The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #8734   Message #3827133
Posted By: Joe Offer
17-Dec-16 - 05:19 PM
Thread Name: ADD: As Long as the Grass Shall Grow (P. La Farge)
Subject: RE: ADD: As Long as the Grass Shall Grow & Indianee
The LaFarge song indicates that George Washington signed a treaty with the Seneca Nation with language similar to "as long as the grass shall grow and rivers flow." I understand similar language was used in the Treaty of Fort Laramie in 1851, and the Treaty of Medicine Lodge with the Sioux in 1867. I haven't been able to find texts of these and other treaties with this language. Can anybody find them?
-Joe-

Here's the Treaty of Fort Laramie

Here's a whole library of Indian treaties: http://digital.library.okstate.edu/KAPPLeR/Vol2/toc.htm

It would be nice to be able to document original sources of this "grass shall grow and rivers flow" language. I see references to it all over, but no original sources. Could this be an early example of "false news"? The Indian treaties I've read sound like treaties - no poetic language in them.

-Joe-