THE CHEROKEES.
The Cherokees were the Eastern Mountaineers of America. Their country
lay along the Tennessee River, and in the highlands of Georgia,
Carolina, and Alabama—the loveliest region east of the Mississippi
River. Beautiful and grand, with lofty mountains and rich valleys
fragrant with flowers, and forests of magnolia and pine filled with the
singing of birds and the melody of streams, rich in fruits and nuts and
wild grains, it was a country worth loving, worth fighting, worth dying
for, as thousands of its lovers have fought and have died, white men as
well as red, within the last hundred years.
When Oglethorpe came with his cargo of Madeira wine and respectable
paupers from England in 1733, and lived in tents in midwinter on the
shores of the Savannah River, one of the first conditions of safety for
his colossal almshouse, in shape of a new colony, was that all the
Indians in the region should become its friends and allies.
The reputation of his goodness and benevolence soon penetrated to the
fastnesses of their homes, and tribe after tribe sent chiefs and headmen
to greet him with gifts and welcome. When the Cherokee chief appeared,
Oglethorpe said to him, "Fear nothing. Speak freely." "I always speak
freely," answered the mountaineer. "Why should I fear? I am now among
friends: I never feared, even among my enemies."
The principal intention of the English trustees who incorporated the
Georgia colony was to provide a home for worthy persons in England who
were "in decayed circumstances." Among other great ends which they also
avowed was "the civilization of the savages." In one of Oglethorpe's
first reports to the trustees he says: "A little Indian nation—the only
one within fifty miles—is not only in amity, but desirous to be subjects
to his Majesty King George; to have lands given to them among us, and to
breed their children at our schools. Their chief and his beloved man,
who is the second man in the nation, desire to be instructed in the
Christian religion."
The next year he returned to England, carrying with him eight Indian
chiefs, to show them "so much of Great Britain and her institutions as
might enable them to judge of her power and dignity. *** Nothing was
neglected," we are told, "that was likely to awaken their curiosity or
impress them with a sense of the power and grandeur of the nation." They
were received by the Archbishop of Canterbury, and by the Fellows of
Eton, and for a space of four months were hospitably entertained, and
shown all the great sights of London and its vicinity.
The tribes at home were much gratified by these attentions paid to their
representatives, and sent out to the trustees a very curious missive,
expressing their thanks and their attachment to General Oglethorpe. This
letter was the production of a young Cherokee chief. It was written in
black and red hieroglyphs on a dressed buffalo-skin. Before it was sent
to England it was exhibited in Savannah, and the meaning of the
hieroglyphs translated by an interpreter in a grand gathering of fifty
Indian chiefs and all the principal people of Savannah. Afterward the
curious document was framed and hung up in the Georgia Office in
Westminster.
When the Wesleyan missionaries arrived in Georgia, two years later, some
of the chiefs who had made this visit to England went to meet them,
carrying large jars of honey and of milk as gifts, to "represent their
inclinations;" and one of the chiefs said to Mr. Wesley, "I am glad you
are come. When I was in England I desired that some one would speak the
Great Word to me. I will go up and speak to the wise men of our nation,
and I hope they will hear. But we would not be made Christians as the
Spaniards make Christians; we would be taught before we are baptized."
In those early days Wesley was an intolerant and injudicious enthusiast.
His missionary work in the Georgia Colony was anything but successful in
the outset, either among the whites or the Indians, and there was ample
justification for the reply which this same Indian chief made later when
urged to embrace the doctrines of Christianity.
"Why, these are Christians at Savannah. Those are Christians at
Frederica. Christians get drunk! Christians beat men! Christians tell
lies! Me no Christian!" On another occasion Wesley asked him what he
thought he was made for. "He that is above," answered the chief, "knows
what he made us for. We know nothing; we are in the dark; but white men
know much. And yet white men build great houses, as if they were to live
forever. But white men cannot live forever. In a little time white men
will be dust as well as I."
For twenty years Oglethorpe's colony struggled on under great
difficulties and discouragements. Wars with France and with Spain;
tiresome squabbles with and among Methodist missionaries, all combined
to make Oglethorpe's position hard. Again and again England would have
lost her colony except for the unswerving fidelity of the Indian allies;
they gathered by hundreds to fight for Oglethorpe. In one expedition
against the frontier, four hundred Creeks and six hundred Cherokees set
out in one day, under an urgent call for help sent by Indian runners to
their towns. His Indian friends were the only friends Oglethorpe had who
stood by him past everything: nothing could shake their fidelity.
"He is poor; he can give you nothing," said the St. Augustine Spaniards
to a Creek chief at this time; "it is foolish for you to go to him:" and
they showed to the Indian a fine suit of scarlet clothes, and a sword,
which they were about to give to a chief of the Tennessees who had
become their ally.
But the Creek answered, "We love him. It is true, he does not give us
silver; but he gives us everything we want that he has. He has given me
the coat off his back, and the blanket from under him."
At last the trustees of the Georgia Colony lost patience: very bitterly
they had learned that paupers, however worthy, are not good stuff to
build new enterprises of. In eighteen years the colony had not once
furnished a sufficient supply of subsistence for its own consumption:
farms which had been cultivated were going to ruin; and the country was
rapidly degenerating in every respect. Dishonest traders had tampered
with and exasperated the Indians, so that their friendliness could no
longer be implicitly trusted. For everything that went wrong the English
Company was held responsible, and probably there were no happier men in
all England on the 20th of June, 1752, than were the Georgia trustees,
who on that day formally resigned their charter, and washed their hands
of the colony forever.
The province was now formed into a royal government, and very soon
became the seat of frightful Indian wars. The new authorities neither
understood nor kept faith with the Indians: their old friend Oglethorpe
had left them forever, and the same scenes of treachery and massacre
which were being enacted at the North began to be repeated with
heart-sickening similarity at the South. Indians fighting
Indians—fighting as allies to-day with the French, to-morrow with the
English; treaties made, and broken as soon as made; there was neither
peace nor safety anywhere.
At last, in 1763, a treaty was concluded with the chiefs and headmen of
five tribes, which seemed to promise better things. The Cherokees and
Creeks granted to the King of England a large tract of land, cleared off
their debts with the sum paid for it, and observed its stipulations
faithfully for several years, until peace was again destroyed, this time
by no fault of the Indians, in consequence of the revolt of the American
Colonies against Great Britain. The English loyalists in Georgia now
availed themselves of the Indians' old habit of allegiance to the Crown.
One of their leading agents took a Cherokee woman as his mistress,
placed her at the head of his table, gave her the richest dress and
equipage that the country could afford, and distributed through her
lavish gifts to all the Indians he could reach. When war actually broke
out he retreated with her into the fastnesses of the Cherokee nation,
where he swayed them at his will. Attempts to capture him were repelled
by the Cherokees with ferocity. Prisoners taken by them at this time
were tortured with great cruelty; one instance is recorded (in a journal
kept by another prisoner, who escaped alive) of a boy about twelve years
of age who was suspended by the arms between two posts, and raised about
three feet from the ground. "The mode of inflicting the torture was by
light-wood splints of about eighteen inches long, made sharp at one end
and fractured at the other, so that the torch might not be extinguished
by throwing it. After these weapons of death were prepared, and a fire
made for the purpose of lighting them, the scene of horror commenced. It
was deemed a mark of dexterity, and accompanied by shouts of applause,
when an Indian threw one of these torches so as to make the sharp end
stick into the body of the suffering youth without extinguishing the
torch. This description of torture was continued for two hours before
the innocent victim was relieved by death."
These are sickening details, and no doubt will be instinctively set down
by most readers as proof of innate cruelty peculiar to the Indian race.
