1817. [259]

Civilization had now progressed so far among the Cherokee that in the fall of 1820 they adopted a regular republican form of government modeled after that of the United States. Under this arrangement the nation was divided into eight districts, each of which was entitled to send four representatives to the Cherokee national legislature, which met at Newtown, or New Echota, the capital, at the junction of Conasauga and Coosawatee rivers, a few miles above the present Calhoun, Georgia. The legislature consisted of an upper and a lower house, designated, respectively (in the Cherokee language), the national committee and national council, the members being elected for limited terms by the voters of each district. The principal officer was styled president of the national council; the distinguished John Ross was the first to hold this office. There was also a clerk of the committee and two principal members to express the will of the council or lower house. For each district there were appointed a council house for meetings twice a year, a judge, and a marshal. Companies of "light horse" were organized to assist in the execution of the laws, with a "ranger" for each district to look after stray stock. Each head of a family and each single man under the age of sixty was subject to a poll tax. Laws were passed for the collection of taxes and debts, for repairs on roads, for licenses to white persons engaged in farming or other business in the nation, for the support of schools, for the regulation of the liquor traffic and the conduct of negro slaves, to punish horse stealing and theft, to compel all marriages between white men and Indian women to be according to regular legal or church form, and to discourage polygamy. By special decree the right of blood revenge or capital punishment was taken from the seven clans and vested in the constituted authorities of the nation. It was made treason, punishable with death, for any individual to negotiate the sale of lands to the whites without the consent of the national council (39). White men were not allowed to vote or to hold office in the nation. [260] The system compared favorably with that of the Federal government or of any state government then existing. At this time there were five principal missions, besides one or two small branch establishments in the nation, viz: Spring Place, the oldest, founded by the Moravians at Spring place, Georgia, in 1801; Oothcaloga, Georgia, founded by the same denomination in 1821 on the creek of that name, near the present Calhoun; Brainerd, Tennessee, founded by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions in 1817; "Valley-towns," North Carolina, founded by the Baptists in 1820, on the site of the old Natchez town on the north side of Hiwassee river, just above Peachtree creek; Coosawatee, Georgia ("Tensawattee," by error in the State Papers), founded also by the Baptists in 1821, near the mouth of the river of that name. All were in flourishing condition, the Brainerd establishment especially, with nearly one hundred pupils, being obliged to turn away applicants for lack of accommodation. The superintendent reported that the children were apt to learn, willing to labor, and readily submissive to discipline, adding that the Cherokee were fast advancing toward civilized life and generally manifested an ardent desire for instruction. The Valley-towns mission, established at the instance of Currahee Dick, a prominent local mixed-blood chief, was in charge of the Reverend Evan Jones, known as the translator of the New Testament into the Cherokee language, his assistant being James D. Wafford, a mixed-blood pupil, who compiled a spelling book in the same language. Reverend S. A. Worcester, a prolific translator and the compiler of the Cherokee almanac and other works, was stationed at Brainerd, removing thence to New Echota and afterward to the Cherokee Nation in the West. [261] Since 1817 the American Board had also supported at Cornwall, Connecticut, an Indian school at which a number of young Cherokee were being educated, among them being Elias Boudinot, afterward the editor of the Cherokee Phoenix. About this time occurred an event which at once placed the Cherokee in the front rank among native tribes and was destined to have profound influence on their whole future history, viz., the invention of the alphabet. The inventor, aptly called the Cadmus of his race, was a mixed-blood known among his own people as Sikwâ'yi (Sequoya) and among the whites as George Gist, or less correctly Guest or Guess. As is usually the case in Indian biography much uncertainty exists in regard to his parentage and early life. Authorities generally agree that his father was a white man, who drifted into the Cherokee Nation some years before the Revolution and formed a temporary alliance with a Cherokee girl of mixed blood, who thus became the mother of the future teacher. A writer in the Cherokee Phoenix, in 1828, says that only his paternal grandfather was a white man. [262] McKenney and Hall say that his father was a white man named Gist. [263] Phillips asserts that his father was George Gist, an unlicensed German trader from Georgia, who came into the Cherokee Nation in 1768. [264] By a Kentucky family it is claimed that Sequoya's father was Nathaniel Gist, son of the scout who accompanied Washington on his memorable excursion to the Ohio. As the story goes, Nathaniel Gist was captured by the Cherokee at Braddock's defeat (1755) and remained a prisoner with them for six years, during which time he became the father of Sequoya. On his return to civilization he married a white woman in Virginia, by whom he had other children, and afterward removed to Kentucky, where Sequoya, then a Baptist preacher, frequently visited him and was always recognized by the family as his son. [265] Aside from the fact that the Cherokee acted as allies of the English during the war in which Braddock's defeat occurred, and that Sequoya, so far from being a preacher, was not even a Christian, the story contains other elements of improbability and appears to be one of those genealogical myths built upon a chance similarity of name. On the other hand, it is certain that Sequoya was born before the date that Phillips allows. On his mother's side he was of good family in the tribe, his uncle being a chief in