that they may
have the best and cheapest Goods, and the fairest dealings,
with the English." Franklin also thought, in agreement
with Kennedy, that the colonists should accept the
Iroquois' advice to form a union in common defense under a
common, federal government:
Within
a year of reading Kennedy's brochure, Franklin,
whose role in Pennsylvania's Indian affairs was growing,
prepared a report on the expenses of the province's Indian
agents. Part of the report was sharply critical of Indian
traders:
Recognizing that the Indians' complaints about the conduct
of English traders had to be addressed if the Anglo-Iroquois
alliance was to be maintained, Franklin took a major step
in his personal life. During 1753 Franklin, who had
heretofore only printed Indian treaties, accepted an
appointment by the Pennsylvania government as one of the
colony's commissioners at a meeting with the Six Nations
planned for later that year in Carlisle.
That
appointment was no more than an official recognition
of what had already become obvious. Franklin had gradually
emerged as an important part of the British diplomatic
offensive with the Iroquois, an offensive that grew in
activity until the conclusion of the war with France in
1763. Pennsylvania alone spent 1259 pounds, 5 shillings,
11 pence on Indian affairs during 1750, and about the same
amount in 1751. Expenditures on Indian affairs had
increased from 13 pounds in 1734 to 143 pounds in 1735, and
303 pounds in 1744, the year of the Lancaster treaty council
during which Canassatego issued his challenge to the
colonies to unite. These figures indicate that Franklin,
Kennedy, and Colden were not alone in their insistence that
an alliance with the Iroquois and other Indians along the
Northern frontier was important to the security of the
British colonies as against the French.
During
the year before Franklin attended his first treaty
council in an official capacity, the possibility of conflict
with the French was accentuated by a French advance into
the Ohio Valley. During June 1752, French troops attacked
the Indian town of Pickawillany. The Pennsylvania Assembly
voted 800 pounds in aid for the attacked Indians, 600 of
which was earmarked for "necessities of life," a euphemism
for implements of war. The French continued to advance
during the balance of the year; French forces probed deeper
into the territories of Indians allied with the Iroquois,
the allies to whom Canassatego had referred in his final
speech at the 1744 treaty conference. French forts were
erected at Presque Isle, Le Boeuf, and Venango.
James
Hamilton's proclamation appointing Franklin, Richard
Peters, and Issac Norris to treat with the Indians at
Carlisle specifically mentioned the alliance with the
Twightwees, allies of the Iroquois who lived in the Ohio
Valley, and who had been attacked by the French during
1752. The treaty, which started Franklin's distinguished
diplomatic career, began November 1, 1753. An account of
the treaty was printed and sold by Franklin's press. The
major subject of the Carlisle treaty was mutual defense
against the French. The Indians also brought up the
behavior of traders, especially regarding their
distribution of rum among Indians. The chiefs said they
wanted such practices stopped. Scarrooyady, an Iroquois
who had assumed a leadership role following the death of
Canassatego during 1750, told the commissioners:
"Those wicked Whiskey Sellers, when they have once got
the Indians in Liquor, make them sell their very Clothes
from their Backs," Scarrooyady emphasized. Concluding
their report to the provincial government on the treaty
council, Franklin, Peters, and Norris advised that the
sachem's advice be taken. "That the traders are under no
Bonds . . . and by their own Intemperance, unfair Dealings
and Irregularities will, it is to be feared, entirely
estrange the affections of the Indians from the
English." Franklin's opposition to the liquor trade was
strengthened the night following the formal conclusion of
the treaty council, when many of the Indians there became
very drunk and disorderly, yielding to the addictive
qualities of the liquids that their chiefs had deplored
only a few days earlier.
Two
stated desires of the Iroquois leadership -- that the
Indian trade be regulated along with the illegal movement
of settlers into the interior, and that the colonies form
a federal union -- figured importantly in Franklin's plans
for the Albany congress of 1754. Plans for this, the most
important intercolonial conference in the years before the
last North American war with France, were being made at
the time of the Carlisle treaty conference. The London
Board of Trade wrote to the New York provincial government
September 18, 1753, directing all the colonies that had
dealings with the Iroquois to join in "one general Treaty
to be made in his Majesty's name." It was a move that
began, in effect, to bring about the unified management of
Indian affairs that Colden, Kennedy, Franklin, and the
Iroquois had requested. Similar letters were sent to all
colonies that shared frontiers with the Iroquois and their
Indian allies, from Virginia northward. Franklin was
appointed to represent Pennsylvania at the Albany congress.
The
congress convened June 19, 1754, five days after its
scheduled opening because many of the Iroquois and some
of the Colonial commissioners arrived late. Sessions of
the congress, as well as some meetings with the Iroquois
delegations, took place at the Albany courthouse, in the
midst of a town that straddled the frontier between the
English and the Mohawks, who maintained the "eastern door"
of the Iroquois longhouse. Albany at the time was still
dominated by the architecture of the Dutch, who had
started the town before the English replaced them.