Let us, therefore, set side by side with them the record that in this
same war white men (British officers) confined white men ("rebels") in
prison-ships, starved, and otherwise maltreated them till they died,
five or six a day, then threw their dead bodies into the nearest marsh,
and had them "_trodden down in the mud_—from whence they were soon
exposed by the washing of the tides, and at low-water the prisoners
beheld the carrion-crows picking the bones of their departed
companions!" Also, that white men (British officers) were known at that
time to have made thumb-screws out of musket-locks, to torture Georgia
women, wives of "rebels," to force them to reveal the places where their
husbands were in hiding. Innate cruelty is not exclusively an Indian
trait.
The Cherokees had the worst of the fighting on the British side during
the Revolution. Again and again their towns were burnt, their winter
stores destroyed, and whole bands reduced to the verge of starvation. At
one time, when hard pressed by the American forces, they sent to the
Creeks for help; but the shrewd Creeks replied, "You have taken the
thorns out of our feet; you are welcome to them." The Creeks, having
given only limited aid to the British, had suffered much less severely.
That any of the Indians should have joined the "rebel" cause seems
wonderful, as they had evidently nothing to gain by the transfer of
their allegiance to what must have appeared to them for a long time to
be the losing side in the contest. For three years and a half Savannah
was in the possession of the British, and again and again they had
control of the entire State. And to show that they had no compunction
about inciting the Indians to massacres they left many a written
record—such, for instance, as this, which is in a letter written by
General Gage from Boston, June, 1775: "We need not be tender of calling
on the savages to attack the Americans."[29]
Footnote 29:
See Appendix, Art. X.
The first diplomatic relations of the United States Government with the
Cherokees were in the making of the treaty of Hopewell, in 1785. At the
Hopewell council the United States commissioners said: "Congress is now
the sovereign of all our country which we now point out to you on the
map. They want none of your lands, nor anything else which belongs to
you; and as an earnest of their regard for you, we propose to enter into
articles of a treaty perfectly equal and conformable to what we now tell
you. *** This humane and generous act of the United States will no doubt
be received by you with gladness, and held in grateful remembrance; and
the more so, as many of your young men, and the greater number of your
warriors, during the late war, were our enemies, and assisted the King
of Great Britain in his endeavors to conquer our country."
The chiefs complained bitterly of the encroachments of white settlers
upon lands which had been by old treaties distinctly reserved to the
Cherokees. They demanded that some of these settlers should be removed;
and when the commissioners said that the settlers were too numerous for
the Government to remove, one of the chiefs asked, satirically, "Are
Congress, who conquered the King of Great Britain, unable to remove
those people?"
Finally, the chiefs agreed to accept payment for the lands which had
been taken. New boundaries were established, and a general feeling of
good-will and confidence was created. One notable feature in this
council was the speech of an Indian woman, called the "war-woman of
Chota." (Chota was the Cherokees' city of refuge. All murderers were
safe so long as they lived in Chota. Even Englishmen had not disdained
to take advantage of its shelter; one English trader who had killed an
Indian, having fled, lived there for many months, his own house being
but a short distance away. After a time he resolved to return home, but
the headmen of the tribe assured him that, though he was entirely safe
there, he would surely be killed if he left the town.) The chief who
brought this "war-woman" to the council introduced her as "one of our
beloved women who has borne and raised up warriors." She proceeded to
say, "I am fond of hearing that there is a peace, and I hope you have
now taken us by the hand in real friendship. I have a pipe and a little
tobacco to give the commissioners to smoke in friendship. I look on you
and the red people as my children. Your having determined on peace is
most pleasing to me, for I have seen much trouble during the late war. I
am old, but I hope yet to bear children who will grow up and people our
nation, as we are now to be under the protection of Congress, and shall
have no disturbance."
A brief summary of the events which followed on the negotiation of this
treaty may be best given in the words of a report made by the Secretary
of War to the President four years later. In July, 1789, General Knox
writes as follows of the Cherokees: "This nation of Indians, consisting
of separate towns or villages, are seated principally on the head-waters
of the Tennessee, which runs into the Ohio. Their hunting-grounds extend
from the Cumberland River along the frontiers of Virginia, North and
South Carolina, and part of Georgia.
"The frequent wars they have had with the frontier people of the said
States have greatly diminished their number. The commissioners estimated
them in November, 1785, at 2000 warriors, but they were estimated in
1787 at 2650; yet it is probable they may be lessened since by the
depredations committed on them.
"The United States concluded a treaty with the Cherokees at Hopewell, on
the Keowee, the 28th of November, 1785, which is entered on the printed
journals of Congress April 17th, 1786. The negotiations of the
commissioners on the part of the United States are hereunto annexed,
marked A. It will appear by the papers marked B. that the State of North
Carolina, by their agent, protested against the said treaty as
infringing and violating the legislative rights of that State.
"By a variety of evidence which has been submitted to the last Congress,
it has been proved that the said treaty has been entirely disregarded by
the white people inhabiting the frontiers, styling themselves the State
of Franklin. The proceedings of Congress on the 1st of September, 1788,
and the proclamation they then issued on this subject, will show their
sense of the many unprovoked outrages committed against the Cherokees.
"The information contained in the papers marked C., from Colonel Joseph
Martin, the late agent to the Cherokees, and Richard Winn, Esq., will
further evince the deplorable situation of the Cherokees, and the
indispensable obligation of the United States to vindicate their faith,
justice, and national dignity.
"The letter of Mr. Winn, the late superintendent, of the 1st of March,
informs that a treaty will be held with the Cherokees on the third
Monday of May, at the Upper War-ford on French Broad River. But it is to
be observed that the time for which both he and Colonel Joseph Martin,
the agent to the Cherokees and Chickasaws, were elected has expired, and
therefore they are not authorized to act on the part of the Union. If
the commissioners appointed by North Carolina, South Carolina, and
Georgia, by virtue of the resolve of Congress of the 26th of October,
1787, should attend the said treaty, their proceedings thereon may soon
be expected. But, as part of the Cherokees have taken refuge within the
limits of the Creeks, it is highly probable they will be under the same
direction; and, therefore, as the fact of the violation of the treaty
cannot be disputed, and as the commissioners have not power to replace
the Cherokees within the limits established in 1785, it is not probable,
even if a treaty should be held, as stated by Mr. Winn, that the result
would be satisfactory."
This is the summing up of the situation. The details of it are to be
read in copious volumes of the early history of Tennessee, North and
South Carolina, and Georgia—all under the head of "Indian Atrocities."
To very few who read those records does it occur that the Indians who
committed these "atrocities" were simply ejecting by force, and, in the
contests arising from this forcible ejectment, killing men who had
usurped and stolen their lands—lands ceded to them by the United States
Government in a solemn treaty, of which the fifth Article was as
follows:
"If any citizen of the United States or other person, not being an
Indian, shall attempt to settle on any of the lands westward or
southward of the said boundaries which are hereby allotted to the
Indians for their hunting-grounds, or having already settled and will
not remove from the same within six months after the ratification of
this treaty, such person shall forfeit the protection of the United
States, and the Indians _may punish him or not as they please_."
It is evident that it is necessary to go back to the days of the first
treaties with our Indians to possess ourselves of the first requisites
for fair judgment of their conduct toward white men. What would a
community of white men, situated precisely as these Cherokees were, have
done? What did these very Southern colonists themselves do to Spaniards
who encroached on their lands? Fought them; killed them; burnt their
houses over their heads, and drove them into the sea!
In a later communication in the same year to the President, the
Secretary says: "The disgraceful violation of the treaty of Hopewell
with the Cherokees requires the serious consideration of Congress. If so
direct and manifest contempt of the authority of the United States be
suffered with impunity, it will be in vain to attempt to extend the arm
of the Government to the frontiers. The Indian tribes can have no faith
in such imbecile promises, and the lawless whites will ridicule a
government which shall on paper only make Indian treaties and regulate
Indian boundaries."
