Treaty of Canandaigua

The Treaty of Canandaigua (or Konondaigua, as spelled in the treaty itself), also known as the Pickering Treaty and the Calico Treaty, is a treaty signed after the American Revolutionary War between the Grand Council of the Six Nations and President George Washington, representing the United States of America.

It was signed at Canandaigua, New York, on November 11, 1794, by fifty royaner (hoya:ne:h) and war chiefs representing the Grand Council of the Six Nations of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy (including the Cayuga, Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Seneca and Tuscarora Nations) and by Timothy Pickering, official agent of President Washington.

Background of the treaty

The Treaty of Canandaigua arose from geo-political tensions following the American Revolutionary War. Britain's defeat forced it to relinquish land east of the Mississippi River to the United States, but its original rights to that territory were disputed, causing resentment among the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, to whom the land originally belonged. Some indigenous peoples on the western frontier remained loyal to Britain and were hostile toward the United States. The United States faced both Haudenosaunee resentment over its acceptance of Ohio Valley land from Britain and the threat of renewed frontier conflict.

To avoid war, the United States sought to establish a firm western boundary and recognized that Haudenosaunee neutrality was essential. Two earlier attempts at peace the treaties of Fort Stanwix and Fort Harmar were considered failures by the United States government, as both increased rather than reduced tensions.

Henry Knox, the United States secretary of war, launched a military operation on the western frontier in September 1790 and appointed Timothy Pickering as Indian commissioner to address Haudenosaunee grievances. Pickering pursued a "strategy of conciliation and compromise", beginning with a conference with the Seneca Nation.