"Treaty" with the Indians

When many Americans were moving West there were many areas in which they ran into Native Americans. One such instance occurred when Rufus Putnam was in the Ohio Valley and wrote a letter to Congress stressing the need for a treaty with the Indians in order to purchase this land from them. Congress had already "purchased" the land from the Indians with a treaty, however this treaty was not completely fair and the Indians did not agree to it, so they wanted a better treaty. Putnam assured Congress that "unless these wrongs are redressed and the lands fairly purchased, the Indians will certainly go to war" ("On a Treaty with Indians"). The wrongs was the wrongs of the land being basically stolen from them and being taken from them by force rather than a fair treaty and if this was not changed by means of giving the Indians a new treaty then they were ready for war. There was much tension in the relationship as it seems that the Indians were tired of having their land taken from them so unless they got a fair trade they were surely going to fight back to keep their land. The government was trying to give the Indians much less than fair market value for the land and basically they were just taking over the land by power and intimidation. However, Putnam stressed that their needed to be a treaty in order to avoid war. It also seemed like Putnam respected the Indians as he described many of them to be friendly, and claimed that those who acted as bandits were only a few and were a part of the minority. This goes against common racist ideas of the time in which people assumed that the majority of Indians were lawless bandits and that the nice Native Americans were a part of the minority. Putnam had either sympathy or respect for the Native Americans as he wanted them to be given a fair treaty and stressed the importance of avoiding a war with the Indians. Whether this was because he wanted to avoid a war because America was a new country or because he respects the Indians is unknown, but it is clear he did not want to simply overpower the Native Americans. While Putnam was much more fair to the Indians than most he still recognized the power that America possessed over them. In the rest of his letter he addresses the new land that America is about to purchase and what can be done with it. By doing this he assumes that America has enough money and/or force to take away this land from the Indians. It is sad that the Native Americans were so helpless that it was simply assumed that if America wanted some of their land they could just take it. I find it a little confusing and hypocritical that the Native Americans would agree to sell their land by way of a treaty because they felt that land was one of the most sacred things in the world and that it could not be owned. If something cannot be owned, how can it be sold? Perhaps the Native Americans realized that they were going to lose their land one way or another. They chose to sell it and make money rather than fight for it and in all likelihood lose it. These were basically their two options, and it would be truly silly to have men die in order to lose land when you could make money by losing the land. What confuses me is if they fought for their land would that be considered trying to own the land or simply standing their own ground? I believe that this would be standing their own ground and not be considered owning the land as they respected the land and did not try to make a profit from it in this scenario.

Putnam, Rufus " On a Treaty with Indians," Annals of American History. <http://america.eb.com/america/article?articleId=385355&query=On+a+Treaty+with+Indians>[Accessed February 5, 2010].