GENERAL REMOVAL OF INDIANS.
The Indian tribes in the different sections of the Union, had
experienced very different fates--in the northern and middle States
nearly extinct--in the south and west they remained numerous and
formidable. Before the war of 1812, with Great Britain, these
southern and western tribes held vast, compact bodies of land in
these States, preventing the expansion of the white settlements
within their limits, and retaining a dangerous neighbor within
their borders. The victories of General Jackson over the Creeks,
and the territorial cessions which ensued made the first great
breach in this vast Indian domain; but much remained to be done
to free the southern and western States from a useless and
dangerous population--to give them the use and jurisdiction of
all the territory within their limits, and to place them, in that
respect, on an equality with the northern and middle States.
From the earliest periods of the colonial settlements, it had
been the policy of the government, by successive purchases of
their territory, to remove these tribes further and further to the
west; and that policy, vigorously pursued after the war with Great
Britain, had made much progress in freeing several of these States
(Kentucky entirely, and Tennessee almost) from this population,
which so greatly hindered the expansion of their settlements and
so much checked the increase of their growth and strength. Still
there remained up to the year 1824--the last year of Mr. Monroe's
administration--large portions of many of these States, and of the
territories, in the hands of the Indian tribes; in Georgia, nine and
a half millions of acres; in Alabama, seven and a half millions; in
Mississippi, fifteen and three quarter millions; in the territory
of Florida, four millions; in the territory of Arkansas, fifteen
and a half millions; in the State of Missouri, two millions and
three quarters; in Indiana and Illinois, fifteen millions; and in
Michigan, east of the lake, seven millions. All these States and
territories were desirous, and most justly and naturally so, to get
possession of these vast bodies of land, generally the best within
their limits. Georgia held the United States bound by a compact to
relieve her. Justice to the other States and territories required
the same relief; and the applications to the federal government,
to which the right of purchasing Indian lands, even within the
States, exclusively belonged, were incessant and urgent. Piecemeal
acquisitions, to end in getting the whole, were the constant effort;
and it was evident that the encumbered States and territories would
not, and certainly ought not to be satisfied, until all their soil
was open to settlement, and subject to their jurisdiction. To the
Indians themselves it was equally essential to be removed. The
contact and pressure of the white race was fatal to them. They had
dwindled under it, degenerated, become depraved, and whole tribes
extinct, or reduced to a few individuals, wherever they attempted to
remain in the old States; and could look for no other fate in the
new ones.
"What," exclaimed Mr. Elliott, senator from Georgia, in advocating
a system of general removal--"what has become of the immense hordes
of these people who once occupied the soil of the older States?
In New England, where numerous and warlike tribes once so fiercely
contended for supremacy with our forefathers, but two thousand
five hundred of their descendants remain, and they are dispirited
and degraded. Of the powerful league of the Six Nations, so long
the scourge and terror of New-York, only about five thousand souls
remain. In New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Maryland, the numerous
and powerful tribes once seen there, are either extinct, or so
reduced as to escape observation in any enumeration of the States'
inhabitants. In Virginia, Mr. Jefferson informs us that there were
at the commencement of its colonization (1607), in the comparatively
small portion of her extent which lies between the sea-coast and
the mountains, and from the Potomac to the most southern waters of
James River, upwards of forty tribes of Indians: now there are but
forty-seven individuals in the whole State! In North Carolina none
are counted: in South Carolina only four hundred and fifty. While in
Georgia, where thirty years since there were not less than thirty
thousand souls, there now remain some fifteen thousand--the one half
having disappeared in a single generation. That many of these people
have removed, and others perished by the sword in the frequent
wars which have occurred in the progress of our settlements, I am
free to admit. But where are the hundreds of thousands, with their
descendants, who neither removed, nor were thus destroyed? Sir, like
a promontory of sand, exposed to the ceaseless encroachments of the
ocean, they have been gradually wasting away before the current of
the advancing white population which set in upon them from every
quarter; and unless speedily removed beyond the influence of this
cause, of the many tens of thousands now within the limits of the
southern and western States, a remnant will not long be found to
point you to the graves of their ancestors, or to relate the sad
story of their disappearance from earth."
