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Book, page 92 / 199 The Indian on the other hand, began to feel uneasy about having sold so much of his land. He regretted very much the permission he had given the white man to own one foot of ground, on the west side of the Genesee river. Natural boundaries with him weighed more than with the white man; and had the white man's possessions been confined strictly to the east side of the river, he would have felt better satisfied though it had cost him a larger area of ground. The white man's mode of running lines and of measuring land, he did not comprehend or appreciate. But when the line was made by a creek, river, or mountain, he understood it, and it harmonized better with his views of fitness, in dividing up the surface of this great earth. He was utterly unschooled in the art of computing by acres and roods. But the water's edge he had traversed with his light canoe, and with every point and islet on the lakes he was familiar. He had followed the rivers to where they came bubbling up from their rocky bed amid mountain elevations, and there was not a tributary stream or run, by whose side he had not rested, or by whose music he had not been charmed, keeping pace with it, as it went innocently busying and babbling along on its downward way. With any or all of these landmarks he was familiar, and when fixed upon as boundaries, he could readily recur to, and religiously keep them; for they had been made by the Great Spirit, and it was his life- study to know them. Not satisfied with the large purchase already made, the white man contemplated still greater acquisitions of Indian land. Little did the red man suspect, while roaming unmolested over his native hills, that in civilized circles, the advantages and disadvantages of his cherished home were canvassed, and made the subject of negotiation and purchase. And it awakened his deepest surprise when assured, that without his knowledge or consent, his land had been sold. He was not aware that his ignorance of the value of his country, for the purposes of civilization, was made a subject of barter among his superiors in knowledge, and that men of enterprize were willing to pay for the privilege of making a bargain with him for his lands. This right, as we have seen, was claimed by the government; Massachusetts holding the right of buying the Indian lands in Western New York. This right, under sanction of which the Phelps and Gorham purchase was made, was in part sold, as related in a preceding chapter. The pre-emptive right to the remainder was bought by Robert Morris in the spring of 1791. He re- sold soon after, to a company of gentlemen in Holland; pledging himself to
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