The President, thus entreated, addressed himself to the Senate, and
asked their advice. He recapitulated the facts as set forth by General
Knox, "that upward of five hundred families are settled on the Cherokee
lands," and asks,
"1st. Is it the judgment of the Senate that overtures shall be made to
the Cherokees to arrange a new boundary, so as to embrace the
settlements made by the white people since the treaty of Hopewell in
November, 1785?
"2d. If so, shall compensation to the amount of $—— annually, or of $——
in gross, be made to the Cherokees for the land they shall relinquish,
holding the occupiers of the land accountable to the United States for
its value?
"3d. Shall the United States stipulate solemnly to guarantee the new
boundary which may be arranged?"
The Senate thereupon resolved that the President should, at his
discretion, cause the Hopewell treaty to be carried out, or make a new
one; but, in case a new one was made, the "Senate do advise and consent
solemnly to guarantee the same."
Accordingly, in July, 1791, a new treaty—the treaty of Holston—was made
with the Cherokees, new boundaries established, and $1000 a year
promised to the tribe for the lands relinquished.
By the seventh Article of this treaty the United States "solemnly
guarantee to the Cherokee nation all their lands not hereby ceded:" the
eighth Article reiterates the old permission that if any citizen of the
United States or other person (not an Indian) shall settle on the
Cherokees' lands, the Cherokees may punish him as they please. Article
ninth says that no citizen or inhabitant of the United States shall hunt
or destroy game on the Cherokee lands, or go into the Cherokee country
without a passport from the governor or some other authorized person.
The next year the Cherokees sent an embassy to Philadelphia to ask for
an increase of $500 in their annuity. One of the chiefs said that he had
told Governor Blunt the year before that he would not consent to selling
the lands for $1000 a year. "It would not buy a breech-clout for each of
my nation;" which was literally true.
To this additional annuity the Senate consented, and with this the
chiefs said they were "perfectly satisfied." But they begged for the
ploughs, hoes, cattle, etc., which had been promised in the treaty. They
said, "Game is going fast away from among us. We must plant corn and
raise cattle, and we want you to assist us."
In 1794 it was necessary to make another treaty, chiefly to declare that
the Holston treaty was in "full force and binding." It had not been
"fully carried into execution by reason of misunderstandings," it was
said. This was very true; white settlers had gone where they pleased, as
if it did not exist; Cherokees had murdered them, as they were, by their
treaty, explicitly permitted to do. The whites had retaliated by
unprovoked attacks on friendly Indians, and the Indians had retaliated
again. The exasperated Indians implored Congress to protect them: the
still more exasperated whites demanded of Congress to protect them. The
Secretary of War writes despairingly, that "The desire of too many
frontier white people to seize by force or fraud on the neighboring
Indian lands continues to be an unceasing cause of jealousy and hatred
on the part of the Indians; and it would appear, upon a calm
investigation, that until the Indians can be quieted on this point, and
rely with confidence on the protection of their lands by the United
States, no well-grounded hope of tranquillity can be entertained."
In this miserable manner, unjust equally to the white men and to the
Indians, affairs went on for several years, until in 1801 it became
absolutely necessary that in some way a definite understanding of
boundaries, and an authoritative enforcement of rights on both sides,
should be brought about; accordingly, commissioners were sent by the
President "to obtain the consent of the Cherokees" to new grants of land
and establishment of boundaries. The instructions given to these
commissioners are remarkable for their reiterated assertion of the
Indians' unquestioned right to do as they please about ceding these
lands. Such phrases as these: "Should the Indians refuse to cede to the
United States any of the above-designated lands," and "you will endeavor
to prevail upon them to cede," and "you will endeavor to procure the
consent of the Indians," are proof of the fulness of the recognition the
United States Government at that time gave of the Indians' "right of
occupancy;" also of the realization on the part of the Government that
these Indian nations were powers whose good-will it was of importance to
conciliate. "It is of importance," the instructions say, "that the
Indian nations generally should be convinced of the certainty in which
they may at all times rely upon the friendship of the United States, and
that the President will never abandon them or their children;" and, "It
will be incumbent on you to introduce the desires of the Government in
such a manner as will permit you to drop them, as you may find them illy
received, without giving the Indians an opportunity to reply with a
decided negative, or raising in them unfriendly and inimical
dispositions. You will state none of them in the tone of demands, but in
the first instance merely mention them as propositions which you are
authorized to make, and their assent to which the Government would
consider as new testimonials of their friendship."
Nevertheless, the Cherokees did reply with "a decided negative." They
utterly refused to cede any more lands, or to give their consent to the
opening of any more roads through their territory. But it only took four
years to bring them to the point where they were ready to acquiesce in
the wishes of the Government, and to make once more the effort to secure
to themselves an unmolested region, by giving up several large tracts of
land and a right of way on several roads. In 1805 they concluded another
treaty, ceding territory for which the United States thought it worth
while to pay $15,000 immediately, and an annuity of $3000.
Ten years later (in 1816) they gave up all their lands in South
Carolina, and the United States became surety that South Carolina should
pay to them $5000 for the same. In the autumn of the same year they made
still another cession of lands to the United States Government, for
which they were to have an annuity of $6000 a year for ten years, and
$5000 as compensation for the improvements they surrendered.
In 1817 an important treaty was concluded, making still further cessions
of lands, and defining the position of a part of the Cherokee nation
which had moved away, with the President's permission, to the Arkansas
River in 1809. The eighth Article of this treaty promises that the
United States will give to every head of an Indian family residing on
the east side of the Mississippi, who may wish to become a citizen, "a
reservation of six hundred and forty acres of land, in which they will
have a life estate, with a reversion in fee-simple to their children."
What imagination could have foreseen that in less than twenty years the
chiefs of this Cherokee nation would be found piteously pleading to be
allowed to remain undisturbed on these very lands? In the whole history
of our Government's dealings with the Indian tribes, there is no record
so black as the record of its perfidy to this nation. There will come a
time in the remote future when, to the student of American history, it
will seem well-nigh incredible. From the beginning of the century they
had been steadily advancing in civilization. As far back as 1800 they
had begun the manufacture of cotton cloth, and in 1820 there was
scarcely a family in that part of the nation living east of the
Mississippi but what understood the use of the card and spinning-wheel.
Every family had its farm under cultivation. The territory was laid off
into districts, with a council-house, a judge, and a marshal in each
district. A national committee and council were the supreme authority in
the nation. Schools were flourishing in all the villages.
Printing-presses were at work.
Their territory was larger than the three States of Massachusetts, Rhode
Island, and Connecticut combined. It embraced the North-western part of
Georgia, the North-east of Alabama, a corner of Tennessee and of North
Carolina. They were enthusiastic in their efforts to establish and
perfect their own system of jurisprudence. Missions of several sects
were established in their country, and a large number of them had
professed Christianity, and were living exemplary lives.
There is no instance in all history of a race of people passing in so
short a space of time from the barbarous stage to the agricultural and
civilized. And it was such a community as this that the State of
Georgia, by one high-handed outrage, made outlaws!—passing on the 19th
of December, 1829, a law "to annul all laws and ordinances made by the
Cherokee nation of Indians;" declaring "all laws, ordinances, orders,
and regulations of any kind whatever, made, passed, or enacted by the
Cherokee Indians, either in general council or in any other way
whatever, or by any authority whatever, null and void, and of no effect,
as if the same had never existed; also, that no Indian, or descendant of
any Indian residing within the Creek or Cherokee nations of Indians,
shall be deemed a competent witness in any court of this State to which
a white man may be a party."
What had so changed the attitude of Georgia to the Indians within her
borders? Simply the fact that the Indians, finding themselves hemmed in
on all sides by fast thickening white settlements, had taken a firm
stand that they would give up no more land. So long as they would cede
and cede, and grant and grant tract after tract, and had millions of
acres still left to cede and grant, the selfishness of white men took no
alarm; but once consolidated into an empire, with fixed and inalienable
boundaries, powerful, recognized, and determined, the Cherokee nation
would be a thorn in the flesh to her white neighbors. The doom of the
Cherokees was sealed on the day when they declared, once for all,
officially as a nation, that they would not sell another foot of land.
