The responses of the various Indian leaders demonstrated their knowledge of the changing circumstances in which they found themselves in an age of immigration and agricultural settlement. Chief Paulus Claus of the Bay of Quinte Mohawk, whose band had sent a written message that emphasized that 'the great cause of Indian improvement' was 'our only hope to prevent our race from perishing, and to enable us to stand on the same ground as the white man,' said bluntly that 'we cannot be a people unless we conform ourselves to the ways of the white people.' Though 'there was a time when the Indians owned the whole of this continent … no sooner did the white men come, than the Indians were driven from their former homes, like the wild animals. We are now driven far from our former homes, into the woods.' He could not see a solution to the problem of dispossession and removal 'unless we exert ourselves to conform to the ways of the white man. Then we shall remain permanently where we are, if not, we shall continually be driven from the fertile lands, until the white people shall bring us to the rocks where nothing grows.'

    But in spite of much objection, the assembled chiefs with more or less enthusiasm and greater or less grace gave their support for the creation of several manual labor schools, and promised to support these institutions by diverting one-quarter of the annuities they received from the government for twenty-five years.