Echota. [266] According to personal information of James Wafford, who knew him well, being his second cousin, Sequoya was probably born about the year 1760, and lived as a boy with his mother at Tuskegee town in Tennessee, just outside of old Fort Loudon. It is quite possible that his white father may have been a soldier of the garrison, one of those lovers for whom the Cherokee women risked their lives during the siege. [267] What became of the father is not known, but the mother lived alone with her son. The only incident of his boyhood that has come down to us is his presence at Echota during the visit of the Iroquois peace delegation, about the year 1770. [268] His early years were spent amid the stormy alarms of the Revolution, and as he grew to manhood he developed a considerable mechanical ingenuity, especially in silver working. Like most of his tribe he was also a hunter and fur trader. Having nearly reached middle age before the first mission was established in the Nation, he never attended school and in all his life never learned to speak, read, or write the English language. Neither did he ever abandon his native religion, although from frequent visits to the Moravian mission he became imbued with a friendly feeling toward the new civilization. Of an essentially contemplative disposition, he was led by a chance conversation in 1809 to reflect upon the ability of the white men to communicate thought by means of writing, with the result that he set about devising a similar system for his own people. By a hunting accident, which rendered him a cripple for life, he was fortunately afforded more leisure for study. The presence of his name, George Guess, appended to a treaty of 1816, indicates that he was already of some prominence in the Nation, even before the perfection of his great invention. After years of patient and unremitting labor in the face of ridicule, discouragement, and repeated failure, he finally evolved the Cherokee syllabary and in 1821 submitted it to a public test by the leading men of the Nation. By this time, in consequence of repeated cessions, the Cherokee had been dispossessed of the country about Echota, and Sequoya was now living at Willstown, on an upper branch of Coosa river, in Alabama. The syllabary was soon recognized as an invaluable invention for the elevation of the tribe, and within a few months thousands of hitherto illiterate Cherokee were able to read and write their own language, teaching each other in the cabins and along the roadside. The next year Sequoya visited the West, to introduce the new science among those who had emigrated to the Arkansas. In the next year, 1823, he again visited the Arkansas and took up his permanent abode with the western band, never afterward returning to his eastern kinsmen. In the autumn of the same year the Cherokee national council made public acknowledgment of his merit by sending to him, through John Ross, then president of the national committee, a silver medal with a commemorative inscription in both languages. [269] In 1828 he visited Washington as one of the delegates from the Arkansas band, attracting much attention, and the treaty made on that occasion contains a provision for the payment to him of five hundred dollars, "for the great benefits he has conferred upon the Cherokee people, in the beneficial results which they are now experiencing from the use of the alphabet discovered by him." [270] His subsequent history belongs to the West and will be treated in another place (40). [271] The invention of the alphabet had an immediate and wonderful effect on Cherokee development. On account of the remarkable adaptation of the syllabary to the language, it was only necessary to learn the characters to be able to read at once. No schoolhouses were built and no teachers hired, but the whole Nation became an academy for the study of the system, until, "in the course of a few months, without school or expense of time or money, the Cherokee were able to read and write in their own language. [272] An active correspondence began to be carried on between the eastern and western divisions, and plans were made for a national press, with a national library and museum to be established at the capital, New Echota. [273] The missionaries, who had at first opposed the new alphabet on the ground of its Indian origin, now saw the advisability of using it to further their own work. In the fall of 1824 Atsi or John Arch, a young native convert, made a manuscript translation of a portion of St. John's gospel, in the syllabary, this being the first Bible translation ever given to the Cherokee. It was copied hundreds of times and was widely disseminated through the Nation. [274] In September, 1825, David Brown, a prominent half-breed preacher, who had already made some attempt at translation in the Roman alphabet, completed a translation of the New Testament in the new syllabary, the work being handed about in manuscript, as there were as yet no types cast in the Sequoya characters. [275] In the same month he forwarded to Thomas McKenney, chief of the Bureau of Indian Affairs at Washington, a manuscript table of the characters, with explanation, this being probably its first introduction to official notice. [276] In 1827 the Cherokee council having formally resolved to establish a national paper in the Cherokee language and characters, types for that purpose were cast in Boston, under the supervision of the noted missionary, Worcester, of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, who, in December of that year contributed to the Missionary Herald five verses of Genesis in the new syllabary, this seeming to be its first appearance in print. Early in the next year the press and types arrived at New Echota, and the first number of the new paper, Tsa'lagi Tsu'lehisanuñ'hi, the Cherokee Phoenix, printed in both languages, appeared on February 21, 1828. The first printers were two white men, Isaac N. Harris and John F. Wheeler, with John Candy, a half-blood apprentice. Elias Boudinot (Galagi'na, "The Buck"), an educated Cherokee, was the editor, and Reverend S. A. Worcester was the guiding spirit who brought order out of chaos and set the work in motion. The office was a log house. The hand press and types, after having been shipped by water from Boston, were transported two hundred miles by wagon