Shortly after the conclusion of the treaties of October 25 and 27,
1805, a delegation of Cherokee chiefs and headmen visited Washington.
Messrs. Return J. Meigs and Daniel Smith, the commissioners who had
negotiated those treaties, accompanied them.
The Secretary of War, Hon. Henry Dearborn, was specially deputized by
the President to conduct negotiations with them for the purchase of
such portions of their country as they might feel willing to sell, but
more especially to extinguish their claim to the region of territory
lying to the north and east of Tennessee River and west of the head
waters of Duck River.
The negotiations were concluded and the treaty was signed on the 7th
of January, 1806,[161] and the President transmitted the same to the
Senate on the 24th of the same month; but that body did not consent to
its ratification for more than a year afterwards.[162]
At the time of the conclusion of this treaty, it was supposed by all
the parties thereto that the eastern limit of the cession therein
defined would include all of the waters of Elk River, the impression
being that the headwaters of Duck River had their source farther to the
east than those of the Elk.[163]
The region of country in question had for many years been claimed by
both the Cherokees and the Chickasaws, and the Government of the United
States, not desiring to incur the animosity of either of these Indian
nations, had preferred rather to extinguish by purchase the claim of
each. With this end in view, a treaty had already been concluded with
the Chickasaws, under date of July 23, 1805,[164] resulting in their
relinquishment of all claim to the land north of Duck River lying
east of the Tennessee and to a tract lying between Duck and Tennessee
Rivers, on the north and south, and east of the Columbian Highway, so
as to include all the waters of Elk River. It had been the intention
that the eastern boundary of the cession made by both these nations
should be coincident from the head of Chickasaw Island northward,
but when the country came to be examined with a view to running the
line, it was found that a strict adherence to the test of the Cherokee
cession would leave about two hundred families of settlers on the
headwaters of Elk River still within the Indian country.[165] In the
mean time the Chickasaws, having learned that the United States had
purchased of the Cherokees their supposed claim to the territory as
far west as the Tennessee River, including a large region of country
to the westward of the limits of the cession of 1805 by the former,
construed that fact as a recognition of the sole and absolute title of
the Cherokees thereto, and became in consequence very much excited and
angered. They were only pacified by an official letter of assurance
from the Secretary of War, addressed to Maj. George Colbert, their
principal chief,[166] wherein he stated that in purchasing the Cherokee
right to the tract in question the United States did not intend to
destroy or impair the right of the Chickasaw Nation to the same; but
that, being persuaded no actual boundary had ever been agreed on
between the Chickasaws and Cherokees and that the Cherokees had some
claim to a portion of the lands, it was thought advisable to purchase
that claim, so that whenever the Chickasaws should be disposed to
convey their title there should be no dispute with the Cherokees about
it.
The Cherokees by this treaty also relinquished all claim they might
have to the Long Island or Great Island, as it was sometimes called,
of Holston River. This island was in reality outside the limits of the
country assigned the Cherokees by the first treaty between them and
the United States, at Hopewell, in 1785, but they had always since
maintained that no cession had ever been made of it by them, and
it was deemed wise to insert a specific clause in the treaty under
consideration to that effect.[167]
_Boundaries to be surveyed._--Early in 1807[168] the Secretary of War
notified Agent Meigs that Mr. Thomas Freeman had been appointed to
survey and mark the boundary line conformably to both the treaty of
1805 with the Chickasaws and of 1806 with the Cherokees, as well as
to survey the land ceded between the south line of Tennessee and the
Tennessee River, lying west of the line from about the Chickasaw Old
Fields to the most eastern source of Duck River. He was also advised
that General Robertson and himself had been designated to attend and
superintend the running of such boundary lines. Furthermore, that it
was desirable that the eastern line of both cessions should be one
and the same, for although by the Chickasaw treaty the whole waters
of Elk River were included, it was evident their claim to any lands
east of the line agreed upon by the Cherokees was more than doubtful;
that, therefore, the United States ought not to insist on such a
line as would go to the eastward of the one defined in the Cherokee
treaty, unless the latter could be prevailed upon to extend the same,
in which event they were authorized to offer the Cherokees a moderate
compensation therefor.