With a view to reaching a full understanding on this subject, the
Secretary of War notified[230] General Andrew Jackson, Governor
McMinn of Tennessee, and General David Merriwether that they had been
appointed commissioners for the purpose of holding a treaty with the
Cherokees on or about the 20th of June, 1817.[231] In pursuance of
these instructions a conference was called and held at the Cherokee
Agency, which resulted in the treaty of July 8, 1817.[232] By this
treaty the Cherokees ceded two large tracts of country[233] in exchange
for one of equal area on the Arkansas and White Rivers adjoining
the territory of the Osages. The Cherokees also ceded two small
reservations made by the treaty of January 7, 1806.[234]
The large cession by the first article of the treaty of 1817,
though partially in Georgia, was at the time supposed to cover all
the territory claimed by the Cherokees within the limits of North
Carolina,[235] and was secured in deference to the urgent importunities
of the legislature and people of that State. It was subsequently
ascertained that this supposition was incorrect.
_Majority of Cherokees averse to removal._--During the conference, but
before the negotiations had reached any definite result, a memorial was
presented to the United States commissioners, signed by sixty-seven
of the chiefs and headmen of the nation, setting forth that the
delegation of their nation who in 1809 visited Washington and discussed
with President Jefferson the proposition for an exchange of lands had
acted without any delegated authority on the subject. The memorialists
claimed to represent the prevailing feeling of the nation and were
desirous of remaining upon and retaining the country of their nativity.
They were distressed with the alternative proposals to remove to the
Arkansas country or remain and become citizens of the United States.
While they had not attained a sufficient degree of civilization to fit
them for the duties of citizenship, they yet deprecated a return to the
same savage state and surroundings which had characterized their mode
of life when first brought in contact with the whites. They therefore
requested that the subject should not be further pressed, but that they
might be enabled to remain in peaceable possession of the land of their
fathers.[236]
The commissioners, however, proceeded with their negotiations, and
concluded the treaty as previously set forth, which was finally signed
by twenty-two of the chiefs and headmen whose names appeared attached
to the memorial, as well as six others, on behalf of the eastern
portion of the nation, and by fifteen chiefs representing those on
the Arkansas.[237] The treaty was submitted to the Senate, for its
advice and consent, at the ensuing session of Congress, and although
it encountered the hostility of those Senators who were opposed to
the general policy of an exchange of lands with the Indians, and of
some who argued, because of the few chiefs who had signed it, that
it did not represent the full and free expression of their national
assent,[238] that body approved its provisions, and the President
ratified and proclaimed it on the 26th of December, 1817.
_A portion of the Cherokees emigrate west._--Immediately upon the
signing of the treaty, the United States authorities, presuming upon
its final ratification, took measures for carrying into effect the
scheme of emigration. Within a month Agent Meigs reported that over 700
Cherokees had already enrolled themselves for removal the ensuing fall.
The Secretary of War entered into a contract for 60 boats, to be
delivered by 1st of November at points between the mouths of the Little
Tennessee and Sequatchie Rivers, together with rifles, ammunition,
blankets, and provisions;[239] and, under the control and directions
of Governor McMinn, of Tennessee, the stream of emigration began to
flow, increasing in volume until within the next year over 3,000 had
emigrated to their new homes, which numbers had during the year 1819
increased to 6,000.[240]
_Persecution of those favorable to emigration._--There can be no
question that a very large portion, and probably a majority, of the
Cherokee Nation residing east of the Mississippi had been and still
continued bitterly opposed to the terms of the treaty of 1817. They
viewed with jealous and aching hearts all attempts to drive them from
the homes of their ancestors, for they could not but consider the
constant and urgent importunities of the Federal authorities in the
light of an imperative demand for the cession of more territory. They
felt that they were, as a nation, being slowly but surely compressed
within the contracting coils of the giant anaconda of civilization; yet
they held to the vain hope that a spirit of justice and mercy would be
born of their helpless condition which would finally prevail in their
favor. Their traditions furnished them no guide by which to judge of
the results certain to follow such a conflict as that in which they
were engaged.
This difference of sentiment in the nation upon a subject so vital
to their welfare was productive of much bitterness and violent
animosities. Those who had favored the emigration scheme and had been
induced, either through personal preference or by the subsidizing
influences of the Government agents, to favor the conclusion of the
treaty, became the object of scorn and hatred to the remainder of the
nation. They were made the subjects of a persecution so relentless,
while they remained in the eastern country, that it was never
forgotten, and when, in the natural course of events, the remainder of
the nation were forced to remove to the Arkansas country and join the
earlier emigrants, the old hatreds and dissensions broke out afresh,
and to this day they find lodgment in some degree in the breasts of
their descendants.