from Augusta to their destination. The printing paper had been overlooked and had to be brought by the same tedious process from Knoxville. Cases and other equipments had to be devised and fashioned by the printers, neither of whom understood a word of Cherokee, but simply set up the characters, as handed to them in manuscript by Worcester and the editor. Such was the beginning of journalism in the Cherokee nation. After a precarious existence of about six years the Phoenix was suspended, owing to the hostile action of the Georgia authorities, who went so far as to throw Worcester and Wheeler into prison. Its successor, after the removal of the Cherokee to the West, was the Cherokee Advocate, of which the first number appeared at Tahlequah in 1844, with William P. Ross as editor. It is still continued under the auspices of the Nation, printed in both languages and distributed free at the expense of the Nation to those unable to read English--an example without parallel in any other government. In addition to numerous Bible translations, hymn books, and other religious works, there have been printed in the Cherokee language and syllabary the Cherokee Phoenix (journal), Cherokee Advocate (journal), Cherokee Messenger (periodical), Cherokee Almanac (annual), Cherokee spelling books, arithmetics, and other schoolbooks for those unable to read English, several editions of the laws of the Nation, and a large body of tracts and minor publications. Space forbids even a mention of the names of the devoted workers in this connection. Besides this printed literature the syllabary is in constant and daily use among the non-English-speaking element, both in Indian Territory and in North Carolina, for letter writing, council records, personal memoranda, etc. What is perhaps strangest of all in this literary evolution is the fact that the same invention has been seized by the priests and conjurers of the conservative party for the purpose of preserving to their successors the ancient rituals and secret knowledge of the tribe, whole volumes of such occult literature in manuscript having been obtained among them by the author. [277] In 1819 the whole Cherokee population had been estimated at 15,000, one-third of them being west of the Mississippi. In 1825 a census of the eastern Nation showed: native Cherokee, 13,563; white men married into the Nation, 147; white women married into the Nation, 73; negro slaves, 1,277. There were large herds of cattle, horses, hogs, and sheep, with large crops of every staple, including cotton, tobacco, and wheat, and some cotton was exported by boats as far as New Orleans. Apple and peach orchards were numerous, butter and cheese were in use to some extent, and both cotton and woolen cloths, especially blankets, were manufactured. Nearly all the merchants were native Cherokee. Mechanical industries flourished, the Nation was out of debt, and the population was increasing. [278] Estimating one-third beyond the Mississippi, the total number of Cherokee, exclusive of adopted white citizens and negro slaves, must then have been about 20,000. Simultaneously with the decrees establishing a national press, the Cherokee Nation, in general convention of delegates held for the purpose at New Echota on July 26, 1827, adopted a national constitution, based on the assumption of distinct and independent nationality. John Ross, so celebrated in connection with the history of his tribe, was president of the convention which framed the instrument. Charles R. Hicks, a Moravian convert of mixed blood, and at that time the most influential man in the Nation, was elected principal chief, with John Ross as assistant chief. [279] With a constitution and national press, a well-developed system of industries and home education, and a government administered by educated Christian men, the Cherokee were now justly entitled to be considered a civilized people. The idea of a civilized Indian government was not a new one. The first treaty ever negotiated by the United States with an Indian tribe, in 1778, held out to the Delawares the hope that by a confederation of friendly tribes they might be able "to form a state, whereof the Delaware nation shall be the head and have a representation in Congress." [280] Priber, the Jesuit, had already familiarized the Cherokee with the forms of civilized government before the middle of the eighteenth century. As the gap between the conservative and progressive elements widened after the Revolution the idea grew, until in 1808 representatives of both parties visited Washington to propose an arrangement by which those who clung to the old life might be allowed to remove to the western hunting grounds, while the rest should remain to take up civilization and "begin the establishment of fixed laws and a regular government." The project received the warm encouragement of President Jefferson, and it was with this understanding that the western emigration was first officially recognized a few years later. Immediately upon the return of the delegates from Washington the Cherokee drew up their first brief written code of laws, modeled agreeably to the friendly suggestions of Jefferson. [281] By this time the rapid strides of civilization and Christianity had alarmed the conservative element, who saw in the new order of things only the evidences of apostasy and swift national decay. In 1828 White-path (Nûñ'nâ-tsune'ga), an influential full-blood and councilor, living at Turniptown (U`lûñ'yi), near the present Ellijay, in Gilmer county, Georgia, headed a rebellion against the new code of laws, with all that it implied. He soon had a large band of followers, known to the whites as "Red-sticks," a title sometimes assumed by the more warlike element among the Creeks and other southern tribes. From the townhouse of Ellijay he preached the rejection of the new constitution, the discarding of Christianity and the white man's ways, and a return to the old tribal law and custom--the same doctrine that had more than once constituted the burden of Indian revelation in the past. It was now too late, however, to reverse the wheel of progress, and under the rule of such men as Hicks and Ross the conservative opposition gradually melted away. White-path was deposed from his seat in council, but subsequently made submission and was reinstated. He was afterward one of