This they did in an interesting and pathetic message to the United
States Senate in 1822.
Georgia, through her governor and her delegates to Congress, had been
persistently demanding to have the Cherokees compelled to give up their
lands. She insisted that the United States Government should fulfil a
provision, made in an old compact of 1802, to extinguish the Indian
titles within her limits as soon as it could be peaceably done. This she
demanded should be done now, either peaceably or otherwise.
"We cannot but view the design of those letters," says this message, "as
an attempt bordering on a hostile disposition toward the Cherokee nation
to wrest from them by arbitrary means their just rights and liberties,
the security of which is solemnly guaranteed to them by these United
States. *** We assert under the fullest authority that all the
sentiments expressed in relation to the disposition and determination of
the nation never to cede another foot of land, are positively the
production and voice of the nation. *** There is not a spot out of the
limits of any of the States or Territories thereof, and within the
limits of the United States, that they would ever consent to inhabit;
because they have unequivocally determined never again to pursue the
chase as heretofore, or to engage in wars, unless by the common call of
the Government to defend the common rights of the United States. *** The
Cherokees have turned their attention to the pursuits of the civilized
man: agriculture, manufactures, and the mechanic arts and education are
all in successful operation in the nation at this time; and while the
Cherokees are peacefully endeavoring to enjoy the blessings of
civilization and Christianity on the soil of their rightful inheritance,
and while the exertions and labors of various religious societies of
these United States are successfully engaged in promulgating to them the
words of truth and life from the sacred volume of Holy Writ, and under
the patronage of the General Government, they are threatened with
removal or extinction. *** We appeal to the magnanimity of the American
Congress for justice, and the protection of the rights and liberties and
lives of the Cherokee people. We claim it from the United States by the
strongest obligation which imposes it on them—by treaties: and we expect
it from them under that memorable declaration, 'that all men are created
equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable
rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness.'"
The dignified and pathetic remonstrances of the Cherokee chiefs, their
firm reiterations of their resolve not to part with their lands, were
called by the angry Georgian governor "tricks of vulgar cunning," and
"insults from the polluted lips of outcasts and vagabonds;" and he is
not afraid, in an official letter to the Secretary of War, to openly
threaten the President that, if he upholds the Indians in their
rejection of the overtures for removal, the "consequences are
inevitable," and that, in resisting the occupation of the Cherokee lands
by the Georgians, he will be obliged to "make war upon, and shed the
blood of brothers and friends."
To these Cherokees Mr. Jefferson had written, at one time during his
administration, "I sincerely wish you may succeed in your laudable
endeavors to save the remnant of your nation by adopting industrious
occupations, and a government of regular law. In this you may always
rely on the counsel and assistance of the United States."
In 1791 he had written to General Knox, defining the United States'
position in the matter of Indian lands: "Government should firmly
maintain this ground, that the Indians have a right to the occupation of
their lands independent of the States within whose chartered lines they
happen to be; that until they cede them by treaty, or other transaction
equivalent to treaty, no act of a State can give a right to such lands.
*** The Government is determined to exert all its energy for the
patronage and protection of the rights of the Indians."
And the year before General Washington had said to the Six Nations: "In
future you cannot be defrauded of your lands. No State or person can
purchase your lands unless at some public treaty held under the
authority of the United States. The General Government will never
consent to your being defrauded; but it will protect you in all your
just rights. *** You possess the right to sell, and the right of
refusing to sell your lands. *** The United States will be true and
faithful to their engagements."
What could Cherokee men and women have thought when, only thirty years
later, they found this United States Government upholding the State of
Georgia in her monstrous pretensions of right to the whole of their
country, and in her infamous cruelties of oppression toward them? when
they found this United States Government sending its agents to seduce
and bribe their chiefs to bargain away their country; even stooping to
leave on the public records of official instructions to a commissioner
such phrases as these: "Appeal to the chiefs and influential men—not
together, but apart, at their own houses;" "make offers to them of
extensive reservations in fee-simple, and other rewards, to obtain their
acquiescence;" "the more careful you are to secure from even the chiefs
the official character you bear, the better;" "enlarge on the advantage
of their condition in the West: there the Government would protect
them." This the Secretary of War called "moving on them in the line of
their prejudices."
In a report submitted to the War Department in 1825 by Thomas L.
McKenney is a glowing description of the Cherokee country and nation at
that time: "The country is well watered; abundant springs of pure water
are found in every part; a range of majestic and lofty mountains stretch
themselves across it. The northern part is hilly and mountainous; in the
southern and western parts there are extensive and fertile plains,
covered partly with tall trees, through which beautiful streams of water
glide. These plains furnish immense pasturage, and numberless herds of
cattle are dispersed over them; horses are plenty; numerous flocks of
sheep, goats, and swine cover the valleys and the hills. On Tennessee,
Ustanula, and Canasagi rivers Cherokee commerce floats. The climate is
delicious and healthy; the winters are mild; the spring clothes the
ground with the richest scenery; flowers of exquisite beauty and
variegated hues meet and fascinate the eye in every direction. In the
plains and valleys the soil is generally rich, producing Indian-corn,
cotton, tobacco, wheat, oats, indigo, and sweet and Irish potatoes. The
natives carry on considerable trade with the adjoining States; some of
them export cotton in boats down the Tennessee to the Mississippi, and
down that river to New Orleans. Apple and peach orchards are quite
common, and gardens are cultivated, and much attention paid to them.
Butter and cheese are seen on Cherokee tables. There are many public
roads in the nation, and houses of entertainment kept by natives.
Numerous and flourishing villages are seen in every section of the
country. Cotton and woollen cloths are manufactured: blankets of various
dimensions, manufactured by Cherokee hands, are very common. Almost
every family in the nation grows cotton for its own consumption.
Industry and commercial enterprise are extending themselves in every
part. Nearly all the merchants in the nation are native Cherokees.
Agricultural pursuits engage the chief attention of the people.
Different branches in mechanics are pursued. The population is rapidly
increasing. *** White men in the nation enjoy all the immunities and
privileges of the Cherokee people, except that they are not eligible to
public offices. *** The Christian religion is the religion of the
nation. Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists, and Moravians are the most
numerous sects. Some of the most influential characters are members of
the Church, and live consistently with their professions. The whole
nation is penetrated with gratitude for the aid it has received from the
United States Government, and from different religious societies.
Schools are increasing every year; learning is encouraged and rewarded;
the young class acquire the English, and those of mature age the
Cherokee system of learning. *** Our relations with all nations are of
the most friendly character. We are out of debt, and our public revenue
is in a flourishing condition. Besides the amount arising from imports,
perpetual annuity is due from the United States in consideration of
lands ceded in former periods. Our system of government, founded on
republican principles by which justice is equally distributed, secures
the respect of the people. New Town, pleasantly situated in the centre
of the nation, and at the junction of the Canasagi and Gusuwati, two
beautiful streams, is the seat of government. The legislative power is
vested in what is denominated in native dialect Tsalagi Tinilawige,
consisting of a national committee and council. Members of both branches
are chosen by and from the people for a limited period. In New Town a
printing-press is soon to be established; also a national library and
museum. An immense concourse of people frequent the seat of government
when the Tsalagi Tinilawige is in session, which takes place once a
year.
"The success which has attended the philological researches of one in
the nation whose system of education has met with universal approbation
among the Cherokees certainly entitles him to great consideration, and
to rank with the benefactors of man. His name is Guess, and he is a
native and unlettered Cherokee; but, like Cadmus, he has given to his
people the alphabet of their language. It is composed of eighty-six
characters, by which in a few days the older Indians, who had despaired
of deriving an education by means of the schools, and who are not
included in the existing school system, may read and correspond."[30]
Footnote 30:
See Appendix, Art. IX.
