Actually a participating from 1903 that is depicting one such treaty conference that wept on on a frontier of the valley. You did a reading today that featured a fellow named William Johnson not a lot of contemporary students of history know much about. He was an irish immigrant who came to america, settled on the moha mohawk frontier in up state new york and became very friendly with mohawk indians who were his neighbors and ultimately gained a great deal of influence among them and ultimately was appointed by the British Crown to serve as its agent to the iroquois nations. Think about the reading you did for today, and this has kind of provided me with a mental image of that. It was at johnson hall which was this georgian mansion he built on the mohawk frontier that still stands today. If youre in up state new york traveling between albany and syracuse, new york, you can visit this site which tells a really interesting story about how europeans and nativeamericans came together on the frontier not to fight but actually just to talk about their differences and try to come to some kind of accommodation when they did have conflict. I want to switch from up state new york and pennsylvania right now, if you were to travel east affgettysburg for maybe an hour and a half or so along route 30 youd come to the town of lancaster, pennsylvania. I imagine some of you have been to lancaster and are familiar with it. In 1784 lancaster was this Tiny Community really on the edge of settlement in pennsylvania. But in june of 1744 a group of 250 iroquois indians arrived in lancaster. They were carrying arms, bows and arrows and guns and t tomahawks. They marched through the center of town and this was the quaker colony of pennsylvania. There wasnt even a militia to call out in fear of perhaps an attack from the iroquois, but they werent there to make war. They were there for a treaty conference. Theyve been called by the governor of pennsylvania. So they marched through town their leader singing a song of greeting to the people of lancaster. And when they got to the edge of town it didnt take long to walk down main street they built a camp of wigwams and cabins and stayed in lancaster negotiating not only with the colony of pennsylvania but also delegations from the colonies of maryland and virginia as well. The misbecame known as the treaty of lancaster of 1744, and it was one of the more famous of these meetings that took place on the frontier between colonial governments and nativeAmerican People. Benjamin franklin at the time of the lancaster treaty was occurring was working as a printer in philadelphia, and he was anxious to hear news what was going on in lancaster and wrote to his agent. A treaty is now holding in Lancaster County a place 60 miles west of this city between governments of virginia, maryland and pennsylvania on one side and the united five nations of indians on the other meaning the iroquois leave. As the method of doing business with those barbarians may perhaps afford you some amusement. Now, thats a pretty condescending statement for franklin to be making about this, right . Certainly it reflects many of the attitudes of his contemporaries that these were savage people out living in the forest, and when he calls them barbarians hes kind of sneering about it to his london agent, theres also an element here of fascination and interest, this method of doing business. Franclen wants to tell his london agent about how you do this business on the american frontier of engaging in diplomacy with nativeamericans. And in that phrase this method of doing business i think is a very important fact to realize for our purposes today. And thats when europeans came to colonial america and met with nativeamericans it happened on nativeamerican terms. You know, in order to ensure a good trade, in order to ensure peace they had to get together and conduct diplomacy with nativeAmerican Peoples, and the protocols and customs and language and metaphors that govern that diplomacy were not european in origin, they were nativeamerican in origin, this is testimony to the amount of powernative American People had, that europeans had to learn to conduct business on their turf, to do it by their method. And so franklin when he ultimately publishes the treaty of lancaster does send Something Like 200 copies off to his agent in london because he thinks they might sell there. He thinks people will be interested of learning about this and learning through this context of diplomacy. Historians when they talk about diplomacy between nativeamericans and europeans in the colonial area often use a metaphor ill share today which is the middle ground, that these diplomatic negotiations reflected a middle ground between european power and interests in native america and nativeamerican powers and interests. And the fellow who pioneered the use of this metaphor is a historian named richard white, but he was writing about the french interactions with peoples living in the great lakes frontier as the french were developing their fur trade in places like modern day illinois and michigan, that there was this middle ground where neither of the french nor the nativeamericans had the upper hand in terms of military power or strength. Each side wanted something from the other, the fur trade, right . Each side had to learn to negotiate somehow with the others. And these people were culturally different. They