the detachment commanders in the Removal, but died while on the march. [282] In this year, also, John Ross became principal chief of the Nation, a position which he held until his death in 1866, thirty-eight years later. [283] In this long period, comprising the momentous episodes of the Removal and the War of the Rebellion, it may be truly said that his history is the history of the Nation. And now, just when it seemed that civilization and enlightenment were about to accomplish their perfect work, the Cherokee began to hear the first low muttering of the coming storm that was soon to overturn their whole governmental structure and sweep them forever from the land of their birth. By an agreement between the United States and the state of Georgia in 1802, the latter, for valuable consideration, had ceded to the general government her claims west of the present state boundary, the United States at the same time agreeing to extinguish, at its own expense, but for the benefit of the state, the Indian claims within the state limits, "as early as the same can be peaceably obtained on reasonable terms." [284] In accordance with this agreement several treaties had already been made with the Creeks and Cherokee, by which large tracts had been secured for Georgia at the expense of the general government. Notwithstanding this fact, and the terms of the proviso, Georgia accused the government of bad faith in not taking summary measures to compel the Indians at once to surrender all their remaining lands within the chartered state limits, coupling the complaint with a threat to take the matter into her own hands. In 1820 Agent Meigs had expressed the opinion that the Cherokee were now so far advanced that further government aid was unnecessary, and that their lands should be allotted and the surplus sold for their benefit, they themselves to be invested with full rights of citizenship in the several states within which they resided. This suggestion had been approved by President Monroe, but had met the most determined opposition from the states concerned. Tennessee absolutely refused to recognize individual reservations made by previous treaties, while North Carolina and Georgia bought in all such reservations with money appropriated by Congress. [285] No Indian was to be allowed to live within those states on any pretext whatsoever. In the meantime, owing to persistent pressure from Georgia, repeated unsuccessful efforts had been made to procure from the Cherokee a cession of their lands within the chartered limits of the state. Every effort met with a firm refusal, the Indians declaring that having already made cession after cession from a territory once extensive, their remaining lands were no more than were needed for themselves and their children, more especially as experience had shown that each concession would be followed by a further demand. They conclude: "It is the fixed and unalterable determination of this nation never again to cede one foot more of land." Soon afterward they addressed to the President a memorial of similar tenor, to which Calhoun, as Secretary of War, returned answer that as Georgia objected to their presence either as a tribe or as individual owners or citizens, they must prepare their minds for removal beyond the Mississippi. [286] In reply, the Cherokee, by their delegates--John Ross, George Lowrey, Major Ridge, and Elijah Hicks--sent a strong letter calling attention to the fact that by the very wording of the 1802 agreement the compact was a conditional one which could not be carried out without their own voluntary consent, and suggesting that Georgia might be satisfied from the adjoining government lands in Florida. Continuing, they remind the Secretary that the Cherokee are not foreigners, but original inhabitants of America, inhabiting and standing now upon the soil of their own territory, with limits defined by treaties with the United States, and that, confiding in the good faith of the government to respect its treaty stipulations, they do not hesitate to say that their true interest, prosperity, and happiness demand their permanency where they are and the retention of their lands. [287] A copy of this letter was sent by the Secretary to Governor Troup of Georgia, who returned a reply in which he blamed the missionaries for the refusal of the Indians, declared that the state would not permit them to become citizens, and that the Secretary must either assist the state in taking possession of the Cherokee lands, or, in resisting that occupancy, make war upon and shed the blood of brothers and friends. The Georgia delegation in Congress addressed a similar letter to President Monroe, in which the government was censured for having instructed the Indians in the arts of civilized life and having thereby imbued them with a desire to acquire property. [288] For answer the President submitted a report by Secretary Calhoun showing that since the agreement had been made with Georgia in 1802 the government had, at its own expense, extinguished the Indian claim to 24,600 square miles within the limits of that state, or more than three-fifths of the whole Indian claim, and had paid on that and other accounts connected with the agreement nearly seven and a half million dollars, of which by far the greater part had gone to Georgia or her citizens. In regard to the other criticism the report states that the civilizing policy was as old as the government itself, and that in performing the high duties of humanity to the Indians, it had never been conceived that the stipulation of the convention was contravened. In handing in the report the President again called attention to the conditional nature of the agreement and declared it as his opinion that the title of the Indians was not in the slightest degree affected by it and that there was no obligation on the United States to remove them by force. [289] Further efforts, even to the employment of secret methods, were made in 1827 and 1828 to induce a cession or emigration, but without avail. On July 26, 1827, as already noted, the Cherokee adopted a constitution as a distinct and sovereign Nation. Upon this the Georgia legislature passed resolutions affirming that that state "had the power and the right to possess herself, by any means she might choose, of the lands in dispute, and to extend over them her