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Show 33 562 INDIAN LAND CESSIONS IN THE UNITED STATES [ETH.ANN.18 COLONIAL POLICY TOWARD THE INDIANS THE POLICY IN GENERAL. In treating of the policy and methods adopted by the different colonies in their dealings with the Indians in regard to their lands, one object constantly kept iu view will be to limit the investigation strictly to this subject. No attempt, therefore, will be made to enter into the general Indian history of colonial days, nor to discuss the rights or wrongs of settlers or Indians. As heretofore stated, the scope of the present work does not embrace the moral element in tbe numerous transactions referred to, nor the policy adopted; it is limited as strictly as possible to the facts seen from the legal point of view and to the usual custom of the nation or colony. As the policy of the different colonies in the respect now treated of was seldom, if ever, expressed at the outset, it must, to a large extent, be ascertained from their practical dealings with the natives in regard to their lands and their titles thereto. Reference will be made, therefore, to some of the more important purchases, cessions, grants, etc, by which possession of the lands of the different colonies was obtained and to the laws enacted; but no attempt to give i> systematic list of the various cessions to or by the colonies, or of all the laws relating to the subject, will be made. The only object in view in presenting such as will be given is to furnish data by which to judge of the method of treating with the Indians and the policy adopted. Even where historians have clearly defined the policy of a colony in this respect, the data are still furnished that the reader may be enabled to form his own opinion, for historians are often more or less influenced by the point of view from which they write. It may be remarked here in regard to the lands purchased of the natives in the early days, that in many cases the bounds mentioned in the deeds are so indefinite that it is impossible to define them on a map. In some instances the limits actually adopted have been preserved by tradition, but in many others they were so indefinite that one purchase overlapped or duplicated or even triplicated, iu part, another. As examples of this class, the purchases by the settlers of Connecticut may be referred to. This uncertainty hangs about almost every one of the earlier colonial purchases. Even those by William Peun, so lauded in history as examples of sturdy Quaker honesty, must be included in this category, as their bounds and extent are poorly defined and in some instances depend entirely on tradition. The extent, in some cases, was decided by a day's travel on foot or horseback, while some of the grants overlapped one another. A loose custom prevailed iu some of the colonies of allowing individuals to purchase from the Indians without sufficient strictness as to the authoritative acknowledgment or recording of such deeds of purchase. Many of these are known only traditionally, others only through law- |