were strangers, there was a language divide. So white when he wrote about the middle ground described this not omis this geographic territory of the modern day midwest but also this metaphorical middleground where each side is trying to feel out the other, kind of trying to comprehend its world view and develop some means of communicating back across that cultural divide. And were going to use that metaphor today only were going to apply it primarily to the english colonies in british north america as they dealt with nativeAmerican Peoples and also sought this kind of diplomatic middleground to negotiate. So lets look at this middle ground especially as it develops in the context of ritual. How diplomatic rituals help. There were two primary complexes that europeans learned to use when they engage with nativeamericans. Think about the many language peoples connected to that group especially in the great lakes region. And the other was iroquoisan related to peoples of up state new york, modern day ontario who spoke languages from the iroquois stock. It was a pipe that nativeamericans use. We knew nativeamericans grew tobacco before europeans showed up, they smoked tobacco for all sorts of reasons. One of the reasons they smoked tobacco was for ritualistic purposes. It was a way of offering hospitality, a way of closing diplomatic negotiations with each other. When you did it for that purpose, when you smoked tobacco for diplomatic reasons you smoked it out of this longstemmed pipe. This was not a pipe that a nativeamerican would be carrying around just for his daily smoking. This was a pipe made specifically for his diplomatic purposes. It has eagle feathers attached to it. It has a stone bold that is made out of a type of soft red stone that was found in minnesota and that indians can carve into the shape for pipe balls. And you see a trade hatchet there, but here this indian is smoking a calumet pipe. Theyre gished by the long stems. The cupipe would be circulated a circle fashion to clear the air. We think of tobacco smoke as something unpleasant and you dont want to be stuck somewhere where people are smoking, but their notion was tobacco cleared the air of bad thoughts. The tobacco smoke carried away ill feelings, worries and concerns and kind of cleared the mind of people coming together to engage in negotiations. This is a french illustration of what the calumet ceremony looked like. And its an interesting image. You might read a modern day cartoon strip, a comic strip only you need to read it in this order. Ive added the numbers here so you can understand the action that is taking place here. Number one, the savage village, all right, this is where theres a nativeamerican community, and then theres another group of nativeamericans traveling by canoe down river and they want to pass through the territory of these folks. But they need to do so in a way that makes clear theyre arriving as friends, that theyre not here to make war. Theyre not here as aggressors, and so a canoe goes ahead of the others with the calumet of peace and you see the three indians in the canoe, and theyre carrying it before them. And a canoe comes out from the village to greet them. They come out to offer a greeting, and then the calumet is carried before the visitors as a sign of peace and folks come out from the village to greet them, theres ritualistic dancing and theyre admitted into the village. And ultimately they smoke it as a way of proving their intentions and they can go on with their business. Thats how the calumet ceremony worked. This has entered the american idiom of english through the phrase smoking a peace pipe. Weve all heard about it as a way of making peace when theres been a disagreement or something. Thats the other primary ritual complex was iroquoisan in origin, and it was related to those nativeamericans who showed up at the treaty of lancaster in 1744 that the Iroquois League or the five nations as franklin called them in that letter he wrote to his agent in london, this is a map if you havent encountered the iroquois before this is just a map to kind of give you a very brief grukz into the Iroquois League or confederacy. At the time of colonization when the dutch showed up there were five nations in the Iroquois League. They occupied a territory roughly comenseerate of modern day up state new york. In the early 18th century a nation migrated northward from North Carolina and joined the Iroquois League. Sometim sometimes youll hear reference tuesday the five nations, sometimes the six nations. But they were also iroquoisan speaking. They spoke a similar language, had a similar culture, and thats one of the reasons why they came up and settled in this region. They settled between North Eastern pennsylvania and central new york. Theyre a very powerful indian confederacy. Well, the iroquois had similar power in this very strategic territory between french canada, Saint Lawrence river, ontario and ultimately english new york. They occupied this very strategic territory and diplomacy became very important in order to preserve their fur trade. When europeans engaged with this diplomacy with the iroquois, they had to learn something known as the condolence ceremony. And ill talk to you a little bit about how the condolence ceremony worked. So when the Iroquois League got together usually on an annual basis to renew friendship and alliance between the member