Never did mountaineers cling more desperately to their homes than did
the Cherokees. The State of Georgia put the whole nation in duress, but
still they chose to stay. Year by year high-handed oppressions increased
and multiplied; military law reigned everywhere; Cherokee lands were
surveyed, and put up to be drawn by lottery; missionaries were arrested
and sent to prison for preaching to Cherokees; Cherokees were sentenced
to death by Georgia juries, and hung by Georgia executioners. Appeal
after appeal to the President and to Congress for protection produced
only reiterated confessions of the Government's inability to protect
them—reiterated proposals to them to accept a price for their country
and move away. Nevertheless they clung to it. A few hundreds went, but
the body of the nation still protested and entreated. There is nothing
in history more touching than the cries of this people to the Government
of the United States to fulfil its promises to them. And their cause was
not without eloquent advocates. When the bill for their removal was
before Congress, Frelinghuysen, Sprague, Robbins, Storrs, Ellsworth,
Evans, Huntington, Johns, Bates, Crockett, Everett, Test—all spoke
warmly against it; and, to the credit of Congress be it said, the bill
passed the Senate by only one majority.
The Rev. Jeremiah Evarts published a series of papers in the _National
Intelligencer_ under the signature of William Penn, in which he gave a
masterly analysis and summing up of the case, recapitulated the sixteen
treaties which the Government had made with the Cherokees, all
guaranteeing to them their lands, and declared that the Government had
"arrived at the bank of the Rubicon," where it must decide if it would
or would not save the country from the charge of bad faith. Many of his
eloquent sentences read in the light of the present time like
prophecies. He says, "in a quarter of a century the pressure upon the
Indians will be much greater from the boundless prairies, which must
ultimately be subdued and inhabited, than it would ever have been from
the borders of the present Cherokee country;" and asks, pertinently, "to
what confidence would such an engagement be entitled, done at the very
moment that treaties with Indians are declared not to be binding, and
for the very reason that existing treaties are not strong enough to bind
the United States." Remonstrances poured in upon Congress, petitions and
memorials from religious societies, from little country villages, all
imploring the Government to keep its faith to these people.
The Cherokees' own newspaper, _The Phœnix_, was filled at this time with
the records of the nation's suffering and despair.
"The State of Georgia has taken a strong stand against us, and the
United States must either defend us and our rights or leave us to our
foe. In the latter case she will violate her promise of protection, and
we cannot in future depend upon any guarantee to us, either here or
beyond the Mississippi.
"If the United States shall withdraw their solemn pledges of protection,
utterly disregard their plighted faith, deprive us of the right of
self-government, and wrest from us our land, then, in the deep anguish
of our misfortunes, we may justly say there is no place of security for
us, no confidence left that the United States will be more just and
faithful toward us in the barren prairies of the West than when we
occupied the soil inherited from the Great Author of our existence."
As a last resort the Cherokees carried their case before the Supreme
Court, and implored that body to restrain the State of Georgia from her
unjust interference with their rights. The reports of the case of the
Cherokee Nation _vs._ the State of Georgia fill a volume by themselves,
and are of vital importance to the history of Indian affairs. The
majority of the judges decided that an Indian tribe could not be
considered as a foreign nation, and therefore could not bring the suit.
Judge Thompson and Judge Story dissented from this opinion, and held
that the Cherokee tribe did constitute a foreign nation, and that the
State of Georgia ought to be enjoined from execution of its unjust laws.
The opinion of Chancellor Kent coincided with that of Judges Thompson
and Story. Chancellor Kent gave it as his opinion that the cases in
which the Supreme Court had jurisdiction would "reach and embrace every
controversy that can arise between the Cherokees and the State of
Georgia or its officers under the execution of the act of Georgia."
But all this did not help the Cherokees; neither did the fact of the
manifest sympathy of the whole court with their wrongs. The technical
legal decision had been rendered against them, and this delivered them
over to the tender mercies of Georgia: no power in the land could help
them. Fierce factions now began to be formed in the nation, one for and
one against the surrender of their lands. Many were ready still to
remain and suffer till death rather than give them up; but wiser
counsels prevailed, and in the last days of the year 1835 a treaty was
concluded with the United States by twenty of the Cherokee chiefs and
headmen, who thereby, in behalf of their nation, relinquished all the
lands claimed or possessed by them east of the Mississippi River.
The preamble of this treaty is full of pathos: "_Whereas_, The Cherokees
are anxious to make some arrangement with the Government of the United
States whereby the difficulties they have experienced by a residence
within the settled parts of the United States under the jurisdiction and
laws of the State governments may be terminated and adjusted; and with a
view to reuniting their people in one body, and securing a permanent
home for themselves and their posterity in the country selected by their
forefathers without the territorial limits of the State sovereignties,
and where they can establish and enjoy a government of their choice, and
perpetuate such a state of society as may be most consonant with their
views, habits, and condition, and as may tend to their individual
comfort and their advancement in civilization."
By this treaty the Cherokees gave up a country "larger than the three
States of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut combined, and
received therefor five millions of dollars and seven millions of acres
of land west of the Mississippi." This the United States "guaranteed,
and secured to be conveyed in patent," and defined it by exact
boundaries; and, "in addition to the seven millions of acres of land
thus provided for and bounded," the United States did "further guarantee
to the Cherokee nation a perpetual outlet west, and a free and
unmolested use of all the country west of the western boundary of said
seven millions of acres, as far west as the sovereignty of the United
States and their rights of soil extend."
The fifth Article of this treaty is, "The United States hereby covenant
and agree that the lands ceded to the Cherokee nation in the foregoing
article shall in no future time, without their consent, be included
within the territorial limits or jurisdiction of any State or
Territory."
In the sixth Article is this promise: "The United States agree to
protect the Cherokee nation from domestic strife and foreign enemies,
and against intestine wars between the several tribes."
Even after this treaty was made a great part of the nation refused to
sanction it, saying that it did not represent their wish; they would
never carry it out; hundreds refused to receive any longer either money
or supplies from the United States agents, lest they should be
considered to have thereby committed themselves to the treaty.
In 1837 General Wool wrote from the Cherokee country that the people
"uniformly declare that they never made the treaty in question. *** So
determined are they in their opposition that not one of all those who
were present, and voted in the council held but a day or two since at
this place, however poor or destitute, would receive either rations or
clothing from the United States, lest they might compromise themselves
in regard to the treaty. These same people, as well as those in the
mountains of North Carolina, during the summer past preferred living on
the roots and sap of trees rather than receive provisions from the
United States. Thousands, I have been informed, had no other food for
weeks."
For two years—to the very last moment allowed them by the treaty—they
clung to their lands, and at last were removed only by military force.
In May, 1838, General Scott was ordered to go with a sufficient military
force to compel the removal. His proclamation "to the Cherokee people
remaining in North Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, and Alabama" opens
thus:
"CHEROKEES,—The President of the United States has sent me with a
powerful army to cause you, in obedience to the treaty of 1835, to join
that part of your people who are already established on the other side
of the Mississippi. Unhappily the two years which were allowed for the
purpose you have suffered to pass away without following, and without
making any preparation to follow; and now, or by the time that this
solemn address shall reach your distant settlements, the emigration must
be commenced in haste, but I hope without disorder. I have no power, by
granting a further delay, to correct the error that you have committed.
The full-moon of May is already on the wane, and before another shall
have passed away every Cherokee man, woman, and child in those States
must be in motion to join their brethren in the West."
The tone of this proclamation, at once firm and kindly, could not fail
to profoundly impress the unfortunate people to whom it was addressed.
