INDIAN TREATIES AND DIFFICULTIES.
THE CREEKS--JOHN QUINCY ADAMS--HOPOTHLAYOHOLA--INDIAN ORATORY--SULPHUR
SPRING--TREATIES MADE AND BROKEN--AN INDEPENDENT GOVERNOR--COLONELS
JOHN S. McINTOSH, DAVID EMANUEL TWIGGS, AND DUNCAN CLINCH--GENERAL
GAINES--CHRISTIANIZING THE INDIANS--COTTON MATHER--EXPEDIENT AND
PRINCIPLE--THE PURITANICAL SNAKE.
During the administration of Troup, a contest arose as to the true
western boundary of the State, and the right of the State to the
territory occupied by a portion of the Creek tribe of Indians. In the
difficulty arising out of the sale by the Legislature of the lands
belonging to the State bordering upon the Mississippi River, a
compromise was effected by Congress with the company purchasing, and
Georgia had sold to the United States her claim to all the lands in the
original grant to General Oglethorpe and others by the English
Government, west of the Chattahoochee River. A part of the
consideration was that the United States should, at a convenient time,
and for the benefit of Georgia, extinguish the title of the Indians,
and remove them from the territory occupied by them, east of the
Chattahoochee River, to a certain point upon that stream; and from this
point, east of a line to run from it, directly to a point called Neckey
Jack, on the Tennessee River. The war of 1812 with Great Britain found
the Creek or Alabama portion of this tribe of Indians allies of
England. They were by that war conquered, and their territory wrested
from them. Those of the tribe under the influence of the celebrated
chief William McIntosh remained friendly to the United States, and were
active in assisting in the conquest of their hostile brethren. The
conquered Indians were removed from their territory and homes, into the
territory east of Line Creek, which was made the western boundary of
the Creek Nation's territory. Many of them came into the territory
claimed by Georgia as her domain.
This war was a war of the Republican party of the United States, and
the State of Georgia being almost unanimously Republican, her people
felt it would be unpatriotic, at this juncture, to demand of the
Government the fulfilment of her obligations in removing the Indians
from her soil. The expenses of the war were onerous, and felt as a
heavy burden by the people, and one which was incurred by Republican
policy. That party felt that it was its duty to liquidate this war debt
as speedily as possible. To this end the sale of those conquered lands
would greatly contribute; relieving, at the same time, the people to
some extent, from the heavy taxation they had borne during the progress
of the war. Consequently, they had not pressed the fulfilment of this
contract upon the Government. But now the war debt had been
liquidated--the United States treasury was overflowing with surplus
treasure--Indian tribes were being removed by the purchase of their
lands in the northwest, and a tide of population pouring in upon these
lands, and threatening a powerful political preponderance in opposition
to Southern policy and Southern interests. Under these circumstances,
and the recommendation of Governor Troup, the Legislature of the State,
by joint resolution and memorial to Congress, demanded the fulfilment
of the contract on the part of the United States, and the immediate
removal of the Indians.
John Quincy Adams was at that time President of the United States, and,
as he had ever been, was keenly alive to Northern interests and to
Federal views. Though professing to be Republican in political faith,
he arrayed all his influence in opposition to the rights of the States.
In this matter he gave the cold shoulder to Georgia. He did not
recommend a repudiation of the contract, but interposed every delay
possible to its consummation. After some time, commissioners were
appointed to negotiate a treaty with the Indians for the purchase of
their claim to the lands within the boundaries established by the sale
to the United States--or so much thereof as was in possession of the
Creek tribe. To this there was very serious opposition, not only from
that portion of the tribe which formerly allied themselves to Great
Britain, but from missionaries found in the Cherokee country, and from
Colonel John Crowell, who was United States agent for the Creek
Indians. These Indians were controlled by their chief, Hopothlayohola,
a man of rare abilities and great daring. He was a powerful speaker,
fluent as a fountain, and extremely vigorous in his expressions: his
imagery was original and beautiful, apposite and illustrative; and his
words and manner passionate to wildness. To all this he added the
ferocity of his savage nature.
Crowell was an especial friend of Governor Clarke, and was influenced
by his party feelings of hatred to Troup--in his opposition to a
treaty, openly declaring that Georgia should never acquire the land
while Troup was Governor. He was an unscrupulous man, of questionable
morals, and vindictive as a snake.