The
Albany congress met for two interconnected reasons: to
cement the alliance with the Iroquois against the French
and to formulate and ratify a plan of union for the
colonies. Franklin, well known among the Indians and a
fervent advocate of Colonial union, was probably the most
influential individual at the congress.
Among
the Iroquois who attended the congress, Hendrick, who
was called Tiyanoga among the Iroquois, received a special
invitation from James de Lancy, acting governor of New York,
to provide information on the structure of the Iroquois
Confederacy to the Colonial delegates. De Lancy, appointed
as chief executive of the congress by the Crown, met
Saturday, June 29, with Hendrick and other Iroquois
sachems. During that meeting, Hendrick held a chain belt
that had been given him by the Colonial delegates. He made
of the belt a metaphor for political union. "So we will use
our endeavors to add as many links to it as lyes within our
power," Hendrick said. "In the meantime we desire that you
will strengthen yourselves, and bring as many into this
Covenant Chain as you possibly can."
During
the evening of July 8, the Iroquois' last in Albany,
de Lancy met again with Hendrick and other Iroquois. During
this meeting, which was open to the public, Hendrick
remarked (as had Canassatego ten years earlier) about the
strength that confederation brought the Iroquois. De Lancy
replied: "I hope that by this present [Plan of] Union, we
shall grow up to a great height and be as powerful and
famous as you were of old." The week before this exchange,
the final draft of Franklin's plan of union had been
approved by delegates to the congress, after extensive
debate.
Debates
over the plan had taken more than two weeks. On
June 24, the Colonial delegates voted without dissent in
support of Colonial union that, said the motion voted on,
"[is] absolutely necessary for their [the colonies']
security and defense." A committee was appointed to
"prepare and receive Plans or Schemes for the Union of the
Colonies." Franklin was a member of that
committee. Thomas Hutchinson, a delegate from
Massachusetts who also served on the committee, later
pointed to Franklin as the major contributor to the plan
of union that emerged from the deliberations of the
committee: "The former [the Albany plan] was the
projection of Dr. F[ranklin] and prepared in part before
he had any consultation with Mr. H[utchinson], probably
brought with him from Philadelphia."
Franklin
had drawn up "Short Hints Toward a Scheme for
Uniting the Northern Colonies," which he mailed to Colden
and James Alexander for comment June 8, 1754, eleven
days before the Albany congress opened. The committee
on which Franklin and Hutchinson sat developed its own
set of "short hints" by June 28, four days after its
first meeting. This list was basically similar to, and
appears to have developed from, Franklin's own list.
Delegates
to the Albany congress debated the committee's
"short hints" on eight occasions between de Lancy's two
meetings with Hendrick. On July 9, the Iroquois having
left town, Franklin was asked to draw up a plan of union
based on the previous two weeks' discussions. Franklin's
final draft was commissioned two weeks to the day after
his Pennsylvania Gazette published the "Join or
Die" cartoon, one of the first graphic editorials to
appear in an American newspaper, and a forceful statement
in favor of Colonial union.
During
debates over the plan of union, Franklin cited
Kennedy's brochure and pointed to "the strength of the
League which has bound our Friends the Iroquois together
in a common tie which no crisis, however grave, since its
foundation has managed to disrupt." Recalling the words
of Hendrick, Franklin stressed the fact that the individual
nations of the confederacy managed their own internal
affairs without interference from the Grand
Council. "Gentlemen," Franklin said, peering over the
spectacles he had invented, "I propose that all the British
American colonies be federated under a single legislature
and a president-general to be appointed by the Crown." He
then posed the same rhetorical question he had in the
letter to Parker: if the Iroquois can do it, why can't we?
The
plan of union that emerged from Franklin's pen was a
skillful diplomatic melding of concepts that took into
consideration the Crown's demands for control, the
colonists' desires for autonomy in a loose union, and the
Iroquois' stated advocacy of a Colonial union similar to
theirs in structure and function. For the Crown, the plan
provided administration by a president-general, to be
appointed and supported by the Crown. The individual
colonies were promised that they could retain their own
constitutions "except in the particulars wherein a change
may be directed by the said Act [the plan of union] as
hereafter follows."
The
retention of internal sovereignty within the individual
colonies, politically necessary because of their diversity,
geographical separation, and mutual suspicion, closely
resembled the Iroquoian system. The colonies' distrust of
one another and the fear of the smaller that they might be
dominated by the larger in a confederation may have made
necessary the adoption of another Iroquoian device: one
colony could veto the action of the rest of the body. As
in the Iroquois Confederacy, all "states" had to agree on a
course of action before it could be taken. Like the
Iroquois Great Council, the "Grand Council" (the name was
Franklin's) of the colonies under the Albany Plan of Union
would have been allowed to choose its own speaker. The
Grand Council, like the Iroquois Council, was to be
unicameral, unlike the two-house British system. Franklin
favored one-house legislatures during and later at the
Constitutional Convention, and opposed the imposition of a
bicameral system on the United States.