nations they began their negotiations with each other by engaging in a condolence ceremony whereby each nation offered its condolences to the other nations for losses they had suffered since the last time they met. You know, somebody important had died or perhaps there had been warfare with outsiders and casualties had been suffered and so forth. And so the opening message was condolence to assuage the grief of those people who had losses since the last time they met. This was done by exchanging wampum beads and belts. They were very important to the iroquois because they held a great deal of spiritual power. So the exchange of wampum usually you did it on strings on wampum and they talked about giving three strings of wampum to dry the tears, open the ears and clear the throats of those who were grieving so that they could now see, hear and speak clearly again. So this was a symbolic way of recognizing the kind of burdens the people brought with them to these dip plumatic negotiations and the wampum was meant to clear away the bad thoughts. Kind of doing the thing the tobacco was doing in the calumet ceremony so you could see, speak, hear clearly and engage in these diplomatic negotiations. When wampum beads were strung together on strands of leather you could make a wampum belt, and this is what a wampum belt may have looked like. This is acrylic wampum that i bought from some folks who use basically modern methods to recreate this for people involved in the reenacting community and things like that. Its Pretty Amazing about these things look like and especially theyre color. White and purple that represented the shells they came from. And those contracting colors could then be woven into designs. And well see some of these a little later. But a lot of these designs hike you see here, like you see here have these geometric patterns that emphasize linking. Right, so a linking of arms or diamonds that are linked at the corners. And thats meant to show kind of unity and strength. Purple or black wampum they sometimes called it black wampum often it was used to symbolize war or mourning. White wampum was used to symbolize peace, wellbeing. So theres a color symbolism thats associated with these wampum beads as well. So they became material devices that were used to engage in the condolence ceremony, you can pass that around. And if youre a european diplomat going out to meet nativeamericans to engage in this diplomacy you better bring your wampum. This is an example of how these nativeamerican customs were something europeans had to learn to use. Another type of gift exchanged in the context of the call donan condolence ceremony were black strouds. And they were really navy blue strouds. And they became black that were meant to cover the graves of the deceased. To allow grieving relatives to put away the grief of those who had died and again clear the eyes, nose and throat and engage in negotiations. Do we have any questions about the engagement ceremony or calumet ceremony . Did they learn how to make it themselves . Yes, how did wampum get manufactured. Its a great question. So nativeamericans manufactured wampum before europeans show up. But when europeans show up they also bring tools that make it easier to manufacture wampum, so wampum beads tend to get smaller and nativeamericans continue to make wampum and europeans become interested in perching it. In early new netherland its supposedly used as money when the economy is just developing there. And by the 18th century we see evidence of wampum kind of being massproduced for the purpose in engaging in this type of diplomacy. The belts themselves were generally made by nativeamerican women. At the treaty of lancaster in 1744, 250 indians arrive. Approximately half of them are adult males. The other half are women and children. When these treaty negotiations are going on many of the women are spending time creating the wampum belts that will be exchanged in the course of the proceedings. So its a nativeamerican art that contact with the europeans is changing the production process and value but its still very much a nativeamerican process by which its being produced. All right, well, lets move on and well talk a bit about these treaty conferences that so fascinated franklin. In our view, our modern view if i say to you treaty you probably think of a document. You think about the treaty of versailles that ended world war i or you think about the peace of paris in 1783 which ended the american revolution. We tend to think of treaties as texts that are the result of negotiations, and europeans who traded with nativeamericans when they got together for these diplomatic meetings generally had very specific objectives, right . Were getting together with native peoples to talk about specific issues that have come up that need to be resolved. So, you know, matters of war and peace. We need to convince some native allies to go to war with us or we need to convince some enemies to make peace with us. Or they might have issues about the fur trade, right . We need to initiate contact with these people so we can expand our fur trade into that region. By the mid18th century, the era of the french and indian war a big party of these treaty negotiations involves the repatriation of captives. So these are kind of the very finite objectives that europeans often brought to the negotiating process. And then ideally a treaty would