13.
Letter of H.Knox, June 15, 1789.

This is the lettering on the back of the volume, and for convenience it will be used in referring to it.] This concession at the time seemed important to the whites; but the Indians probably never understood that there had been any change of attitude; nor did it make any practical difference, for, whatever the theory might be, the lands had eventually to be won, partly by whipping the savages in fight, partly by making it better worth their while to remain at peace than to go to war.
Knox and the Treaties.
The Federal officials under whose authority these treaties were made had no idea of the complexity of the problem.

In 1789 the Secretary of War, the New Englander Knox, solemnly reported to the President that, if the treaties were only observed and the Indians conciliated, they would become attached to the United States, and the expense of managing them, for the next half-century, would be only some fifteen thousand dollars a year.

[Footnote: American State Papers, Vol.IV., Indian Affairs, I., p.
13.] He probably represented, not unfairly, the ordinary Eastern view of the matter.

He had not the slightest idea of the rate at which the settlements were increasing, though he expected that tracts of Indian territory would from time to time be acquired.