Franklin's
Albany Plan of Union provided for a different
number of representatives from each colony (from seven for
Virginia and Massachusetts Bay to two for New Hampshire
and Rhode Island) as the Iroquois system provided for
differing numbers from each of its five nations. This
division of seats was based, however, in rough proportion
to population and contributions to a common military force,
while the Iroquois system was based more on tradition. But
the number of delegates to the proposed Colonial Grand
Council (forty-eight) closely resembled that of the
Iroquois Council (fifty). There is no documentary
evidence, however, that Franklin intended such a slavish
imitation.
The
legislature under the Albany plan was empowered to
"raise and pay Soldiers, and build Forts for the Defence of
any of the Colonies, and equip vessels of Force to guard
the Coasts and protect the Trade on the Oceans, Lakes and
Great Rivers," but it was not allowed to "impress men in
any Colonies without the consent of its Legislature." This
clause strikes a middle ground between the involuntary
conscription often practiced in Europe at the time and the
traditional reliance of the Iroquois and many other
American Indian nations on voluntary military service.
The
Albany plan also contained the long-sought unified
regulation of the Indian trade advocated by the Iroquois,
Kennedy, Colden, and Franklin:
The last part of this section aimed to stop, or at least
slow, the pellmell expansion of the frontier that resulted
in settlers' occupation of lands unceded by the Indian
nations. Such poaching was a constant irritant to the
Iroquois; the subject of land seizures had come up at
every treaty council for at least two decades before the
Albany plan was proposed. Like the traders'
self-interested profiteering, the illegal taking of land
by frontiersmen was seen by Anglo-American leaders as a
threat to the Anglo-Iroquois alliance at a time when
worsening diplomatic relations with France made alliance
with the Iroquois more vital.
The
Albany Plan of Union gained Franklin general
recognition in the colonies as an advocate of Colonial
union. The plan also earned Franklin a position among the
originators of the federalist system of government that
came to characterize the United States political
system. According to Clinton Rossiter, "Franklin made
rich contributions to the theory and practice of
federalism . . . he was far ahead of the men around him in
abandoning provincialism."[2] While the
Iroquois and Franklin were ready for a Colonial union, the
legislatures of the colonies were not. Following its
passage by the Albany congress on July 10, 1754,
Franklin's plan died in the Colonial legislatures. The
individual colonies' governing bodies were not ready to
yield even to the limited Colonial government that
Franklin proposed within his definition of
federalism: "Independence of each other, and separate
interests, tho' among a people united by common manners,
language and, I may say, religion . . ." Franklin showed
his dismay at the inability of the colonies to act
together when he said that "the councils of the savages
proceeded with better order than the British Parliament."
Franklin
believed, at the time that his plan failed to win
the approval of the colonies, that its defeat would cost
the British their alliance with the Iroquois. "In my
opinion, no assistance from them [the Six Nations] is to
be expected in any dispute with the French 'till by a
Compleat Union among our selves we are able to support
them in case they should be attacked," Franklin wrote,
before the Iroquois' willingness to maintain the alliance
proved him wrong. Although he was wrong in this regard,
Franklin's statement illustrates how important the
Iroquois' prodding was in his advocacy of a federal union
for the colonies.
Franklin's
plan was also rejected by the Crown, but for
reasons different from those of the Colonial
legislatures. To the British, the plan was too
democratic. It gave the colonists too much freedom at a
time when the British were already sending across the
ocean spies who reported that far too many colonists were
giving entirely too much thought to possible independence
from Britain. Franklin already was under watch as a
potential troublemaker (hadn't he raised his own
militia?).
The
separate Colonial governments and the Crown had, in
effect, vetoed the plan of the Albany commissioners -- a
veto beyond which there could be no appeal. Nonetheless,
the work of the congress was not in vain.
Almost
two decades would pass before the colonists --
inflamed into union by the Stamp Act and other measures
the British pressed upon the colonies to help pay the
Crown's war debts -- would take Franklin's and
Canassatego's advice, later epitomized in Franklin's
phrase: "We must all hang together or assuredly we shall
all hang separately." Returning to America from one of
many trips to England, Franklin would then repackage the
Albany plan as the Articles of Confederation. A
Continental Congress would convene, and word would go out
to Onondaga that the colonists had finally lit their own
Grand Council fire at Philadelphia.