produce a written document at the end that kind of put all this down in writing so europeans could archive it and refer to it the next time they had an issue with the natives. T the nativeamerican perspective was a little different. For nativeamericans the treaty was about process as much as objectives. It mattered as much you were properly engaged in these customs than any specific agreement that was written down at the end. The iroquois when they wrote about when they talked about treaty making used a couple of very interesting metaphors. One was polishing the chain. They talked about their alliance with english colonies as the covenant chain alliance. You know, a chain has many links, together they have strength. In other words, you periodically have to get together with us and reenact all these rituals so we know you remain a person of good will, a person whos willing to treat us as equals. They also use another metaphor of clearing the path that the exchange in contact between native and colonial communities occurred along a path and that path would become overgrown. It would have brambles, trees and all sorts of obstacles. And therefore periodically you needed to get together and clear a path so that trade and communication remained open between both sides. And so this tension developed in the colonial era between native peoples who saw treaty making as a regular part. You got together periodically, you engage in these ritualases a sign of your good will and good intentions, and europeans didnt have a lot of patience for this. They taepded to only want to treat only when there was a specific issue. They didnt like the amount of time these treaty negotiations took or the expense often involved with them. So a kind of tugofwar develops between colonial governments which are trying to mipmize the time and expense of these treaty conferences and nativeAmerican Peoples saying, look, you need to show us the proper respect. You need to show us you care about us as allies and trading partners and so forth. So those treaty negotiations take place throughout the 17th and 18th century. And they become increasingly frequent over the course of the colonial era as colonists kind of get worn down by the indians demands that colonists treat them according to these terms so what did a treaty Conference Look like . In lancaster in 1744 the indians are in town for about 2 1 2 weeks, so 250 indians in town with a town that only has about 200 inhabitants, and you have three delegations there, what makes it a treaty conference . The primary activity is making speeches, is each side giving speeches to the other side to express discontent, express potential resolutions to conflicts or perhaps make proposals about the way they want to change their alliance or the fur trade or Something Like that. This speech making occurred around a counsel file and they usually convened in public. Both nativeamericans and europeans attached a notion of propriety. They called it happening in the bushes. And meetings that happen in the bushes had that connotation of people kind of pulling the strings behind the scene, perhaps acting out of selfish interest rather than representing the interest of their people or governor or Something Like that. Both sides like the idea of convening these treaties in towns like lancaster. Some convened in philadelphia. Some convened in boston. Generally speaking nativeamericans prefrd these meetings occur in frontier towns. They were a little easier for the indians to get to, and the indians werent as threatened by comuneicable diseases. Lancaster, pennsylvania, albany, new york, these were small frontier towns that became center for this kind of diplomacy. This was an image of a map that shows a treaty conference happening on the ohio frontier after a British Military expedition to the region. And its not a perfect image, but one that somewhat approximates what happened at lancaster. Oftentimes in these towns there wasnt a public building large enough to accommodate the size of the audience these meetings would attract. You have a group of officials in this case British Military officers sitting around the council fire on one side, you have a group of indian males sitting on the other side. This indian is making a speech at the council fire. He has a wampum belt hes holding in his hand as he makes the speech. As you look around the scene you also see the tents of soldiers in camp nearby. Heres a scottish shoulder. Hes wearing a kilt right there. If this was lancaster they wouldnt be soldiers, theyd be the indians who would encamp at the end of town and some townspeople. What i love about this image, too, you see women in this image. You have an indian woman here with a child, another indian woman here with a child and another one right here. So theyre all kind of part of the scene. And theyre listening to whats going on, and the proceedings kind of have legitimacy because theyre occurring out there in the open. You also have a colonial secretary right there also serving as the purposes of stenographer, taking down notes whos recording whats going on. Which raises a very interesting question, which was if these were people of european and nativeamerican descent, and they didnt speak each other languages how did they actually communicate with each other . And there are two primary ways through which that happened. And i want to spend some time now talking about that. The