Mr. Jefferson, that statesman in fact as well as in name, that
man of enlarged and comprehensive views, whose prerogative it was
to foresee evils and provide against them, had long foreseen the
evils both to the Indians and to the whites, in retaining any
part of these tribes within our organized limits; and upon the
first acquisition of Louisiana--within three months after the
acquisition--proposed it for the future residence of all the
tribes on the east of the Mississippi; and his plan had been acted
upon in some degree, both by himself and his immediate successor.
But it was reserved for Mr. Monroe's administration to take up
the subject in its full sense, to move upon it as a system, and
to accomplish at a single operation the removal of all the tribes
from the east to the west side of the Mississippi--from the settled
States and territories, to the wide and wild expanse of Louisiana.
Their preservation and civilization, and permanency in their new
possessions, were to be their advantages in this removal--delusive,
it might be, but still a respite from impending destruction if they
remained where they were. This comprehensive plan was advocated
by Mr. Calhoun, then Secretary of War, and charged with the
administration of Indian affairs. It was a plan of incalculable
value to the southern and western States, but impracticable without
the hearty concurrence of the northern and non-slaveholding States.
It might awaken the slavery question, hardly got to sleep after the
alarming agitations of the Missouri controversy. The States and
territories to be relieved were slaveholding. To remove the Indians
would make room for the spread of slaves. No removal could be
effected without the double process of a treaty and an appropriation
act--the treaty to be ratified by two thirds of the Senate, where
the slave and free States were equal, and the appropriation to be
obtained from Congress, where free States held the majority of
members. It was evident that the execution of the whole plan was
in the hands of the free States; and nobly did they do their duty
by the South. Some societies, and some individuals, no doubt, with
very humane motives, but with the folly, and blindness, and injury
to the objects of their care which generally attend a gratuitous
interference with the affairs of others, attempted to raise an
outcry, and made themselves busy to frustrate the plan; but the free
States themselves, in their federal action, and through the proper
exponents of their will--their delegations in Congress--cordially
concurred in it, and faithfully lent it a helping and efficient
hand. The President, Mr. Monroe, in the session 1824-'25,
recommended its adoption to Congress, and asked the necessary
appropriation to begin from the Congress. A bill was reported in the
Senate for that purpose, and unanimously passed that body. What is
more, the treaties made with the Kansas and Osage tribes in 1825,
for the cession to the United States of all their vast territory
west of Missouri and Arkansas, except small reserves to themselves,
and which treaties had been made without previous authority from the
government, and for the purpose of acquiring new homes for all the
Indians east of the Mississippi, were duly and readily ratified.
Those treaties were made at St. Louis by General Clarke, without any
authority, so far as this large acquisition was concerned, at my
instance, and upon my assurance that the Senate would ratify them.
It was done. They were ratified: a great act of justice was rendered
to the South. The foundation was laid for the future removal of
the Indians, which was followed up by subsequent treaties and acts
of Congress, until the southern and western States were as free
as the northern from the incumbrance of an Indian population; and
I, who was an actor in these transactions, who reported the bills
and advocated the treaties which brought this great benefit to the
south and west, and witnessed the cordial support of the members
from the free States, without whose concurrence they could not have
been passed--I, who wish for harmony and concord among all the
States, and all the sections of this Union, owe it to the cause of
truth and justice, and to the cultivation of fraternal feelings,
to bear this faithful testimony to the just and liberal conduct of
the non-slaveholding States, in relieving the southern and western
States from so large an incumbrance, and aiding the extension of
their settlement and cultivation. The recommendation of Mr. Monroe,
and the treaties of 1825, were the beginning of the system of total
removal; but it was a beginning which assured the success of the
whole plan, and was followed up, as will be seen, in the history of
each case, until the entire system was accomplished.