"My troops," said the humane and sympathizing general, "already occupy
many positions in the country that you are to abandon, and thousands and
thousands are approaching from every quarter, to render resistance and
escape alike hopeless. All those troops, regular and militia, are your
friends. Receive them and confide in them as such; obey them when they
tell you that you can remain no longer in this country. Soldiers are as
kind-hearted as brave, and the desire of every one of us is to execute
our painful duty in mercy. ***
"Chiefs, headmen, and warriors, will you then, by resistance, compel us
to resort to arms? God forbid. Or will you by flight seek to hide
yourselves in mountains and forests, and thus oblige us to hunt you
down? Remember that in pursuit it may be impossible to avoid conflicts.
The blood of the white man or the blood of the red man may be spilt; and
if spilt, however accidentally, it may be impossible for the discreet
and humane among you or among us to prevent a general war and carnage.
Think of this, my Cherokee brethren! I am an old warrior, and have been
present at many a scene of slaughter; but spare me, I beseech you, the
horror of witnessing the destruction of the Cherokees. Do not even wait
for the close approach of the troops, but make such preparations for
emigration as you can, and hasten to this place, to Ross's Landing, or
to Guinter's Landing, where you will be received in kindness by officers
selected for the purpose. *** This is the address of a warrior to
warriors. May its entreaties be kindly received, and may the God of both
prosper the Americans and Cherokees, and preserve them long in peace and
friendship with each other."
The reply of the council of the Cherokee nation to this proclamation is
worthy to be put on record. They make no further protest against going;
they simply ask the privilege of undertaking the whole charge of the
removal themselves. They say: "The present condition of the Cherokee
people is such that all dispute as to the time of emigration is set at
rest. Being already severed from their homes and their property, their
persons being under the absolute control of the commanding general, and
being altogether dependent on the benevolence and humanity of that high
officer for the suspension of their transportation to the West at a
season and under circumstances in which sickness and death were to be
apprehended to an alarming extent, all inducements to prolong their stay
in this country are taken away. And however strong their attachment to
the homes of their fathers may be, their interests and their wishes are
now to depart as early as may be consistent with their safety."
The council therefore submitted to General Scott several propositions:
1st. "That the Cherokee nation will undertake the whole business of
removing their people to the west of the river Mississippi." Their
estimates of cost, and arrangement as to time, intervals, etc., were
wise and reasonable. To their estimate of $65,880 as the cost for every
thousand persons transported General Scott objected, thinking it high.
He said that he was "confident" that it would be found that out of every
thousand there would be "at least five hundred strong men, women, boys,
and girls not only capable of marching twelve or fifteen miles a day,
but to whom the exercise would be beneficial; and another hundred able
to go on foot half that distance daily." He also objected to the
estimate of the ration at sixteen cents as too high.
The council replied that they believed the estimate reasonable, "having
the comfortable removal of our people solely in view, and endeavoring to
be governed, as far as that object will allow, by the rates of
expenditure fixed by the officers of the Government. After the necessary
bedding, cooking-utensils, and other indispensable articles of twenty
persons—say, four or five families—are placed in a wagon, with
subsistence for at least two days, the weight already will be enough to
exclude, in our opinion, more than a very few persons being hauled. The
great distance to be travelled, liability to sickness on the way of
grown persons, and the desire of performing the trip in as short a time
as possible, induce us still to think our estimate of that item not
extravagant. *** Whatever may be necessary in the emigration of our
people to their comfort on the way, and as conducive to their health, we
desire to be afforded them; at the same time it is our anxious wish, in
the management of this business, to be free at all times from the
imputation of extravagance." They added that the item of soap had been
forgotten in their first estimate, and must now be included, at the rate
of three pounds to every hundred pounds of rations.
General Scott replied, "as the Cherokee people are exclusively
interested in the cost as well as the comfort of the removal," he did
not feel himself at liberty to withhold his sanction from these
estimates. In the report of the Indian Commissioner, also, it is stated
that "the cost of removal, according to the Indian estimate, is high;"
but the commissioner adds, "as their own fund pays it, and it was
insisted on by their own confidential agents, it was thought it could
not be rejected."
Noble liberality! This nation of eighteen thousand industrious,
self-supporting people, compelled at the point of the bayonet to leave
their country and seek new homes in a wilderness, are to be permitted,
as a favor, to spend on their journey to this wilderness as much of
their own money as they think necessary, and have all the soap they
want.
The record which the United States Government has left in official
papers of its self-congratulations in the matter of this Cherokee
removal has an element in it of the ludicrous, spite of the tragedy and
shame.
Says the Secretary of War: "The generous and enlightened policy evinced
in the measures adopted by Congress toward that people during the last
session was ably and judiciously carried into effect by the general
appointed to conduct their removal. The reluctance of the Indians to
relinquish the land of their birth in the East, and remove to their new
homes in the West, was entirely overcome by the judicious conduct of
that officer, and they departed with alacrity under the guidance of
their own chiefs. The arrangements for this purpose made by General
Scott, in compliance with his previous instructions, although somewhat
costly to the Indians themselves, met the entire approbation of the
Department, as it was deemed of the last importance that the Cherokees
should remove to the West voluntarily, and that upon their arrival at
the place of their ultimate destination they should recur to the manner
in which they had been treated with kind and grateful feelings. Humanity
no less than good policy dictated this course toward these children of
the forest; and in carrying out in this instance with an unwavering hand
the measures resolved upon by the Government, in the hope of preserving
the Indians and of maintaining the peace and tranquillity of the whites,
it will always be gratifying to reflect that this has been effected not
only without violence, but with every proper regard for the feelings and
interests of that people."
The Commissioner of Indian Affairs says, in his report: "The case of the
Cherokees is a striking example of the liberality of the Government in
all its branches. *** A retrospect of the last eight months in reference
to this numerous and more than ordinarily enlightened tribe cannot fail
to be refreshing to well-constituted minds."
A further appropriation had been asked by the Cherokee chiefs to meet
the expense of their removal (they not thinking $5,000,000 a very
munificent payment for a country as large as all Massachusetts, Rhode
Island, and Connecticut together), and Congress had passed a law giving
them $1147.67 more, and the commissioner says of this: "When it is
considered that by the treaty of December, 1835, the sum of $5,000,000
was stipulated to be paid them as the full value of their lands, after
that amount was declared by the Senate of the United States to be an
ample consideration for them, the spirit of this whole proceeding cannot
be too much admired. By some the measure may be regarded as just; by
others generous: it perhaps partook of both attributes. If it went
farther than naked justice could have demanded, it did not stop short of
what liberality approved. *** If our acts have been generous, they have
not been less wise and politic. A large mass of men have been
conciliated; the hazard of an effusion of human blood has been put by;
good feeling has been preserved, and we have quietly and gently
transported eighteen thousand friends to the west bank of the
Mississippi."
To dwell on the picture of this removal is needless. The fact by itself
is more eloquent than pages of detail and description could make it. No
imagination so dull, no heart so hard as not to see and to feel, at the
bare mention of such an emigration, what horrors and what anguish it
must have involved. "Eighteen thousand friends!" Only a great
magnanimity of nature, strengthened by true Christian principle, could
have prevented them from being changed into eighteen thousand bitter
enemies.
For some years after this removal fierce dissensions rent the Cherokee
nation. The party who held that the treaty of 1835 had been unfair, and
that the nation still had an unextinguished right to its old country at
the East, felt, as was natural, a bitter hatred toward the party which,
they claimed, had wrongfully signed away the nation's lands. Several of
the signers of the treaty, influential men of the nation, were murdered.
Party-spirit ran to such a height that the United States Government was
compelled to interfere; and in 1846, after long negotiations and
dissensions, a new treaty was made, by the terms and concessions of
which the anti-treaty party were appeased, a general amnesty provided
for, and comparative harmony restored to the nation.
The progress of this people in the ten years following this removal is
almost past belief. In 1851 they had twenty-two primary schools, and had
just built two large houses for a male and female seminary, in which the
higher branches of education were to be taught. They had a temperance
society with three thousand members, and an auxiliary society in each of
the eight districts into which the country was divided. They had a Bible
Society and twelve churches; a weekly newspaper, partly in English,
partly in Cherokee; eight district courts, two circuit courts, and a
supreme court. Legislative business was transacted as before by the
national council and committee, elected for four years. Nearly one
thousand boys and girls were in the public schools.
