No sooner had the removal of the Cherokees been effectually
accomplished than the latter began to manifest much dissatisfaction
at what they characterized a lack of good faith on the part of the
Government in carrying out the stipulations of the treaty of 1835. The
default charged had reference to the matter of payment of their claims
for spoliations, improvements, annuities, etc. Each winter at least
one delegation from the nation maintained a residence in Washington
and urged upon the Executive and Congress with untiring persistency an
adjudication of all disputed matters arising under the treaty.
At length the term of President Van Buren expired and was succeeded
by a Whig administration. Then as now, the official acts of an
outgoing political party were considered to be the legitimate subject
of criticism and investigation by its political enemies. President
Harrison lived but a month after assuming the duties of his office, but
Vice-President Tyler as his successor considered that the treatment to
which the Cherokees had been subjected during Jackson's and Van Buren's
administrations would afford a field for investigation fraught with a
rich harvest of results in political capital for the Whig party.
_President Tyler promises a new treaty._--Accordingly, therefore,
in the fall of 1841, just previous to the departure of the Cherokee
delegation from Washington to their homes, the President agreed to
take proper measures for the settlement of all their difficulties,
expressing a determination to open the whole subject of their
complaints and to bring their affairs to a satisfactory conclusion
through the medium of a new treaty. In conformity with this
determination the Commissioner of Indian Affairs[471] instructed the
agent for the Cherokees to procure all the information possible to be
obtained upon every subject connected with Cherokee affairs having a
tendency to throw any light upon the wrongs and injustice they might
have sustained to the end that full amends could so far as possible be
made therefor. Before much information was collected under the terms
of these instructions a change seems to have taken place in the views
of the President, and the order for investigation was revoked. The
draft of the new treaty was, however, in the mean time prepared under
direction of the Secretary of War. It contained provisions regulating
the licensing of traders in the Cherokee country, the jurisdiction over
crimes committed by citizens of the United States resident in that
country, the allotment of their lands in severalty by the Cherokee
authorities, and the establishment of post-offices and post-routes
within their limits. It further contemplated the appointment of two
commissioners, whenever Congress should make provision therefor, whose
duty it should be to examine into and make a report to that body upon
the character, validity, and equity of all claims of whatsoever kind
presented by Cherokees against the United States, and also to afford
the Cherokees pecuniary aid in the purchase of a printing press and
type as well as in the erection of a national council-house. This
treaty, however, was never consummated.
_President Jackson's method for compelling Cherokee removal._--In
connection with this subject of an investigation into the affairs of
the Cherokees, a confidential letter is to be found on file in the
office of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, from Hon. P. M. Butler,
of South Carolina, who had a few months previous to its date[472]
been appointed United States agent for the Cherokees, interesting as
throwing light on the negotiation and conclusion of the treaty of 1835.
Mr. Butler says it is alleged, and claimed to be susceptible of proof,
that Mr. Merriweather, of Georgia, in an interview with President
Jackson, a considerable time before the treaty was negotiated, said
to the President, "We want the Cherokee lands in Georgia, but the
Cherokees will not consent to cede them," to which the President
emphatically replied, "You must get clear of them [the Cherokees] by
legislation. Take judicial jurisdiction over their country; build fires
around them, and do indirectly what you cannot effect directly."