That Native American relations were considered at all as part of the Articles of Confederation is a little bit of a mystery, but it’s possible that the Congress was just looking for some across-the-board consistency when it came to that sort of thing.

After all, you couldn’t have the folks in the Southern States battling with the Cherokee while the Northern States, which were more or less peaceful with the Iroquois, doing nothing to assist. It’s just too many variables to consider.

Ultimately, the Federalists won this argument, in the sense that Native American relations would be left to the US government to deal with, provided that the rights of the individual states were not infringed upon.

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