first is interpreters. It was very important to have interpreters who could relate to the substance of the speech given by one side to the other side. Given the history of these meetings we see several types of people emerge as being kind of the typical interpreters. Missionaries, we know they made an effort to learn nativeamerican languages, and so missionaries often served as interpreters at these treaty conferences. And theyre converts, nativeamerican christians who had learned perhaps french, perhaps dutch, perhaps english well enough to serve as interpreters would sometimes serve this role as well. You might also have fur traders serving as interpreters and nativeamerican women the fur traders had married who picked up language, you know, the fur traders picking up language by virtue of their engagement with nativeamerican communities. Growing up with a foot in each culture would be capable of doing this. Other people who might serve as interpreters, nativeamericans or europeans who had spent time sometimes unwillingly among the other side as children. Children absorb language very quickly, they learn language very quickly. And so sometimes the interpreters were people who had spent time like i said willingly or unwillingly among the folks on the other side. On the european side, you know, indian children who had been placed in schools in an effort to educate them in the english language or catechize them in christianity. On the indian side it would be oftentimes young people taken captive during wars and brought up in indian families. At the treaty of lancaster the most important interpreter was a fellow named conrad wiser. Have any of you heard of him before . Hes one of these early americans who has a fascinating story to him. If you drive east of gettysburg and you go into Amish Country youll find the conrad wiser homestead. Its a state Historic Site you can visit today. He was born in germany and came over in the 1710s to new york with a large group of german migrants who were very poor. And when they got to new york moved up into the mohawk region Mohawk Valley region in order to find land and basically live as this kind of prettyinsular german speaking community. They wanted to be far away. They didnt want to be bothered by folks. But as a young boy conrad wiser was taken by his father and placed in a local mohawk community. The german immigrants wanted somebody to develop the Language Skills to communicate with the indians who lived nearby. And so as a boy conrad wiser went to live with the mohawks, and he learned the mohawk language. And then as an adult he moved into pennsylvania. He came down the valley and became a fir trader and a farmer on the pennsylvania frontier. And because of his Language Skills became an interpreter for the colony of pennsylvania, also served an interpreter for the colony of virginia at the treaty of lancaster in 1744. He had a pretty good reputation. The nativeamericans liked him and spoke of him as having two sides, an indian side and a european side. Colonial governments generally trusted him, considered him to be fairly up right. Unlike a lot of interpreters who they didnt trust because they might have been of a different ethnicity or they never trusted fir traders and that sort of thing. But wiser had a good reputation not only for his ability to speak native languages but also to understand and interpret and teach the protocol of diplomatic exchange. Colden was a new york official, scottish, its a great scottish name who migrated to new york about the same time as conrad wiser. And colden in the 1720s wrote a history of the iroquois. He was very much interested in the Iroquois League. Historians still read his history today. Its not really a great book, but its probably the first history of the iroquois written in inenglithe english language. He was fascinated by nativeamerican speech but didnt speak the language himself. He said i suspect our interpreters may not have done justice to the inden eloquence. The indians may strongly move our passions by their lively images. Ive heard them speak with much vivacity and elocution. In other words hes witnessed indian speakers who are able to move their audiences even though their audiences didnt understand a word they were saying. And this is an image not from coldens book but a french book from that era. But presenting an indian speaker and his audience and its like a scene out ofane shpt rome, right . Wearing togas and around the public forum somewhere, so this notion europeans had, that inna gift to communicate through speech without necessarily relying on words to do so. What does that mean . Well, gentlemen further, the cadence of their voice, the posture, the way they moved about the room, all of these were evidence of the indians eloquence. This image was actually based on the image we saw earlier from that map in the ohio country, right . This was done by benjamin west, when an account of that treaty in ohio was being published. He did this image for you. I want to point out a few things about you sorry about that so heres our indian speaker, right . You can see his gesture, pointing with his finger, at the council fire, a wampum belt in his hand, this guy is smoking his pipe, and then look at his audience. This is colonel henry bouquet, the commander of the english country that marched out to the ohio country, and these are officers listening. Look at the rapt