The persevering energy of Troup, however, prevailed. A treaty was
negotiated, and signed by Crowell, as agent, and a number of the chiefs
headed by McIntosh. No sooner was this done, than Crowell, with a
number of chiefs, hurried to Washington to protest against the
ratification and execution of the treaty, charging the United States
commissioners with fraud in the negotiation, under the influence of
Troup, prompted by W. H. Crawford and friends. The fraud charged was in
giving presents to the chiefs, and a couple of reservations of land to
McIntosh--one where he resided, and the other around and including the
famous Sulphur Spring, known as the Indian Spring, in Butts County.
This habit of giving presents to the chiefs when negotiating treaties
has always been the custom of the Government. They expect it; it is a
part of the consideration paid for the treaty of sale, for they are
universally the vendors of territory and the negotiators of treaties
for their tribes. This charge was simply a subterfuge, and one that was
known would be influential with the mawkish philanthropists of the
North, Mr. Adams, and the senators and representatives from New
England. Upon the assumption of fraud, based upon these charges alone,
the treaty was set aside by the action of the President and Cabinet
alone; and by the same authority a new one made, with a change of
boundary, involving a loss of a portion of territory belonging to
Georgia under the stipulations of the contract between the State and
United States. The previous or first treaty had been submitted to the
United States Senate, and duly ratified, thereby becoming a law, under
which Georgia claimed vested rights.
It was under these trying circumstances that the stern and determined
character of Troup displayed itself. Holding firmly to the doctrine of
State rights, he notified the President that he should disregard the
latter treaty, and proceed to take possession of the territory under
the stipulations of the former one. Upon the receipt of this
information, General Gaines was ordered to Georgia to take command of
the troops stationed along the frontier of the State, and any
additional troops which might be ordered to this point, with orders to
protect the Indians, and prohibit taking possession of the territory,
as contemplated by Governor Troup. A correspondence ensued between
General Gaines and Governor Troup of a most angry character. It
terminated with an order to General Gaines to forbear all further
communication with the Government of Georgia. This was notified to the
President, (if my memory is correct, for I write from memory,) in these
terms:
"JOHN QUINCY ADAMS, President of the United States:
"SIR: I have ordered General Gaines to forbear all further communication
with this Government. Should he presume to infringe
this order, I will send your major-general by brevet home to you in
irons. GEORGE M. TROUP, Governor of Georgia."
The surveyors previously appointed by the Legislature were directed to
be on the ground, in defiance of United States authority, on the first
day of September succeeding, and at sunrise to commence the work of
surveying the lands. A collision was anticipated as certain between the
troops of the United States and the authorities of Georgia. But there
was a difficulty in the way not previously contemplated. Colonels John
S. McIntosh, David Emanuel Twiggs, and Duncan Clinch, each commanded
regiments in the South. Twiggs and McIntosh were native Georgians.
Clinch was a North Carolinian, but was a resident of Florida. Zachary
Taylor was the lieutenant-colonel of Clinch's regiment. He was a
Virginian by birth, but resided in Mississippi. All were Southern men
in feeling, as well as by birth, and all Jeffersonian Republicans,
politically. McIntosh and Twiggs were fanatical in their devotion to
the State of their birth. The ancestors of both were among the first
settlers, and both were identified with her history. The three wrote a
joint letter to the President, tendering their commissions, if ordered
to take arms against Georgia. This letter was placed in the hands of
one who was influential with Mr. Adams, to be delivered immediately
after the order should be issued to General Gaines to prevent by force
of arms the survey ordered by Governor Troup. Troup had classified the
militia, and signified his intention to carry out, if necessary, the
first-negotiated treaty, by force of arms, as the law of the land.
It was, unquestionably, the prudence of this friend which prevented a
collision. He communicated with Mr. Adams confidentially, and implored
him not to issue the order. He assured him that a collision was
inevitable if he did, and caused him to pause and consult his advisers,
who declared their conviction that the first treaty was the law of the
land, and that Georgia held vested rights under it. In obedience to
this advice, Mr. Adams made no further effort to prevent the action of
Georgia, and the lands were surveyed and disposed of by the State,
under and according to the terms of the first treaty, and she retains a
large strip of territory that would have been lost to her under the
last treaty. My information of these facts was derived from Twiggs,
Clinch, and Henry Clay. Who the friend was to whom the letter was
intrusted, I never knew. I mentioned to Mr. Clay the facts, and he
stated that they were true, but no knowledge of them ever came to him
until the expiration of Mr. Adams' Administration. General Taylor
stated to me that long after these events had transpired, and after the
resignation of Colonel Clinch, General Twiggs had made the
communication to him. As nearly as I can remember, Twiggs made the
statement to me in the language I have used here. On returning from the
ratification meeting, at Canton, of the nomination of Mr. Clay for the
Presidency, in 1844, before we reached Baltimore, I was in a carriage
with General Clinch and Senator Barrow, of Louisiana, and stated these
facts, and Clinch verified them.