During
1774, colonists dressed as Mohawks dumped tea into
Boston Harbor to protest British economic
imperialism. During the spring of 1775, serious
skirmishes took place at Lexington and Concord. During
August of the same year, commissioners from the newly
united colonies met with chiefs of the Six Nations at
Philadelphia in an effort to procure their alliance, or at
least neutrality, in the coming war with the British.
On
August 25, the two groups smoked the pipe of peace and
exchanged the ritual words of diplomatic
friendship. Following the ceremonies, the Colonial
commissioners told the Iroquois:
The commissioners then repeated, almost word for word,
Canassatego's advice that the colonies form a federal
union like that of the Iroquois, as it had appeared in
the treaty account published by Franklin's press. The
commissioners continued their speech:
Such an Union
The Great King of England, and his Subjects, have
always possessed the Province of Maryland free and
undisturbed from any Claim by the Six Nations for
above one hundred Years past, and your not saying
anything to us before, convinces us you thought you
had no Pretence to any land in Maryland; nor can we
yet find out to what Lands, or under what Title you
make your Claim.
Brother, the Governor of Maryland,
When you mentioned the Affair of the Land Yesterday,
you went back to Old Times, and told us that you had
been in Possession of the Province of Maryland for
above one hundred Years; but what is one hundred
Years in comparison to the length of Time since our
Claim began? Since we came out of this ground? For
we must tell you that long before one hundred years
our Ancestors came out of this very ground, and their
children have remained here ever since. . . . You
came out of the ground in a country that lies beyond
the Seas; there you may have a just Claim, but here
you must allow us to be your elder Brethren, and the
lands to[o] belong[ed] to us before you knew anything
of them.
Our wise forefathers established union and amity between
the Five Nations. This has made us formidable. This has
given us great weight and authority with our neighboring
Nations. We are a powerful Confederacy and by your
observing the same methods our wise forefathers have taken
you will acquire much strength and power; therefore,
whatever befalls you, do not fall out with one another.[1]
And to unite the several Governments as to form a
strength that the Indians may depend on in the case of
a Rupture with the French, or apprehend great Danger
from, if they break with us. This union of the
colonies, I apprehend, is not to be brought about by the
means that have heretofore been used for that purpose.
Franklin then asked why the colonists found it so difficult
to unite in common defense, around common interests, when
the Iroquois had done so long ago. In context, his use of
the term "ignorant savages" seems almost like a backhanded
slap at the colonists, who may have thought themselves
superior to the Indians but who, in Franklin's opinion,
could learn something from the Six Nations about political
unity:
It would be a very strange thing if Six Nations of
Ignorant Savages should be capable of forming a
Scheme for such an Union and be able to execute it
in such a manner, as that it has subsisted Ages, and
appears indissoluble, and yet a like union should be
impracticable for ten or a dozen English colonies.
Some very unfit Persons are at present employed in that
business [the Indian trade]. We hope that the Governor
will enjoin the justices of the County Courts to be more
careful in the future whom they recommend for
Licenses; and whatever is thought further necessary to
enforce the Laws now being, for regulating the Indian
Trade and Traders, may be considered by the ensuing
Assembly. . . .
Your traders now bring us scarce any Thing but Rum
and Flour. They bring us little Powder and Lead, or
other valuable Goods. The rum ruins us. We beg you
would prevent its coming in such Quantities, by
regulating the Traders. . . . We desire it be
forbidden, and none sold in the Indian Country.
That the President General with the advice of the Grand
Council hold and direct all Indian Treaties in which the
general interest or welfare of the Colonys may be
concerned; and make peace or declare war with the Indian
Nations. That they make such laws as they judge
necessary for regulating Indian Trade. That they make
all purchases from the Indians for the Crown. . . . That
they make new settlements on such purchases by granting
lands. . . .
Our business with you, besides rekindling the ancient
council-fire, and renewing the covenant, and brightening
up every link of the chain is, in the first place, to
inform you of the advice that was given about thirty
years ago, by your wise forefathers, in a great council
which was held at Lancaster, in Pennsylvania, when
Canassatego spoke to us, the white people, in these very
words.
These were the words of Canassatego. Brothers, Our
forefathers rejoiced to hear Canassatego speak these
words. They sunk deep into our hearts. The advice was
good. It was kind. They said to one another: "The
Six Nations are a wise people, Let us hearken to them,
and take their counsel, and teach our children to
follow it." Our old men have done so. They have
frequently taken a single arrow and said, Children, see
how easily it is broken. Then they have taken and tied
twelve arrows together with a strong string or cord and
our strongest men could not break them. See, said
they, this is what the Six Nations mean. Divided, a
single man may destroy you; united, you are a match
for the whole world. We thank the great God that we
are all united; that we have a strong confederacy,
composed of twelve provinces. . . . These provinces
have lighted a great council fire at Philadelphia and
sent sixty-five counsellors to speak and act in the
name of the whole, and to consult for the common good
of the people. . . .