_Dissatisfaction with the treaty of 1817._--The dissatisfaction with
the treaty of 1817 took shape in the assemblage of a council at Amoha,
in the Cherokee Nation, in September of the same year, at which six of
the principal men were selected as a deputation to visit the President
at Washington and present to him in person a detailed statement of the
grievances and indignities to which they had been subjected in greater
or less degree for many years and to ask relief and redress.
They were to present, with special particularity, to the President's
notice a statement of the improper methods and influences that had been
used to secure the apparent consent of the nation to the treaty of
1817. They were authorized to enter into a new treaty with the United
States, in lieu of the recent one, in which an alteration might be
made in certain articles of it, and some additional article inserted
relative to the mode of payment of their annuity as between the Eastern
and Arkansas Cherokees.[241]
The delegation was received and interviews were accorded them by the
President and Secretary of War, but they secured nothing but general
expressions of good will and promises of protection in their rights and
property.
[Footnote 224: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. VII, p. 156.]
[Footnote 225: Confidential message of President Jefferson to Congress,
January 18, 1803.]
[Footnote 226: The letter of President Jefferson authorizing a
delegation of Cherokees to visit the Arkansas and White River country
was dated January 9, 1809, and will be found in the American State
Papers, Indian Affairs, Vol. II, p. 125, as well as among the records
of the Indian Office.]
[Footnote 227: January 9, 1817.]
[Footnote 228: Letter of Secretary of War to General Jackson, May 14,
1817.]
[Footnote 229: In a letter to Return J. Meigs, under date of September
18, 1816, the Secretary of War says that "the difficulties which
have arisen between the Cherokees and the Osages, on the north of
the Arkansas, and with the Quapaws, on the south, cannot be finally
settled until the line of the cession shall be run and the rights
of the Quapaws shall be ascertained. Commissioners appointed by the
President are now sitting at Saint Louis for the adjustment of those
differences; but should the line of the Osage treaty prove that
they are settled upon the Osage lands, nothing can be done for the
Cherokees. It is known to you and to that nation that the condition
upon which the emigration was permitted by the President was that a
cession of Cherokee lands should be made equal to the proportion which
the emigrants should bear to the whole nation. This condition has
never been complied with on the part of the nation, and of course all
obligation on the part of the United States to secure the emigrants in
their new possessions has ceased. When the subject was mentioned to the
Cherokee deputation last winter, so far were they from acknowledging
its force, that they declared the emigrants should be compelled to
return."]
[Footnote 230: May 14, 1817.]
[Footnote 231: On the 17th of May, 1817, these commissioners were
advised that the lands proposed to be given the Cherokees on the west
of the Mississippi River, in exchange for those then occupied by them,
were the lands on the Arkansas and immediately adjoining the Osage
boundary line.]
[Footnote 232: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. VII, p. 156.]
[Footnote 233: These tracts are designated on the accompanying map as
Nos. 23 and 24.]
[Footnote 234: These tracts are designated on the accompanying map as
Nos. 25 and 26.]
[Footnote 235: August 1, 1817, the Secretary of War advised the
governor of North Carolina that a treaty with the Cherokees had been
concluded, by which the Indian claim was relinquished to a tract of
country including the whole of the land claimed by them in North
Carolina.]
[Footnote 236: This memorial bore date of July 2, 1817.]
[Footnote 237: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. VII, p. 156.]
[Footnote 238: Letter of Secretary of War to Treaty Commissioners
August 1, 1817.]
[Footnote 239: Letters of Secretary of War to General Jackson and
Colonel Meigs, August 9, 1817.]
[Footnote 240: Letter of Governor McMinn to Secretary of War, November
29, 1818, and subsequent correspondence during 1819. Governor McMinn's
letter of November 29, 1818, states that 718 families had enrolled
for emigration since December 20, 1817, and 146 families had taken
reservations, which made in all, including those who had already
emigrated, about one-half of the Cherokee Nation as committed to the
support of the policy involved in the treaty of 1817.
February 17, 1819, a Cherokee delegation advised the Secretary of
War that, while Governor McMinn's enrollment showed the number of
Cherokees who had removed or enrolled to go prior to November 15, 1818,
to be 5,291, by their calculation the number did not exceed 3,500,
and that they estimated the number of Cherokees remaining east of the
Mississippi at about 12,544.]
[Footnote 241: The instructions of the Amoha council to the delegation
of six bear date of Fortville, Cherokee Nation, September 19, 1817.]