General Gaines was, of all men, the most unfit for a position like that
in which he was placed. He was a good fighter, a chivalrous, brave man;
but he was weak and vain, and without tact or discretion. His
intentions were, at all times, pure, but want of judgment frequently
placed him in unpleasant positions. The condition of the minds of the
people of Georgia, at this time, was such, that very little was
necessary to excite them to acts of open strife, and had Mr. Adams been
less considerate than he was, there is now no telling what would have
been the consequence. He was extremely unpopular at the South, and
this, added to the inflamed condition of public opinion there, would
assuredly have brought on a collision. Had it come, it might have
resulted in a triumph of Southern principles, which, at a later day,
and under less auspicious circumstances, struggled for existence, only
to be crushed perhaps forever.
It was universally the wish of the people of Georgia to have possession
of the land properly belonging to her, and but for their factious
divisions, the hazards of a conflict between the troops of the United
States and those of Georgia would have been more imminent. It was
believed by both these factions, that whoever should, as Governor of
the State, succeed in obtaining these lands, would thereby be rendered
eminently popular, and secure to his faction the ascendency in the
State for all time. The faction supporting Clarke believed he would
certainly triumph in the coming contest before the people, and assumed
to believe that then the matter of acquisition would be easy, as the
Administration of Mr. Adams supposed that faction could, by that means,
be brought into the support of the party now being formed about it.
Clarke and many of his leading friends were coquetting with the
Administration. He was--as was his brother-in-law, Duncan G.
Campbell--a strong friend of Mr. Calhoun, who was then the
Vice-President. National parties were inchoate, and many politicians
were chary of choosing, and seemed to wait for the development of
coming events, ere they gave shape and direction to their future
courses. It was certain that Mr. Clay was identified with the American
System, and that would, in a great degree, be the leading policy of the
Administration. Mr. Calhoun, when Secretary of War, under Mr. Monroe,
had made a strong report in favor of internal improvements by the
General Government, within the limits of the States, and, while a
member of Congress, had made an equally strong one in favor of a
national bank. These were two of the prominent features of the American
system, and it was generally believed that this policy would be too
popular to combat. It had originated during the Administration of
Monroe, and if it had the opposition of any member of his Cabinet, it
was unknown to the country. Mr. Crawford and Mr. Calhoun, as well as
Mr. Adams, were members of that Cabinet, and were all, in some degree,
committed to this policy; for Mr. Crawford, as a Senator from Georgia,
during the Administration of Mr. Madison, had sustained the doctrine of
the constitutionality and the policy of a national bank, in one of the
very ablest speeches ever made upon the subject, saying everything
which could or can be said in favor of such a government financial
agent, and refuting every objection of its opponents. From this speech
is derived every argument and every idea of both the reports of Calhoun
and McDuffie, which were heralded to the nation as greater even than
that of Mr. Dallas, who, with Robert Morris, may be said to be the
fathers of this institution. Mr. Clay had, in one of his ablest
speeches, opposed the bank at a former time, and his change of opinion
was now well known.
It was very well understood that the coming men were Clay, Jackson, and
Calhoun. Clarke and his friends were ardent supporters of Calhoun, and
it was thought they had won the favor of the Administration. Mr. Clay
was strongly opposed to the execution of the old treaty, and had, by
this means, drawn upon himself the opposition of the Crawford, or Troup
party. These facts show the condition of public opinion in the State,
and conclusively establish the fact, that but for this division of the
people, and the check held by this upon the action of the masses and
their leaders, fearful consequences would assuredly have ensued.
The reasons influencing the joint action of Mr. Adams and Mr. Clay in
opposition to the execution of the old treaty were very different. Mr.
Clay was honest and patriotic. He had no ulterior views to subserve.
His policy was national. He desired the prosperity and advancement of
his country to greatness and power among the nations of the earth. His
fame was that of the nation; already it was identified with it. His
ambition was a noble and a grand one. He wished his name identified
with his acts, and these to constitute the fame and glory of the
nation. He ever felt what subsequently he so nobly expressed, "That he
would rather be right than be President." He had no petty
selfishness--no pitiful revenges to exhaust with the hand of power--no
contemptible motives for elevating or advancing the interests of one
section of his country by oppressing another. "All his aims were his
country's," and his whole country's. He desired that every act of that
country should bear the broadest light, and challenge the closest and
most searching scrutiny; that each should be a new and brighter gem in
the diadem of her glory, and that her magnanimity should be most
conspicuous in her transactions with the weakest. This he especially
desired, and labored to effect, in all her transactions with the
Indians. He viewed these as the primitive proprietors of the soil, and
possessors of the entire country. He knew they were fading away before
a civilization they were by nature incapacitated to emulate, and this,
he felt, was in obedience to the inexorable laws of Divine Providence;
and, in the wonderfully capacious compassion of his nature, he desired,
in the accomplishment of this fate, that no act of national injustice
to them should stain the nation's escutcheon, and determined to
signalize this desire in every act of his when giving form and shape to
national policy. He had generously lent a listening ear to the protests
of the chiefs, seconded by that of their agent, and sincerely believed
the treaty had been effected by fraud, and was wrong and oppressive,
and, therefore, he opposed its execution, and was the main instrument
in forming a new one. The draft of this was from his own pen, and he
was solicitous that it should supersede the old one, as an expression
of the Indians' desire.
