Susquehannocks to settle among them. These offers were well received, but Maryland authorities could not convince their Indian allies to accept Andros' offered peace terms, organizing them to march toward the Delaware to fulfill the goal of strengthening the Maryland claim to the area. Andros responded by urging the Susquehannocks to retreat into New York, where they would be beyond Maryland's reach, and delivering a strongly worded threat to Maryland, that it would either have to acknowledge his sovereignty over the Susquehannocks, or they would have to take them back peaceably. He also offered his services as a mediator, pointing out that the absence of the Susquehannocks now left Maryland settlements open to direct attack by the Iroquois. In a council held at the Lenape village of Shackamaxon (site of present-day Philadelphia) in February and March 1677, all of the major parties met; still, no final agreements were reached, and Andros ordered the Susquehannocks remaining with the Lenape to disperse to other parts of New York in April. Maryland sent Henry Coursey to New York to engage Andros and eventually the Iroquois in peace talks, while at the same time, they sent surveyors to lay out plots on land also claimed by New York on Delaware Bay. Coursey was instructed to offer Andros what was, in essence, a £100 bribe that an Indian peace might be reached in exchange for that land. Andros refused the bribe, and Coursey ended up being compelled to negotiate further through Andros and the Mohawk in Albany. The peace agreed upon in negotiations that followed in Albany in the summer of 1677 is considered one of the foundations of the set of alliances and treaties called the Covenant Chain. Although Andros could not prevent Baltimore from granting some land on the Delaware, he successfully blunted the Maryland leader's attempt to control an even greater portion of land. The duke eventually deeded those lands to William Penn, and they became part of the state of Delaware. Control of the Jerseys The governance of the Jerseys also created problems for Andros. James had awarded the territory west of the Hudson River to proprietors John Berkeley and George Carteret, and Berkeley had then deeded the western portion (which became known as West Jersey) to a partnership of Quakers. Berkeley had not transferred his proprietary rights to this group, and the exact nature of the rights James had given