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It IS not for me to decide, nor in this place to reason, as to the justice or
injustice of the treatment of these people at the hands of the Government
or individuals ; or of the wisdom of the policy which is to place them in a
new, though vast and fertile country, 1000 miles from the land of their
hirth, in the doubtful dilemma whether to break the natural turf with their
rusting ploughshares, or string their Bows, and dash over the boundless
prairies, beckoned on by the alluring dictates of their nature, seeking laurels
amongst the ranks of their new enemies, and subsistence amongst the herds
of buffaloes.
Besides the Cberokees in Georgia, and those that I have spoken of in the
neighbourhood of Fort Gibson, there is another band or family of the same
tribe, of several hundreds, living on the banks of the Canadian river, an
hundred or more miles South West of Fort Gibson, under the Government
of a distinguished chief by the name of Tuch-ee (familiarly called by the
white people, '' Dutchy* plate 218). This is one of the most extraordinary
men that lives on the frontiers at the present day, both for his remarkable
hbtory, and for his fine and manly figure, and character of face.