authority and laws," and recommending that this be done by the next legislature, if the lands were not already acquired by successful negotiation of the general government in the meantime. The government was warned that the lands belonged to Georgia, and she must and would have them. It was suggested, however, that the United States might be permitted to make a certain number of reservations to individual Indians. [290] Passing over for the present some important negotiations with the western Cherokee, we come to the events leading to the final act in the drama. Up to this time the pressure had been for land only, but now a stronger motive was added. About the year 1815 a little Cherokee boy playing along Chestatee river, in upper Georgia, had brought in to his mother a shining yellow pebble hardly larger than the end of his thumb. On being washed it proved to be a nugget of gold, and on her next trip to the settlements the woman carried it with her and sold it to a white man. The news spread, and although she probably concealed the knowledge of the exact spot of its origin, it was soon known that the golden dreams of De Soto had been realized in the Cherokee country of Georgia. Within four years the whole territory east of the Chestatee had passed from the possession of the Cherokee. They still held the western bank, but the prospector was abroad in the mountains and it could not be for long. [291] About 1828 gold was found on Ward's creek, a western branch of Chestatee, near the present Dahlonega, [292] and the doom of the nation was sealed (41). In November, 1828, Andrew Jackson was elected to succeed John Quincy Adams as President. He was a frontiersman and Indian hater, and the change boded no good to the Cherokee. His position was well understood, and there is good ground for believing that the action at once taken by Georgia was at his own suggestion. [293] On December 20, 1828, a month after his election, Georgia passed an act annexing that part of the Cherokee country within her chartered limits and extending over it her jurisdiction; all laws and customs established among the Cherokee were declared null and void, and no person of Indian blood or descent residing within the Indian country was henceforth to be allowed as a witness or party in any suit where a white man should be defendant. The act was to take effect June 1, 1830 (42). The whole territory was soon after mapped out into counties and surveyed by state surveyors into "land lots" of 160 acres each, and "gold lots" of 40 acres, which were put up and distributed among the white citizens of Georgia by public lottery, each white citizen receiving a ticket. Every Cherokee head of a family was, indeed, allowed a reservation of 160 acres, but no deed was given, and his continuance depended solely on the pleasure of the legislature. Provision was made for the settlement of contested lottery claims among the white citizens, but by the most stringent enactments, in addition to the sweeping law which forbade anyone of Indian blood to bring suit or to testify against a white man, it was made impossible for the Indian owner to defend his right in any court or to resist the seizure of his homestead, or even his own dwelling house, and anyone so resisting was made subject to imprisonment at the discretion of a Georgia court. Other laws directed to the same end quickly followed, one of which made invalid any contract between a white man and an Indian unless established by the testimony of two white witnesses--thus practically canceling all debts due from white men to Indians--while another obliged all white men residing in the Cherokee country to take a special oath of allegiance to the state of Georgia, on penalty of four years' imprisonment in the penitentiary, this act being intended to drive out all the missionaries, teachers, and other educators who refused to countenance the spoliation. About the same time the Cherokee were forbidden to hold councils, or to assemble for any public purpose, [294] or to dig for gold upon their own lands. The purpose of this legislation was to render life in their own country intolerable to the Cherokee by depriving them of all legal protection and friendly counsel, and the effect was precisely as intended. In an eloquent address upon the subject before the House of Representatives the distinguished Edward Everett clearly pointed out the encouragement which it gave to lawless men: "They have but to cross the Cherokee line; they have but to choose the time and the place where the eye of no white man can rest upon them, and they may burn the dwelling, waste the farm, plunder the property, assault the person, murder the children of the Cherokee subject of Georgia, and though hundreds of the tribe may be looking on, there is not one of them that can be permitted to bear witness against the spoiler." [295] Senator Sprague, of Maine, said of the law that it devoted the property of the Cherokee to the cupidity of their neighbors, leaving them exposed to every outrage which lawless persons could inflict, so that even robbery and murder might be committed with impunity at noonday, if not in the presence of whites who would testify against it. [296] The prediction was fulfilled to the letter. Bands of armed men invaded the Cherokee country, forcibly seizing horses and cattle, taking possession of houses from which they had ejected the occupants, and assaulting the owners who dared to make resistance. [297] In one instance, near the present Dahlonega, two white men, who had been hospitably received and entertained at supper by an educated Cherokee citizen of nearly pure white blood, later in the evening, during the temporary absence of the parents, drove out the children and their nurse and deliberately set fire to the house, which was burned to the ground with all its contents. They were pursued and brought to trial, but the case was dismissed by the judge on the ground that no Indian could testify against a white man. [298] Cherokee miners upon their own ground were arrested, fined, and imprisoned, and their tools and machinery destroyed, while thousands of white intruders were allowed to dig in the same places unmolested. [299] A Cherokee on trial in his own nation for killing another Indian was seized by the state authorities, tried and condemned to death, although, not understanding