In 1860 the agitation on the subject of slavery began to be felt, a
strong antislavery party being organized in the nation. There were
stormy scenes also in that part of the country nearest the Kansas line.
For several years white settlers had persisted in taking up farms there,
and the Cherokees had in vain implored the Government to drive them
away. The officer at last sent to enforce the Cherokees' rights and
dislodge the squatters was obliged to burn their cabins over their heads
before they would stir, so persuaded were they of the superior right of
the white man over the Indian. "The only reason the settlers gave for
not heeding the notices was that they had been often notified before to
quit the reservation; and, no steps having been taken to enforce
obedience, they supposed they would be allowed to remain with like
security in this instance."
"It is surprising," says the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, "to see the
growing disposition on the part of our citizens to wholly disregard our
treaty obligations with Indian tribes within our borders; and it is to
be hoped that in future their rights will be held more sacred, or that
the Government will in every instance promptly see that they are
observed and respected."
In the first year of the Civil War a large number of the Cherokees took
up arms on the rebel side. That this was not from any love or liking for
the Southern cause, it would seem, must be evident to any one who
believed that they were possessed of memories. The opportunity of
fighting against Georgians could not but have been welcome to the soul
of a Cherokee, even if he bought it at the price of fighting on the side
of the government which had been so perfidious to his nation. Their
defection was no doubt largely due to terror. The forts in their
vicinity were surrendered to the rebels; all United States troops were
withdrawn from that part of the country. They had no prospect of
protection from the Government, and, as if to leave them without one
incentive to loyalty, the Government suspended the payment of their
annuities.
The Confederate Government stepped in, artfully promising to pay what
the Northern Government refused. It would have taken a rare loyalty,
indeed, to have stood unmoved in such circumstances as these; yet
thousands of the Indians in Indian Territory did remain loyal, and fled
for their lives to avoid being pressed into the rebel service; almost
half of the Creek nation, many Seminoles, Chickasaws, Quapaws,
Cherokees, and half a dozen others—over six thousand in all—fled to
Kansas, where their sufferings in the winter of 1862 were heart-rending.
That the Cherokees did not lightly abandon their allegiance is on record
in the official history of the Department of the Interior. The Report of
the Indian Bureau for 1863 says: "The Cherokees, prior to the Rebellion,
were the most numerous, intelligent, wealthy, and influential tribe of
this superintendency (the southern). For many months they steadily
resisted the efforts made by the rebels to induce them to abandon their
allegiance to the Federal Government; but being wholly unprotected, and
without the means of resistance, they were finally compelled to enter
into treaty stipulations with the rebel authorities. This connection
was, however, of short duration, for upon the first appearance of United
States forces in their country an entire regiment of Indian troops,
raised ostensibly for service in the rebel army, deserted and came over
to us, and have ever since been under our command, and upon all
occasions have proved themselves faithful and efficient soldiers." In
the course of the next year, however, many more joined the rebels: it
was estimated that between six and seven thousand of the wealthier
portion of the nation co-operated in one way or another with the rebels.
The result was that at the end of the war the Cherokee country was
ruined.
"In the Cherokee country," says the Report of the Indian Bureau for
1865, "where the contending armies have moved to and fro; where their
foraging parties have gone at will, sparing neither friend nor foe;
where the disloyal Cherokees in the service of the rebel government were
determined that no trace of the homesteads of their loyal brethren
should remain for their return; and where the swindling cattle-thieves
have made their ill-gotten gains for two years past, the scene is one of
utter desolation."
The party feeling between the loyal and disloyal Cherokees ran as high
as it did between the loyal and disloyal whites, and it looked for a
time as if it would be as impossible to make the two opposing parties in
the Cherokee nation agree to live peaceably side by side with each
other, as it would to make discharged soldiers from Georgia and from
Maine settle down in one village together. But after long and
troublesome negotiations a treaty was concluded in 1866, by which all
the necessary points seemed to be established of a general amnesty and
peace.
That the Indians were at a great disadvantage in the making of these new
treaties it is unnecessary to state. The peculiarity of the Government's
view of their situation and rights is most näively stated in one of the
reports for 1862. Alluding to the necessity of making at no very distant
time new treaties with all these Southern tribes, one of the Indian
superintendents says: "While the rebelling of a large portion of most of
these tribes abrogates treaty obligations, and places them at our mercy,
the very important fact should not be forgotten that the Government
first wholly failed to keep its treaty stipulations with those people,
and in protecting them, by withdrawing all the troops from the forts in
Indian Territory, and leaving them at the mercy of the rebels. It is a
well-known fact that self-preservation in many instances compelled them
to make the best terms they could with the rebels."
Nevertheless they are "at our mercy," because their making the "best
terms they could with the rebels abrogates treaty obligations." The
trite old proverb about the poorness of rules that do not work both ways
seems to be applicable here.
With a recuperative power far in advance of that shown by any of the
small white communities at the South, the Cherokees at once addressed
themselves to rebuilding their homes and reconstructing their national
life. In one year they established fifteen new schools, set all their
old industries going, and in 1869 held a large agricultural fair, which
gave a creditable exhibition of stock and farm produce. Thus a second
time they recovered themselves, after what would seem to be well-nigh
their destruction as a people. But the Indian's fate of perpetual
insecurity, alarm, and unrest does not abandon them. In 1870 they are
said to be "extremely uneasy about the security of their possession of
the lands they occupy." When asked why their high-schools are not
re-established, reforms introduced into the administration of justice,
desirable improvements undertaken, the reply inevitably comes, "We
expect to have our lands taken away: what is the use of all that when
our doom as a nation is sealed?"
"Distrust is firmly seated in their minds. National apathy depresses
them, and until they realize a feeling of assurance that their title to
their lands will be respected, and that treaties are an inviolable law
for all parties, the Cherokees will not make the efforts for national
progress of which they are capable."
When their delegates went to Washington, in 1866, to make the new
treaty, they were alarmed by the position taken by the Government that
the nation, as a nation, had forfeited its rights. They were given to
understand that "public opinion held them responsible for complicity in
the Rebellion; and, although they could point to the fact that the only
countenance the rebels received came from less than one-third of the
population, and cite the services of two Cherokee regiments in the Union
cause, it was urged home to them that, before being rehabilitated in
their former rights by a new treaty, they were not in a position to
refuse any conditions imposed. Such language from persons they believed
to possess the power of injuring their people intimidated the Cherokee
delegates. They sold a large tract in South-eastern Kansas at a dollar
an acre to an association of speculators, and it went into the
possession of a railroad company. They also acceded, against the wishes
of the Cherokee people, to a provision in the treaty granting right of
way through the country for two railroads. This excited great uneasiness
among the Indians."
And well it might. The events of the next few years amply justified this
uneasiness. The rapacity of railroad corporations is as insatiable as
their methods are unscrupulous. The phrase "extinguishing Indian titles"
has become, as it were, a mere technical term in the transfer of lands.
The expression is so common that it has probably been one of the
agencies in fixing in the minds of the people the prevalent impression
that extinction is the ultimate and inevitable fate of the Indian; and
this being the case, methods and times are not, after all, of so much
consequence; they are merely foreordained conditions of the great
foreordained progression of events. This is the only explanation of the
unconscious inhumanity of many good men's modes of thinking and speaking
in regard to the Indians being driven from home after home, and robbed
of tract after tract of their lands.
