lxxviii Introduction.

House, of a more general scope than the acts just discussed, "for the relief
of insolvent debtors", but consideration of it had been postponed until the
next session (Arch. Md. LIX, lx, 154, 212, 213, 229). At the May, 1766,
session, this bill, with the consent of the house, was again brought in by Selby,
to meet the same fate that it had at the previous session, action upon it being
again postponed until the following session (pp. 26, 59). It failed of passage
again at the November-December, 1766, session (pp. 118, 181, 186-187, 190),
and was not heard of at the 1768 session. No copy of either of these bills has
been found, but in 1774 a bill of general scope, doubtless along similar lines,
was passed under which insolvent debtors, without waiting for legislative action,
could, under certain circumstances, bring their cases for determination before
three justices of the county court (Hanson's Laws of Maryland, 1787; Acts
of 1774, chap, xxviii).

NANTICOKE INDIANS

Nanticoke Indian affairs occupied much of Governor Sharpe's attention
in his opening speech to the 1768 Assembly. He said that "since the last
session he had received Letters from Sir William Johnson, His Majestys
Superintendent of Indian Affairs in this District of North America, relative
to a Representation which had been made to him on behalf of the Maryland
Indians, some of whom are, it seems, desirous to remove to Ossiningo [Otsa-
ningo], and be incorporated with the Six Nations, if they may be permitted to
dispose of the Lands, which, by the Legislature of this Province, were hereto-
fore appropriated to the Use of these Peoples Ancestors" (p. 282). Sir Wil-
liam Johnson's letters, a petition from the Nanticoke Indians, and the fullest
information obtainable concerning the Indians, together with a list of the
Maryland lands occupied by them were sent by the Governor so that the As-
sembly could determine a reasonable compensation to them if the laws restrain-
ing their selling their lands were repealed. The Governor asked that this matter
be given prompt consideration because the person [Amos Ogden] sent by Sir
William to act for him and for the Indians, was now in the Province, await-
ing their deliberations (pp. 281, 282). Both houses promised prompt con-
sideration. The Upper House referred the petition of the Indians and various
papers relating to the matter to the Lower House, and this house appointed a

special committee of six, headed by Thomas Johnson, to investigate and report

its findings (pp. 286, 333, 335-337).

To make the situation clear to the reader, it should be explained that a
migration north of the Nanticokes from Maryland which had begun about the
year 1742, had continued during the next two decades until by the year 1768
the greater part of the tribe had settled on the headwaters of the Susquehanna
at Otsaningo, the present Binghampton in Broome County, New York. This
migration had been a leisurely trek up the Susquehanna Valley extending over
a period of several years, with long stops as the Indians moved from place to
place through Pennsylvania, carrying with them the bones of their important
dead (Penna, Mag. of Hist, and Biog., 1943, pp. 345-355).

The Proceedings of the Council of Maryland and the Correspondence of
Governor Sharpe throw an interesting side light upon this hegira of the