English, he was unable to speak in his own defense. A United States court forbade the execution, but the judge who had conducted the trial defied the writ, went to the place of execution, and stood beside the sheriff while the Indian was being hanged. [300] Immediately on the passage of the first act the Cherokee appealed to President Jackson, but were told that no protection would be afforded them. Other efforts were then made--in 1829--to persuade them to removal, or to procure another cession--this time of all their lands in North Carolina--but the Cherokee remained firm. The Georgia law was declared in force on June 3, 1830, whereupon the President directed that the annuity payment due the Cherokee Nation under previous treaties should no longer be paid to their national treasurer, as hitherto, but distributed per capita by the agent. As a national fund it had been used for the maintenance of their schools and national press. As a per capita payment it amounted to forty-two cents to each individual. Several years afterward it still remained unpaid. Federal troops were also sent into the Cherokee country with orders to prevent all mining by either whites or Indians unless authorized by the state of Georgia. All these measures served only to render the Cherokee more bitter in their determination. In September, 1830, another proposition was made for the removal of the tribe, but the national council emphatically refused to consider the subject. [301] In January, 1831, the Cherokee Nation, by John Ross as principal chief, brought a test suit of injunction against Georgia, in the United States Supreme Court. The majority of the court dismissed the suit on the ground that the Cherokee were not a foreign nation within the meaning of the Constitution, two justices dissenting from this opinion. [302] Shortly afterward, under the law which forbade any white man to reside in the Cherokee Nation without taking an oath of allegiance to Georgia, a number of arrests were made, including Wheeler, the printer of the Cherokee Phoenix, and the missionaries, Worcester, Butler, Thompson, and Proctor, who, being there by permission of the agent and feeling that plain American citizenship should hold good in any part of the United States, refused to take the oath. Some of those arrested took the oath and were released, but Worcester and Butler, still refusing, were dressed in prison garb and put at hard labor among felons. Worcester had plead in his defense that he was a citizen of Vermont, and had entered the Cherokee country by permission of the President of the United States and approval of the Cherokee Nation; and that as the United States by several treaties had acknowledged the Cherokee to be a nation with a guaranteed and definite territory, the state had no right to interfere with him. He was sentenced to four years in the penitentiary. On March 3, 1832, the matter was appealed as a test case to the Supreme Court of the United States, which rendered a decision in favor of Worcester and the Cherokee Nation and ordered his release. Georgia, however, through her governor, had defied the summons with a threat of opposition, even to the annihilation of the Union, and now ignored the decision, refusing to release the missionary, who remained in prison until set free by the will of the governor nearly a year later. A remark attributed to President Jackson, on hearing of the result in the Supreme Court, may throw some light on the whole proceeding: "John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it." [303] On the 19th of July, 1832, a public fast was observed throughout the Cherokee Nation. In the proclamation recommending it, Chief Ross observes that "Whereas the crisis in the affairs of the Nation exhibits the day of tribulation and sorrow, and the time appears to be fast hastening when the destiny of this people must be sealed; whether it has been directed by the wonted depravity and wickedness of man, or by the unsearchable and mysterious will of an allwise Being, it equally becomes us, as a rational and Christian community, humbly to bow in humiliation," etc. [304] Further attempts were made to induce the Cherokee to remove to the West, but met the same firm refusal as before. It was learned that in view of the harrassing conditions to which they were subjected the Cherokee were now seriously considering the project of emigrating to the Pacific Coast, at the mouth of the Columbia, a territory then claimed by England and held by the posts of the British Hudson Bay Company. The Secretary of War at once took steps to discourage the movement. [305] A suggestion from the Cherokee that the government satisfy those who had taken possession of Cherokee lands under the lottery drawing by giving them instead an equivalent from the unoccupied government lands was rejected by the President. In the spring of 1834 the Cherokee submitted a memorial which, after asserting that they would never voluntarily consent to abandon their homes, proposed to satisfy Georgia by ceding to her a portion of their territory, they to be protected in possession of the remainder until the end of a definite period to be fixed by the United States, at the expiration of which, after disposing of their surplus lands, they should become citizens of the various states within which they resided. They were told that their difficulties could be remedied only by their removal to the west of the Mississippi. In the meantime a removal treaty was being negotiated with a self-styled committee of some fifteen or twenty Cherokee called together at the agency. It was carried through in spite of the protest of John Ross and the Cherokee Nation, as embodied in a paper said to contain the signatures of 13,000 Cherokee, but failed of ratification. [306] Despairing of any help from the President, the Cherokee delegation, headed by John Ross, addressed another earnest memorial to Congress on May 17, 1834. Royce quotes the document at length, with the remark, "Without affecting to pass judgment on the merits of the controversy, the writer thinks this memorial well deserving of reproduction here as evidencing the devoted and pathetic attachment with which the Cherokee clung to the land of their fathers, and, remembering the wrongs and humiliations of the past, refused to be convinced that justice, prosperity, and happiness