The lines of demarkation between the respective possessions of the
Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, and Chickasaw Nations had long been a subject
of dispute between them. People living in a state of barbarism and
principally dependent upon the chase for a livelihood, necessarily roam
over a vast amount of territory within which no permanent habitations
have been established by themselves. An accurate definition of the
boundaries between them and their nearest neighbors pursuing a
similar mode of life is unnecessary so long as no disturbing factor
is brought into the case. But contact with an ever-encroaching tide
of civilization renders essential an accurate definition of limits.
The United States, in several of its numerous treaties for the
acquisition of territory from these four tribes, had been met with
conflicting claims as to its ownership. In order that future disputes
and embarrassments of this character should be avoided, the authorities
of the United States entertained the idea of causing a boundary line
to be run and marked between the adjoining territory of these tribes.
The Indian agents were advised by the Secretary of War[202] that
the subject was under consideration, the plan being to constitute a
commission, consisting of two representatives selected by each tribe
and of the United States agents for those tribes, who should, after
full examination of the country and the subject, agree upon and fix
their respective boundaries. Owing, however, to the complicated state
of our foreign relations and the feverish condition of mind manifested
by the border tribes, soon followed by war with England and with the
Creek Indians, it became necessary to drop further negotiations on the
subject, and the matter was not again revived in this form.
After the treaty of 1814 with the Creeks, however, whereby General
Jackson exacted from them, as indemnity for the expenses of the war,
the cession of an immense tract of country in Alabama and Georgia,[203]
the question of the proper limits of this cession on the north and
west became a subject of controversy between the United States and the
Cherokees, Choctaws, and Chickasaws.
The United States authorities at Washington were anxious that nothing
should occur in the adjustment of these boundaries which should cause
a feeling of irritation among those tribes. Commissioners had been
appointed in the summer of 1815 to survey and mark the boundaries of
this Creek cession, and in August of that year we find the Secretary
of War giving instructions to Agent Meigs, of the Cherokees, to meet
the boundary commissioners, with a few of the principal Cherokee
chiefs, at the point on Coosa River where the south boundary of the
Cherokee Nation crossed the same, in order that the Cherokees should
be satisfied that the commissioners began at the proper point. Several
additional reminders were given the agent, during the progress of
the survey, that the matter of boundary was a question of fact to be
ascertained and determined from the best attainable evidence, and that
care must be taken that no injustice should be done the Cherokees.[204]
In the following spring[205] a delegation of Cherokees was brought
to Washington, by direction of the War Department, and, pending the
completion of treaty negotiations with them, the boundary commissioners
were instructed not to mark the line between the Cherokees and the
Creek cession until further orders.
These negotiations resulted in a second treaty of March 22, 1816[206]
(the one for the cession of the tract in South Carolina bears the same
date), wherein it was declared that the northern boundary line of the
Creek cession of 1814 should be established by the running of a line
from a point on the west bank of Coosa River opposite to the lower end
of the Ten Islands, above Fort Strother, directly to the Flat Rock or
Stone on Bear Creek, said Flat Rock being the southwest corner of the
Cherokee possessions, as defined by the treaty with them concluded
January 7, 1806.
This boundary brought forth a vigorous though unavailing protest from
General Jackson, who argued that the Cherokees never had any right to
territory south of the Tennessee and west of Coosa River, but that it
belonged to the Creeks and was properly within the limits of their
cession of 1814.[207]
All efforts were fruitless in securing any further cession of lands,
either north or south of the Tennessee.[208]
Previous to the visit of the Cherokee delegation to Washington and
to the instructions given, as referred to above, to the boundary
commissioners to suspend the running of the boundary line between the
Creek cession and the Cherokees pending negotiations with the latter,
General Coffee had been engaged in surveying the line from Coosa
River to the Tennessee River.[209] As a result of the negotiations
with the Cherokees, additional instructions were given the boundary
commissioners[210] (accompanying which was a copy of the Cherokee
treaty concluded on the 22d of March preceding) to run and mark the
boundary line therein agreed upon from the lower end of the Ten
Islands, on Coosa River, to the Flat Rock, on Bear Creek. They were
advised that the surveys already made by General Coffee might be of
advantage to them, though from an examination of his report it did
not appear he had taken any notice of the point at which this line
was to terminate, notwithstanding he seemed to have had in view the
treaty made with the Cherokees in the year 1806, which proposed Caney
Creek and a line from its source to the Flat Rock as the boundary
between the Cherokees and Chickasaws. Coffee's line had already
excited the jealousy and opposition of the Chickasaws, and on the
same day final instructions were given the commissioners to run the
line from Coosa River to Flat Rock, Major Cocke, the Chickasaw agent,
was directed to advise the Chickasaws that in agreeing upon this line
with the Cherokees the United States had in no degree interfered
with the conflicting claims of the Chickasaws south of that line
and east of Coffee's line; that from an examination of the treaties
with the Chickasaws and Cherokees, and especially that of 1786 with
the former tribe, it appeared that a point called the Flat Rock was
considered a corner of the lands belonging to them, and had since
been considered as the corner to the Cherokee, Creek, and Chickasaw
hunting grounds. It is proper to state in this connection that for many
years an uncertainty had existed in the minds of both the Indians and
the United States authorities as to the exact location of this Flat
Rock,[211] and whether it was on Bear Creek or on the headwaters of
the Long Leaf Pine, a branch of the Black Warrior River. The line as
finally run by the commissioners from Flat Rock, on Bear Creek, to Ten
Islands, pursued a course bearing S. 67° 56' 27" E. 118 miles and 40
perches.[212] It may be interesting also to quote from a letter[213]
from William Barnett, one of the United States boundary commissioners,
to his co-commissioner, General Coffee, in which, he states that he has
just returned from the council at Turkeytown, at which the Cherokees,
Choctaws, Chickasaws, and Creeks were represented, and that the
principal purpose of the council was to agree upon and adjust their
several boundaries. He notes the fact that the Creeks and Cherokees had
agreed to make a joint stock of their lands, with a privilege to each
nation to settle where they pleased. The Creeks and Choctaws had fixed
on the ridge dividing the waters of the Black Warrior and the Cahawba
as their former boundary. The Chickasaws and Cherokees could come to
no understanding as to their divisional line, the former alleging that
they had no knowledge of any lands held by the latter on the south side
of the Tennessee River adjoining them; that they always considered the
lands so claimed by the Cherokees as belonging to the Creeks, and in
support of this they had exhibited to him a number of affidavits in
proof that their line ran from the mouth of a small creek emptying into
the Tennessee near Ditto's Landing (opposite Chickasaw Island), up the
same to its source, thence to the head of the Sipsey Fork of the Black
Warrior, and down the same to the Flat Rock, where the Black Warrior is
200 yards wide; that they had no knowledge of any place on Bear Creek
known as Flat Rock, and that running the line to the last mentioned
place would be taking from them a considerable tract of country, to
which they could by no means consent.[214]