Treaty of St. Mary

This document describes the settlement of the Treaty of St. Mary's in the state of Ohio between the United States and the Delaware, Kickapoo, Miami, and Wyandot peoples in 1818. Lewis Cass represented the president of the United States and convinced those present that the government would rather pay for Indian lands than see the Indians dispossessed of their tribal lands by white settlers. This one-page letter measures 7.5" x 9.75" (19.05 x 24.77 cm). It was found in the papers of Thomas Rotch, who served as the Quakers' observer of American Indian issues in Ohio. Thomas Rotch (1767-1823), a Quaker and early settler of Kendal, Ohio (now Massillon), was active in the abolition movement and conducted slaves to freedom on the Underground Railroad. He also served as a correspondent for the Committee on Indian Concerns. The Rotch-Wales Collection comprises several thousand items, including Quaker and abolitionist materials, household remedies and recipes, weather reports and machinery plans, and personal letters of Thomas and Charity Rotch and their family. It contains personal and business correspondence, diaries, documents, accounts, ledgers, and daybooks. A large portion of the collection consists of the personal and business correspondence, documents, and business papers of Arvine Wales I (1785-1854), who accompanied Rotch from Hartford to Ohio in 1811, worked for him, and carried on Rotch's business interests after his death. The papers of his son, Arvine C. Wales (1827-1882), a lawyer and civic leader in Massillon, are also part of the collection