awaited them beyond the Mississippi." [307] In August of this year another council was held at Red Clay, south-eastward from Chattanooga and just within the Georgia line, where the question of removal was again debated in what is officially described as a tumultuous and excited meeting. One of the principal advocates of the emigration scheme, a prominent mixed-blood named John Walker, jr., was assassinated from ambush while returning from the council to his home a few miles north of the present Cleveland, Tennessee. On account of his superior education and influential connections, his wife being a niece of former agent Return J. Meigs, the affair created intense excitement at the time. The assassination has been considered the first of the long series of political murders growing out of the removal agitation, but, according to the testimony of old Cherokee acquainted with the facts, the killing was due to a more personal motive. [308] The Cherokee were now nearly worn out by constant battle against a fate from which they could see no escape. In February, 1835, two rival delegations arrived in Washington. One, the national party, headed by John Ross, came prepared still to fight to the end for home and national existence. The other, headed by Major John Ridge, a prominent subchief, despairing of further successful resistance, was prepared to negotiate for removal. Reverend J. F. Schermerhorn was appointed commissioner to arrange with the Ridge party a treaty to be confirmed later by the Cherokee people in general council. On this basis a treaty was negotiated with the Ridge party by which the Cherokee were to cede their whole eastern territory and remove to the West in consideration of the sum of $3,250,000 with some additional acreage in the West and a small sum for depredations committed upon them by the whites. Finding that these negotiations were proceeding, the Ross party filed a counter proposition for $20,000,000, which was rejected by the Senate as excessive. The Schermerhorn compact with the Ridge party, with the consideration changed to $4,500,000, was thereupon completed and signed on March 14, 1835, but with the express stipulation that it should receive the approval of the Cherokee nation in full council assembled before being considered of any binding force. This much accomplished, Mr. Schermerhorn departed for the Cherokee country, armed with an address from President Jackson in which the great benefits of removal were set forth to the Cherokee. Having exhausted the summer and fall in fruitless effort to secure favorable action, the reverend gentleman notified the President, proposing either to obtain the signatures of the leading Cherokee by promising them payment for their improvements at their own valuation, if in any degree reasonable, or to conclude a treaty with a part of the Nation and compel its acceptance by the rest. He was promptly informed by the Secretary of War, Lewis Cass, on behalf of the President, that the treaty, if concluded at all, must be procured upon fair and open terms, with no particular promise to any individual, high or low, to gain his aid or influence, and without sacrificing the interest of the whole to the cupidity of a few. He was also informed that, as it would probably be contrary to his wish, his letter would not be put on file. [309] In October, 1835, the Ridge treaty was rejected by the Cherokee Nation in full council at Red Clay, even its main supporters, Ridge himself and Elias Boudinot, going over to the majority, most unexpectedly to Schermerhorn, who reports the result, piously adding, "but the Lord is able to overrule all things for good." During the session of this council notice was served on the Cherokee to meet commissioners at New Echota in December following for the purpose of negotiating a treaty. The notice was also printed in the Cherokee language and circulated throughout the Nation, with a statement that those who failed to attend would be counted as assenting to any treaty that might be made. [310] The council had authorized the regular delegation, headed by John Ross, to conclude a treaty either there or at Washington, but, finding that Schermerhorn had no authority to treat on any other basis than the one rejected by the Nation, the delegates proceeded to Washington. [311] Before their departure John Ross, who had removed to Tennessee to escape persecution in his own state, was arrested at his home by the Georgia guard, all his private papers and the proceedings of the council being taken at the same time, and conveyed across the line into Georgia, where he was held for some time without charge against him, and at last released without apology or explanation. The poet, John Howard Payne, who was then stopping with Ross, engaged in the work of collecting historical and ethnologic material relating to the Cherokee, was seized at the same time, with all his letters and scientific manuscripts. The national paper, the Cherokee Phoenix, had been suppressed and its office plant seized by the same guard a few days before. [312] Thus in their greatest need the Cherokee were deprived of the help and counsel of their teachers, their national press, and their chief. Although for two months threats and inducements had been held out to secure a full attendance at the December conference at New Echota, there were present when the proceedings opened, according to the report of Schermerhorn himself, only from three hundred to five hundred men, women, and children, out of a population of over 17,000. Notwithstanding the paucity of attendance and the absence of the principal officers of the Nation, a committee was appointed to arrange the details of a treaty, which was finally drawn up and signed on December 29, 1835. [313] Briefly stated, by this treaty of New Echota, Georgia, the Cherokee Nation ceded to the United States its whole remaining territory east of the Mississippi for the sum of five million dollars and a common joint interest in the territory already occupied by the western Cherokee, in what is now Indian Territory, with an additional smaller tract adjoining on the northeast, in what is now Kansas. Improvements were to be paid for, and the Indians were to be removed at the expense of the United States and subsisted at the expense of the Government for one year after their arrival in the new country. The