In the Report of the Indian Bureau for 1875 is an account of a remnant
of the Cherokee tribe in North Carolina: "They number not far from
seventeen hundred, and there are probably in other parts of North
Carolina, and scattered through Georgia and Tennessee, between three and
four hundred more. These Cherokees have had an eventful history. When
the main portion of the tribe was compelled to remove west of the
Mississippi they fled to the mountains, and have steadily refused to
leave their homes. The proceeds of their lands, which were sold in
accordance with a treaty with the main body of the Cherokees, have been
mainly expended in the purchase of lands, and providing funds for the
Western Cherokees. At various times previous to the year 1861 the agent
for the Eastern Cherokees, at their request, purchased lands with their
funds, upon which they might make their homes. These purchases, though
probably made with good intent, carelessly left the title in their agent
personally, and not in trust. By this neglect, when subsequently the
agent became insolvent, all their lands were seized and sold for his
debts. By special legislation of Congress their case has been brought
before the courts of North Carolina, and their rights to a certain
extent asserted, and they are enabled to maintain possession of their
lands; and, by the use of their own funds in extinguishing liens, are
now in possession of above seventy thousand acres of fair arable,
timber, and grazing lands. They have shown themselves capable of
self-support, and, I believe, have demonstrated the unwisdom of removing
Indians from a country which offers to them a home, and where a white
man could make a living. This is shown by the fact that they are now,
though receiving scarcely any Government aid, in a more hopeful
condition, both as to morals, and industry, and personal property, than
the Cherokees who removed West."
The Report of the Indian Bureau for 1876 fully bears out this statement.
The North Carolina Cherokees have, indeed, reason to be in a more
hopeful condition, for they have their lands secured to them by patent,
confirmed by a decision of State courts; but this is what the Department
of the Interior has brought itself to say as to the Western Cherokees'
lands, and those of all other civilized tribes in the Indian Territory:
"By treaty the Government has ceded to the so-called civilized
tribes—the Cherokees, Creeks, Choctaws, Chickasaws, and Seminoles—a
section of country altogether disproportionate in amount to their needs.
*** The amount susceptible of cultivation must be many-fold greater than
can ever be cultivated by the labor of the Indians. But the Indians
claim, it is understood, that they hold their lands by sanctions so
solemn that it would be a gross breach of faith on the part of the
Government to take away any portion thereof without their consent; and
that consent they apparently propose to withhold."
Let us set side by side with this last paragraph a quotation from the
treaty by virtue of which "the Indians claim, it is understood, that
they hold" these lands, which they now "apparently propose to withhold."
We will not copy it from the original treaty; we will copy it, and a few
other sentences with it, from an earlier report of this same Department
of the Interior. Only so far back as 1870 we find the Department in a
juster frame of mind toward the Cherokees. "A large part of the Indian
tribes hold lands to which they are only fixed by laws that define the
reservations to which they shall be confined. It cannot be denied that
these are in a great measure dependent on the humanity of the American
people. *** But the Cherokees, and the other civilized Indian nations no
less, hold lands in perpetuity by titles defined by the supreme law of
the land. The United States agreed 'to possess the Cherokees, and to
guarantee it to them forever,' and that guarantee 'was solemnly pledged
of seven million acres of land.' The consideration for this territory
was the same number of acres elsewhere located. The inducement to the
bargain set forth in the treaty was 'the anxious desire of the
Government of the United States to secure to the Cherokee nation of
Indians a permanent home, and which shall, under the most solemn
guarantee of the United States, be and remain theirs forever—a home that
shall never in all future time be embarrassed by having extended around
it the lines or placed over it the jurisdiction of a Territory or State,
or be pressed upon by the extension in any way of the limits of any
existing State.' To assure them of their title, a patent for the
Territory was issued."
This was the view of the Department of the Interior in 1870. In 1876 the
Department says that affairs in the Indian Territory are "complicated
and embarrassing, and the question is directly raised whether an
extensive section of country is to be allowed to remain for an
indefinite period practically an uncultivated waste, or whether the
Government shall determine to reduce the size of the reservation."
The phrase "whether the Government shall determine to reduce the size of
the reservation" sounds much better than "whether the Government shall
rob the Indians of a few millions of acres of land;" but the latter
phrase is truth, and the other is the spirit of lying.
The commissioner says that the question is a difficult one, and should
be "considered with calmness, and a full purpose to do no injustice to
the Indians." He gives his own personal opinion on it "with hesitancy,"
but gives it nevertheless, that "public policy will soon require the
disposal of a large portion of these lands to the Government for the
occupancy either of other tribes of Indians or of white people. There is
a very general and growing opinion that observance of the strict letter
of treaties with Indians is in many cases at variance with their own
best interests and with sound public policy." He adds, however, that it
must not be understood from this recommendation that it is "the policy
or purpose of this office to in any way encourage the spirit of rapacity
which demands the throwing open of the Indian Territory to white
settlement." He says, "the true way to secure its perpetual occupancy by
Indians is to fill it up with other Indians, to give them lands in
severalty, and to provide a government strong and intelligent enough to
protect them effectually from any and all encroachments on the part of
the whites."
Comment on these preposterously contradictory sentences would be idle.
The best comment on them, and the most fitting close to this sketch of
the Cherokee nation, is in a few more quotations from the official
reports of the Indian Bureau.
Of this people, from whom the Department of the Interior proposes, for
"public policy," to take away "a large portion" of their country, it has
published within the last three years these records:
"It has been but a few years since the Cherokees assembled in council
under trees or in a rude log-house, with hewed logs for seats. Now the
legislature assembles in a spacious brick council-house, provided with
suitable committee-rooms, senate chamber, representative hall, library,
and executive offices, which cost $22,000.
"Their citizens occupy neat hewed double log-cabins, frame, brick, or
stone houses, according to the means or taste of the individual, with
ground adorned by ornamental trees, shrubbery, flowers, and nearly every
improvement, including orchards of the choicest fruits. Some of these
orchards have existed for nearly twenty years, and are now in a good,
fruitful condition. Their women are usually good house-keepers, and give
great attention to spinning and weaving yarns, jeans, and linsey, and
make most of the pants and hunter-jackets of the men and boys. The
farmers raise most of their own wool and cotton, and it is not an
uncommon sight, in a well-to-do Cherokee farmer's house, to see a
sewing-machine and a piano.
"They have ample provision for the education of all their children to a
degree of advancement equal to that furnished by an ordinary college in
the States. They have seventy-five common day-schools, kept open ten
months in the year, in the different settlements. For the higher
education of their young men and women they have two commodious and
well-furnished seminaries, one for each sex; and, in addition to those
already mentioned, they have a manual labor school and an orphan asylum.
The cost of maintaining these schools the past year (1877) was, as
reported by the superintendent of public instruction, $73,441.65, of
which $41,475 was paid as salary to teachers.
"They have twenty-four stores, twenty-two mills, and sixty-five
smith-shops, owned and conducted by their own citizens.
"Their constitution and laws are published in book form; and from their
printing-house goes forth among the people in their own language, and
also in English, the _Cherokee Advocate_, a weekly paper, which is
edited with taste and ability.
"They have (and this is true also of the Choctaws, Creeks, Chickasaws,
and Seminoles) a constitutional government, with legislative, judicial,
and executive departments, and conducted upon the same plan as our State
governments, the entire expenses of which are paid out of their own
funds, which are derived from interest on various stocks and bonds—the
invested proceeds of the sale of their lands, and held in trust by the
Government of the United States—which interest is paid the treasurers of
the different nations semi-annually, and by them disbursed on national
warrants issued by the principal chief and secretary, and registered by
the auditors.
"They are an intelligent, temperate, and industrious people, who live by
the honest fruits of their labor, and seem ambitious to advance both as
to the development of their lands and the conveniences of their homes.
In their council may be found men of learning and ability; and it is
doubtful if their rapid progress from a state of wild barbarism to that
of civilization and enlightenment has any parallel in the history of the
world. What required five hundred years for the Britons to accomplish in
this direction they have accomplished in one hundred years."
Will the United States Government determine to "reduce the size of the
reservation?"