Treaty of Watertown

The Treaty of Watertown, the first foreign treaty concluded by the United States of America after the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, was signed on July 19, 1776, in the Edmund Fowle House in the town of Watertown, Massachusetts Bay. The treaty established a military alliance between the United States and the St. John's and some of the Mi'kmaw bands against Great Britain for the early years of the American Revolutionary War.[1] Seven Mi'kmaw bands chose to decline the American treaty.[2]   The Mi’kmaq People were in praxis with three virtues that are the supremacy of the Great Spirit, respect for Mother Earth, and people power that were based on their cultural ways of life before contact with early European settlers.[3]

While the youthful nation of the United States was seeking more manpower for the fight against the British rule. The collective fight would decrease the British monarchy’s authority, invoke a new sovereignty of leadership with democracy, and make relations with the Mi’kmaq and the First Nations of neighboring Canada.[4]

Three years later, on 7 June 1779, the Mi'kmaq "delivered up" the Watertown treaty to Nova Scotia Governor Michael Francklin and re-established all the Mi'kmaw bands loyalty to the British.[5][6] After the British resounding victory over the American Penobscot Expedition, according to Mi'kmaw historian Daniel Paul, Mi'kmaq in present-day New Brunswick renounced the Watertown treaty and signed a treaty of alliance with British on 24 September 1779.[4][7][8]

  1. ^ "Documentary history of the state of Maine". Portland.
  2. ^ Military operations in eastern Maine and Nova Scotia during ... Kidder, Frederic, 1804-1885., p. 57
  3. ^ Paul, Daniel N. (2002). We are Not the Savages: A Mi'kmaq Perspective on the Collision between European and Native American Civilizations (2nd ed.). Fernwood Publishing. p. 12. ISBN 978-1552662090.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
  4. ^ a b Paul, Daniel N. (2000). We Were Not the Savages: A Mi'kmaq Perspective on the Collision Between European and Native American Civilizations (2nd ed.). Fernwood. pp. [https://archive.org/details/wewerenotsavages0000paul/page/170 p.170. ISBN 978-1-55266-039-3. (includes full text of both treaties).
  5. ^ Michael Francklin, p. 282
  6. ^ Beamish Murdoch. History of Nova Scotia, p. 599
  7. ^ Murdoch, Beamish (1866). A History of Nova-Scotia, Or Acadie. Vol. II. Halifax: J. Barnes. p. 595.
  8. ^ John Allen re: Watertown, p.318