It had been the policy of the Federal Government, from the beginning of
its official relations with the Indian tribes, to encourage and assist
the individuals of those tribes in grasping and accepting the pursuits
and habits of civilized life, with a view to their preparation for the
condition in which the rapidly encroaching white settlements would in a
few years inevitably place them.
With the disappearance of game the hunter must become a tiller of
the soil or a herdsman, with the alternative of starvation. This
humane policy, begun systematically in the first administration of
Washington,[188] took the form of a considerable annual expenditure
in the purchase for the Indians of hoes, plows, rakes, and other
agricultural implements, as well as looms, cards, and spinning wheels.
Among the northwestern tribes these efforts at industrial civilization
were productive of trifling results. The southern tribes, however, and
more especially the Creeks and Cherokees, had, in considerable numbers,
manifested a partial though gradually increasing tendency toward
self-support. Many of them, in addition to raising the necessaries of
life, were producers in a limited degree of cotton, from which their
women had learned to make a coarse article of cloth; others owned
considerable herds of cattle and hogs, and altogether these tribes had
made a degree of progress which was alike commendable to themselves and
encouraging to the Government.
However, the persistent and unremitting demands of the border settlers
for more land, backed by the thorough sympathy and influence of the
State governments of Tennessee, North Carolina, and Georgia, as well as
by their Senators and Representatives in Congress, acted as a powerful
lever for moving the Congress and Executive of the United States to
seek the complete possession of the Creek, Cherokee, Choctaw, and
Chickasaw lands.
As early as 1803[189] President Jefferson had suggested the
desirability of the removal of these tribes beyond the Mississippi
River, although the first official action taken in this direction was
contained in the fifth section of an act of Congress approved March 26,
1804, erecting Louisiana into two Territories. This act appropriated
$15,000 to enable the President to effect the desired object. This was
supplemented in 1808,[190] when the Secretary of War, in a letter to
Agent Meigs giving permission for a delegation of Cherokees to visit
Washington, instructed him to improve every opportunity of securing the
consent of the Cherokees to an exchange of their lands for a tract west
of the Mississippi.
The delegation here spoken of (composed of what were known as Upper
Cherokees) visited Washington about the 1st of May, 1808, and, in the
course of a discussion of the subject with the Secretary of War, took
occasion to complain of an unequal distribution of annuities between
the Upper and Lower Cherokees, and advanced a proposition that a
dividing line be run between the territory of these two branches of
the tribe, inasmuch as the former were cultivators of the soil, and
desired to divide their lands in severalty and become citizens of the
United States, while the latter were addicted to the hunter life and
were indisposed to adopt civilized habits.[191] This proposition met
with the personal approval of the Secretary of War. He instructed
the agent[192] to ascertain the sentiments of the nation upon such
a proposition, to the end that, if possible, those who adhered to
aboriginal habits could be induced to accept a country in the newly
acquired Territory of Louisiana, in lieu of their proportionate share
of the country then occupied by the Cherokee Nation. In pursuance
of this plan, the agent lost no opportunity of impressing upon the
Cherokees the importance of the approaching crisis in their tribal
affairs, and the necessity that some practical method should be adopted
to solve the problem of subsistence involved in the rapid diminution of
game. Many of the Lower or "hunter" Cherokees became persuaded of the
necessity of looking out a new home, and early in January, 1809,[193]
President Jefferson addressed a "talk" to them, approving their project
and promising facilities for the transportation of a delegation to
visit the Arkansas and White River countries, where, in case they found
a suitable location, the United States would assign them a sufficient
area of territory for their occupation in exchange for their share of
the Cherokee domain east of the Mississippi.
Based upon this proposition, a pioneer delegation of the Indians
visited that country in the year 1809, and upon their report large
numbers (about 2,000, as reported by Agent Meigs) of the nation
signified their intention of removal as early as the autumn of that
year. The United States authorities were not as yet prepared to defray
the pecuniary expense of so large a migration. The agent was therefore
directed to discourage for the present anything except the removal of
individual families.[194] The situation remained unchanged until the
spring of 1811,[195] when the Secretary of War informed Agent Meigs
that time and circumstances had rendered it expedient to revive the
subject of a general removal and exchange of lands. The latter was
advised that it was very desirable to secure a cession of the Cherokee
lands lying within the States of Tennessee and South Carolina, and that
in case the whole nation could be brought to agree to the proposition
of ceding these tracts, as the proportionate share of the "emigrant
party," in exchange for lands to be assigned such party on White and
Arkansas Rivers, he would be authorized and directed to negotiate a
treaty with the Cherokee Nation for that purpose. From this time the
subject remained _in statu quo_ for several years, except that small
parties of Cherokees, consisting of a few individuals or families,
continued to emigrate to the "promised land." It is perhaps interesting
to state, in connection with this emigration movement of the Cherokees,
that it was primarily inaugurated shortly after the treaty of 1785,
at Hopewell, when a few of those dissatisfied with the terms of that
instrument embarked in pirogues, and, descending the Tennessee, Ohio,
and Mississippi Rivers, reached and ascended the Saint Francis, then
in the Spanish province of Louisiana, where they formed a settlement,
from whence in a few years they removed to a more satisfactory location
on White River. Here they were joined from time to time by their
dissatisfied eastern brethren, in families and small parties, until
they numbered, prior to the treaty of 1817, between two and three
thousand souls.