Treaties of Fort Stanwix (1768 and 1784)
The first Treaty of Fort Stanwix was signed in 1768 between the Haudenosaunee (also known as the Six Nations or Iroquois Confederacy) and British Superintendent of Indian Affairs in the Northern District, Sir William Johnson. It was the first major treaty to be negotiated according to the Royal Proclamation of 1763. Five years after the proclamation had set the western boundary of colonial settlement at the Appalachian Mountains — reserving the vast North American interior as Indigenous territory — the Treaty of Fort Stanwix pushed the border west to the Ohio River, opening up lands to white settlers. The second Treaty of Fort Stanwix, signed in 1784, was an agreement between the Haudenosaunee and the newly independent United States. This treaty redrew the eastern boundaries of the first Treaty of Fort Stanwix, surrendering more Indigenous territory.