attention, even among the native american listeners, theyre enraptured by this image. Theres no interpreter. What is the artist telling you . Hes saying by the simply sheer presence and eloquence is moving these people. This guy with his hand over his hard, concentrating, leaning on the shoulder what is he writing down . Clearly theyre being moving. People believed that native american societies were literally younger than european societies, the western hemisphere was clereated, so therefore native americans were closer to the origin time. History tells us up to the tower of babel spoke the same language, and then god divided it up. So all human languages descended from a common root. If native americans were it and people like franklin and jefferson believed you should study native american languages for this purpose, it will help you understand the originals of human language around the globe, and they also believed that natural language was still kind of hardwired into us. If you heard it being spoken, even though you couldnt comprehend mentally the words, it will still move you. Even though you cant understand the words, the gesture, the cadence, theres an emotional wallop that its packing that is being communicated. So thats speeches as a source of fascination and interest among these folks. I can pause for a minute if anyone has questions. All right, well move on to another exchange. Thats the exchange of objects, weighing in which europeans and indians communicated without necessarily making speeches or sharing words. I wanted to go back to wampum builts. You did a reading today based on a treaty conference that johnson was have in niagara and detroit. Whenever johnson or one of his indian contemporaries was making a speed, point of emphasis were with wampum belts. They became devices to make your meaning clear to an audience that perhaps did not speak the same language as you did. When you read the johnson document, youll they have physical descriptions of the wampum belts, so here you see some of these wampum builts and their designs. This one used the contrast between the purple and the white to emphasize two paths or two roads. Native americans often interpreted this is designs as you go your way, ill go mine, right . Well trade and commune caution, but each side has its own path to follow. This belt has human figures links arms. Its meant to emphasize a certain parity, volitional alliance. Not a design that emphasizes hierarchy, im better than you are, you are subordinate to me. Its a design that says were all equal partners in this particular alliance. Wampum worked that way. Another great image of the wampum belt, this is a black remember purple or black symbolizes war. The white has been used to form the image of a hatchet. One of the other common i had yoms of american english that arises is taking up the haspel other burying the hatchet. It was meant to symbolize i want you to pick up the hatch el and go to war with me, or bury the hatch et trade. The belts could be accepted, the other side might say no thanks, well think about that. In some cases they were rejected, literally kicked away or thrown into the dust. That was a way of extreme anger. Other types of exchange that went on here, food, drink and tobacco. These were items very important to how these treaty negotiations began and how they ended. When independence yanks traveled to a colonial town like lancaster or pennsylvania, they should expect they were expec be treated well. It could involve a toast when they arrived, a feast, and provisions for their families while encamped on the edge of town. Thats why the stuff was so expensive for colonial governments. Colonial governors were always like lets get this moving t. And the independenceance were like, we like it here, that was the way of drawing out the proceedings, making it more expensive, more pliable and willing to hear that i complaints and perhaps bend to their will. Theres oftentimes this image we have of thesie treaties, where rum was flowing easily, and alcohol was certainly part of the gifting that went on, but for the most part the emphasis on things being open and public, there was not abuse. It was more of offering a toast at the beginning or the end. The governor of pennsylvania is wraps things up, he calls for a toast to the indians, and the first toast he has them small kind of cordial glasses, with rum poured in a small amount. They toast, thats it. The next day they come back, the indians make their closing speech, the governor has them bring out big wineglasses, saying that yesterday was the french glasses, and now this is our much superior regard for you. Thats an example of how alcohol might be used in this context. Another way in which kind of connections were made across the council fire, the exchange of names. Native americans would give names to colonial governors that would admit them into these allian alliances. Those names would pass from one coloniale governor to the next. The governor of new york was coleair, but after that every new york governor was named coleair. In pennsylvania, the governor was named onus. They had given that name for william penn, and it was a pun, it men like onus meant feather, quill. So when they called him onus, his name in our language is onus, pen. So every subsequent colonial governor was known as onus. In maryland, at the maryland delegation at the treaty of lancaster in 