Mr. Adams was, equally with Mr. Clay, opposed to the treaty as
ratified, though, as was his constitutional duty, he had sent the
instrument for the action of the Senate. In heart he was opposed to any
treaty which would remove the aborigines from this territory at this
time, and, in consequence of the action of Georgia, it was anticipated
that, at no very distant day, the entire Indian population east of the
Mississippi River, in the South, would be removed, unless some policy
of the Government should be adopted which would prevent it; and those
of the North, who felt desirous of crippling the territorial progress
of the South, and, of consequence, her augmentation of population,
supposed the most effectual means of accomplishing this would be to
educate and Christianize the Indian. To do this, they insisted he must
remain upon the territory he now occupied. This would bring him into
immediate contact with the civilized white, where he could be most
readily approached by missionaries and schoolmasters, and be instructed
by the force of example. At the same time, he was to remain under the
sole protection of the United States Government, without any of the
privileges of civil government to be exercised as a citizen of the
United States or the State upon whose soil he was located. This was
ennobled as the sentiment of Christian benevolence, while its real
intention was to withhold the land from the occupancy of the people of
Georgia, and in so much retard the growth and increase of the white
population of the State. To carry out this scheme, missionary
establishments sprang up among the Indians in every part of the South,
but especially within the limits of the State of Georgia, filled with
Northern fanatics, who employed themselves most actively in prejudicing
the minds of the savages against the people who were their neighbors,
and preparing them to refuse to treat for the sale of any of their
territory.
It has ever been the practice of the Puritan to propagate the vilest
heresies, and for the vilest purposes, under the name of philanthropy
and religion. It has burned its enemy at the stake, as, assembled
around, they sang psalms, and sanctified the vilest cruelties with the
name of God's vengeance. It was their great prototype, Cotton Mather,
who blasphemously proclaimed, after the most inhuman massacre of
several hundred Indians, that they, the Puritans of Massachusetts, "had
sent, as a savory scent to the nostrils of God, two hundred or more of
the reeking souls of the godless heathen."
This, ostensibly, was deemed a pious act, and a discharge of a pious
duty, when, in truth, the only motive was to take his home and country,
and appropriate it to their own people. It seems almost impossible to
the race to come squarely up to truth and honesty, in word or act, in
any transaction, as a man or as a people. Sinister and subtle,
expediency, and not principle, seems to be their universal rule of
action. Cold and passionless, incapable of generous emotions, he is
necessarily vindictive and cruel. Patient and persevering, bigoted and
selfish, eschewing as a crime an honorable resentment, he creeps to his
ends like a serpent, with all his cunning and all his venom.
John Quincy Adams, in his nature, was much more like his mother than his
father. His features were those of his mother, and the cold, persevering
hatred of his nature was hers. From his boyhood he was in the habit of
recording, for future use, the most confidential conversations of his
friends, as also all that incautiously fell from an occasional interview
with those less intimate. Had this been done for future reference only
to establish facts in his own mind, there could have been no objection
to the act; but this was not the motive. These memoranda were to rise
up in vengeance when necessary to gratify his spleen or vengeance. He
was naturally suspicious. He gave no man his confidence, and won the
friendship of no one. Malignant and unforgiving, he watched his
opportunity, and never failed to gratify his revengeful nature, whenever
his victim was in his power. The furtive wariness of his small gray
eye, his pinched nose, receding forehead, and thin, compressed lips,
indicated the malignant nature of his soul. Unfaithful to friends, and
only constant in selfishness--unconscious of obligation, and ungrateful
for favors--fanatical only in hatred--pretending to religious morality,
yet pursuing unceasingly, with merciless revenge, those whom he supposed
to be his enemies, he combined all the elements of Puritan bigotry and
Puritan hate in devilish intensity. He deserted the Federal party in
their greatest need, and meanly betrayed them to Mr. Jefferson, whom,
from his boyhood, he had hated and reviled in doggerel rhymes and the
bitterest prose his genius could suggest.
