Cadwallader Colden’s Papers: Another source for 1707-1720 (Minute Book 2) besides the Schedule of Propositions …

In addition to Peter Wraxall’s An Abridgement of the Indian Affairs and the The Livingston Indian Records, I recently discovered that Cadwallader Colden compiled detailed notes from the records of theAlbany Indian Commissioners for the period from 1707 through 1720 for a continuation of his History of the Five Indian Nations. He never completed the book, but the notes are printed in Volume 9 of The Letters and Papers of Cadwallader Colden, printed for the New York Historical Society in 1937, which is available on the Internet Archive here. The continuation of the History begins on page 359.

Colden’s notes roughly correspond to the second volume of the records. They cover much of the same period as the detailed portion of the Schedule of Propositions Made by the Indians and Answers Given to Them … Colden’s notes are better written but less comprehensive. They confirm the basic accuracy the Schedule of Propositions by including some things covered in it that Wraxall omitted. Colden omits many things himself, but his notes are a valuable addition to the fragmentary record for this period.

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Cadwallader Colden, by Matthew Pratt. (Engraving by P. Purdon Graham?] Frontispiece to volume one of the Cadwallader Colden Papers, in Collections of the New-York Historical Society 1917 (v. 50).