1774, hes given the name tokari hogan, the honored place in between. In between the government of pennsylvania and the government of virginia. Of course, when they names happened, there was an expectations presents would be offered in response, so the colonial delegation of maryland hosts a feast for the indians in exchange for this name, so its all about reciprocity. Conrad wiser actually at one point at the treaty of lancaster sits down with the colonial delegates about to have a dinner in the courthouse and we have to go over some etiquette issues, and tells them the proper way to interact with these native american dinner guests theyre going to be having. So that kind of emphasis on not just talking to the indians, but learning to engage with them in a social way is very, very important. Lets wrap up by talking about what kind of artifacts they produced. The colonial secretary would be jotting down notes. If an agreement was reached, especially if it was a land session, native americans would have their names written out by the secretary, and then they would write these sort of pictographs next to their name. Usually these are clan totems, so that was a big objective on the colonial governors, was to get indians to sign a document. That means they agreed to this land session, they agreed to these points we addressed. Then in some cases, not all, but in some cases th s those treati were published. Franklin published this one in 1745, so a year after the treaty at lancaster. These were not bestsellers of their day, but they did circulate obvious times editor tried to explain the rituals that were described, so they did become kind of a guide for people interested in understanding the rules, the protocol of native american diplomacy. In the case of the treaty of lancaster, which did circulate in london, the chief iroquois speaker, gave very famous speeches, so famous that in 1755, when a london novelist was writing a romance novel, he made him a character. He had him coming over to london and falling in love with an english girl. He had been dead for five years when he did that, but his figure had become familiar enough to readers in london that he could serve this purpose in a romance novel. For the native americans themselves, of course, there was this distrust of what kasatigo pointed to. We know the guy writing that stuff down isnt necessarily serving our interests. They knee especially when it came to land purchases and whatnot, oftentimes what was written down did not reflect what they thought occurred. So wampum belts became the equivalent of the printed treaty for the native americans. The belts were kept, could be brought back out at subsequent treaties as evidence of what happened. They would be used by native american speakers to remind why werance of commitments they had made at previous treaties. And into the 19th century, they were kept as a way of kind of preserving the history of these diplomatic relationships that had origins in the coloniaial period. Today the unique nature of native americans in the united states, the fact that they had this semisovereign status that separates them from the states in which they live is a legacy of this treatymaking that occurred in the colonial era and revolutionary area. It was recognition that indians operated at separate sovereign nations who met to negotiate and conduct their own affairs in their best interests. When native americans today claim a special relationship with the federal govern thats distinct from state governments, theyre basing thor claims on treaties that were signed in the 19th, 18th centuries. Some even predate that, but for our purposes in the federal government, the separate is interested in treaties signed after 1776, right . But you get the idea. Any questions before we wrap up . Were going to end there. Well see you on monday and well Start Talking about captivity. Every saturday at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on American History tv on cspan3, go inside a Different College classroom and hear about topics ranging from the american revolution, civil rights and u. S. President s to 9 11. Thanks for your patience and for logging into class. With most College Campuses closed due to the impact of coronavirus, watch professors transferred to a virtual seating. Gorbachev did most of the work to change the soviet union, but reagan met him halfway, reagan encouraged him. Reagan supported him. Freedom of the press, madison originally called it freedom of the use of the press and it is indeed freedom to print things and publish things. Its not for a freedom for what we refer to institutionals the press. Lesson in history on cspan3, every saturday at 8 00 p. M. Eastern. Lectures in history is also available as a podcast. Weeknights this month were featuring American History tv programs as a preview of what is available every weekend on cspan3. Tonight, university of maryland professor Christopher Bonner teaches a class about the concept of power in antebellum society. And he discusses how the invention of the cotton gin and resulting expansion of the industry have affected the relationship between owners and the enslaved. Watch tonight. Enjoy American History this week and every weekend on cspan3. Now a class from the university of utah about western settlement before, during and after the american revolution. Using the kentucky territory as an example, a history professor