removal was to take place within two years from the ratification of the treaty. On the strong representations of the Cherokee signers, who would probably not have signed otherwise even then, it was agreed that a limited number of Cherokee who should desire to remain behind in North Carolina, Tennessee, and Alabama, and become citizens, having first been adjudged "qualified or calculated to become useful citizens," might so remain, together with a few holding individual reservations under former treaties. This provision was allowed by the commissioners, but was afterward struck out on the announcement by President Jackson of his determination "not to allow any preemptions or reservations, his desire being that the whole Cherokee people should remove together." Provision was made also for the payment of debts due by the Indians out of any moneys coming to them under the treaty; for the reestablishment of the missions in the West; for pensions to Cherokee wounded in the service of the government in the war of 1812 and the Creek war; for permission to establish in the new country such military posts and roads for the use of the United States as should be deemed necessary; for satisfying Osage claims in the western territory and for bringing about a friendly understanding between the two tribes; and for the commutation of all annuities and other sums due from the United States into a permanent national fund, the interest to be placed at the disposal of the officers of the Cherokee Nation and by them disbursed, according to the will of their own people, for the care of schools and orphans, and for general national purposes. The western territory assigned the Cherokee under this treaty was in two adjoining tracts, viz, (1) a tract of seven million acres, together with a "perpetual outlet west," already assigned to the western Cherokee under treaty of 1833, as will hereafter be noted, [314] being identical with the present area occupied by the Cherokee Nation in Indian Territory, together with the former "Cherokee strip," with the exception of a two-mile strip along the northern boundary, now included within the limits of Kansas; (2) a smaller additional tract of eight hundred thousand acres, running fifty miles north and south and twenty-five miles east and west, in what is now the southeastern corner of Kansas. For this second tract the Cherokee themselves were to pay the United States five hundred thousand dollars. The treaty of 1833, assigning the first described tract to the western Cherokee, states that the United States agrees to "guaranty it to them forever, and that guarantee is hereby pledged." By the same treaty, "in addition to the seven millions of acres of land thus provided for and bounded, the United States further guaranty to the Cherokee nation a perpetual outlet west and a free and unmolested use of all the country lying west of the western boundary of said seven millions of acres, as far west as the sovereignty of the United States and their right of soil extend ... and letters patent shall be issued by the United States as soon as practicable for the land hereby guaranteed." All this was reiterated by the present treaty, and made to include also the smaller (second) tract, in these words: Art. 3. The United States also agree that the lands above ceded by the treaty of February 14, 1833, including the outlet, and those ceded by this treaty, shall all be included in one patent, executed to the Cherokee nation of Indians by the President of the United States, according to the provisions of the act of May 28, 1830.... Art. 5. 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. But they shall secure to the Cherokee nation the right of their national councils to make and carry into effect all such laws as they may deem necessary for the government and protection of the persons and property within their own country belonging to their people or such persons as have connected themselves with them: Provided always, that they shall not be inconsistent with the Constitution of the United States and such acts of Congress as have been or may be passed regulating trade and intercourse with the Indians; and also that they shall not be considered as extending to such citizens and army of the United States as may travel or reside in the Indian country by permission, according to the laws and regulations established by the government of the same.... Art. 6. Perpetual peace and friendship shall exist between the citizens of the United States and the Cherokee Indians. The United States agree to protect the Cherokee nation from domestic strife and foreign enemies and against intestine wars between the several tribes. The Cherokees shall endeavor to preserve and maintain the peace of the country, and not make war upon their neighbors; they shall also be protected against interruption and intrusion from citizens of the United States who may attempt to settle in the country without their consent; and all such persons shall be removed from the same by order of the President of the United States. But this is not intended to prevent the residence among them of useful farmers, mechanics, and teachers for the instruction of the Indians according to treaty stipulations. Article 7. The Cherokee nation having already made great progress in civilization, and deeming it important that every proper and laudable inducement should be offered to their people to improve their condition, as well as to guard and secure in the most effectual manner the rights guaranteed to them in this treaty, and with a view to illustrate the liberal and enlarged policy of the government of the United States toward the Indians in their removal beyond the territorial limits of the states, it is stipulated that they shall be entitled to a Delegate in the House of Representatives of the United States whenever Congress shall make provision for the same. The instrument was signed by (Governor) William Carroll of Tennessee and (Reverend) J. F. Schermerhorn as commissioners--the former, however, having been unable to attend by reason of illness--and by twenty Cherokee, among whom the most prominent were Major Ridge and Elias Boudinot, former editor of the Phoenix. Neither John Ross nor any one of the officers of the Cherokee Nation was present or represented. After some changes by the Senate, it was ratified May 23,