_Cherokees._--There are residing in these States probably about
seventeen hundred Cherokees, who elected to remain, under the provisions
respecting Cherokees averse to removal, contained in the twelfth article
of the treaty with the Cherokees of 1835. Under the act of July 29,
1848, a _per capita_ transportation and subsistence fund of $53.33 was
created and set apart for their benefit in accordance with a census-roll
made under the provisions of said act, the interest on which fund until
such time as they shall individually remove to the Indian country is the
only money to which those named in said roll, who are living, or the
heirs of those who have deceased, are entitled. This interest is too
small to be of any benefit; and some action should be taken by Congress,
with a view of having all business matters between these Indians and the
government settled, by removing such of them west as now desire to go,
and paying those who decline to remove, the _per capita_ fund referred
to. The government has no agent residing with these Indians. In
accordance with their earnestly expressed desire to be brought under the
immediate charge of the government, as its wards, Congress, by law
approved July 27, 1868, directed that the Secretary of the Interior
should cause the Commissioner of Indian Affairs to take the same
supervisory charge of them as of other tribes of Indians; but this
practically amounts to nothing, in the absence of means to carry out the
intention of the law with any beneficial result to the Indians. The
condition of this people is represented to be deplorable. Before the
late rebellion they were living in good circumstances, engaged, with all
the success which could be expected, in farming, and in various minor
industrial pursuits. Like all other inhabitants of this section, they
suffered much during the war, and are now from this and other causes
much impoverished.