The conduct of Mr. Adams, after he had been President, as the
representative of Massachusetts in Congress, is the best evidence of
the motives which influenced his conduct in the matter of these two
treaties. He never lost an opportunity to assail the interests and the
institutions of the South. He hated her, and to him, more than to any
other, is due the conduct of the Northern people toward the South which
precipitated the late war, and has destroyed the harmony once existing
between the people.
His father had been repudiated by the South for a more trusted son of
her own. This was a treasured hatred; and when he shared his father's
fate, this became the pervading essence of his nature.
He returned to Congress, after his defeat for the Presidency, for no
other purpose than to give shape and direction to a sentiment which he
felt must ultimately result in her ruin, and to accomplish this he was
more than willing to hazard that of the Government. He felt, should
this follow, his own people would be in a condition to dictate and
control a government of their own creation, and which should embody
their peculiar views, rather than the pure and unselfish principles
enunciated in the Declaration of Independence, and preserved in the
Constitution of the United States.
The sagacity of George M. Troup was the first to discover this in his
conduct as President, and to sound the alarm as Governor of Georgia. He
came directly in contact with him, and determined he should be defeated
in one of his means for injury to the South. Troup knew and felt the
right was with him, and maintained it with the honest boldness of a
true man. He triumphed, and the doctrine of State rights was rescued
from a fatally aimed blow, and reaffirmed, gave renewed popularity and
strength to its supporters. The election of General Jackson soon after
followed, and, as the embodiment of the principle, rallied around him
its supporters from every section. With these, and his immense
popularity personally, he scotched, for a time, the Puritan snake; but,
true to its instincts, it struggled to bite, though its head was off.
Mr. Adams saw in Troup a strong and uncompromising foe; he knew, too,
the right was with him, and that if pushed to extremities the result
would be damaging to his fame, as having, in persevering for the wrong,
destroyed the Government, and at a time, too, when every benefit from
such destruction would inure to the South. Under the circumstances his
course was taken: he dared not consult or trust Mr. Clay with the real
motives which influenced him to yield, and made a virtue of patriotism
and magnanimity which cloaked his pusillanimity, and shielded from
public view his envenomed chagrin.
It was doubtless this triumph which secured the second election of
Troup. Personally he was unpopular with the masses. His rearing had
been in polished society, and though he was in principle a democrat, in
his feelings, bearing, and associations he was an aristocrat. He
accorded equality to all under the law and in political privilege, but
he chose to select his associates, and admitted none to the familiarity
of intimacy but men of high breeding and unquestioned honor. In many
things he was peculiar and somewhat eccentric. In dress, especially
so--often appearing in midwinter in light, summer apparel; and again,
in summer, with a winter cloak wrapped carefully about him. When he
appeared first before the assembled Legislature, and many of the first
citizens of the State, to take the oath of office, it was a raw, cold
day in November; his dress was a round jacket of coarse cotton, black
cassimere vest, yellow nankeen pantaloons, silk hose, and
dancing-pumps, with a large-rimmed white hat, well worn. In his
address, which was short and most beautiful, he made his hat
conspicuous by holding it in his right hand, and waving it with every
gesture. In person, he was below the middle size, slender, though
finely formed; his hair was red, and his eyes intensely blue and deeply
set beneath a heavy brow; his nose was prominent and aquiline; his
mouth, the great feature of his face, was Grecian in mould, with
flexible lips, which, while in repose, seemed to pout. His rabid
opposition to those engaged in the Yazoo frauds, and his hatred for
those who defended it, made him extremely obnoxious to them, and
prompted Dooly to say: "Nature had formed his mouth expressly to say,
'Yazoo.'" Its play, when speaking, was tremulous, with a nervous
twitching, which gave an agitated intonation to his words very
effective.
The form of his head, and especially his forehead, indicated an
imaginative mind, while the lines of his face marked deep thought. He
was strictly honest in everything; was opposed to anything which wore
the appearance of courting public favor, or seemed like a desire for
office. His private life was exemplary, kind, and indulgent to his
children and servants, and full of charity; severe upon nothing but the
assumptions of folly, and the wickedness of purpose in the dishonest
heart. In every relation of life he discharged its duties
conscientiously, and was the enemy only of the vicious and wicked. He
continued to reside upon his plantation in Lawrence County with his
slaves, carefully providing for their every want until his death. He
had attained the patriarchal age of threescore years and ten, and sank
to rest in the solitude of his forest-home, peacefully and piously,
leaving no enemies, and all the people of his State to mourn him.