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Hopewell, two years later, that the Cherokee surrendered their claim to the same region, and even then the Chickamauga warriors, with their allies, the 1 Ramsey, Tennessee, pp.516, 519. ■ Brown's narrative, etc., ibid.. pp. .308-516. a Ibid., pp. 159, 489. hookey] DESTRUCTION OF COLDWATER — 1787 <'>" hostile Creeks and Shawano, refused to acknowledge the cession and continued their attacks, with the avowed purpose of destroying the new settlements. Until the final running of the boundary line, in 1797, Spain claimed all the territory west of the mountains and south of Cumberland river, and her agents were accused of stirring up the Indians against the Americans, even to the extent of offering rewards for American scalps. 1 One of these raiding parties, which had killed the brother of Captain Robertson, was tracked to Coldwater, a small mixed town of Cherokee and Creeks,on the south side of Tennessee river, about the present Tuscumbia, Alabama. Robertson determined to destroy it, and taking a force of volunteers, with a couple of Chick- asaw guides, crossed the Tennessee without being discovered and surprised and burnt the town. The Indians, who numbered less than fifty men, attempted to escape to the river, but were surrounded and over twenty of them killed, with a loss of but one man to the Tennes- seeans. In the town were found also several French traders. Three of these, who refused to surrender, were killed, together with a white woman who was accidentally shot in one of the boats. The others were afterward released, their large stock of trading goods having been taken and sold for the benefit of the troops. The affair took place about the end of June. 1787.

Through this action, and an effort made by Robertson about the same time to come to an understanding with the Chickaniauga band, there was a temporary cessation of hostile inroads upon the Cumberland, but long before the end of the year the attacks were renewed to such an extent that it was found necessary to keep out a force of rangers with orders to scour the country and kill every Indian found east of the Chickasaw boundary. 2 The Creeks seeming now to be nearly as much concerned in these raids as the Cherokee, a remonstrance was addressed to McGillivray, their principal chief, who replied that, although the Creeks, like the other southern tribes, had adhered to the British interest during the Revolution, they had accepted proposals of friendship, but while negotiations were pending six of their people had" beenkilled in the affair at Coldwater. which had led to a renewal of hostile feeling. He promised, however, to use his best efforts to bring about peace, and seems to have kept his word, although the raids continued through this and the next year, with the usual sequel of pursuit and reprisal. In one of these skirmishes a company under Captain Murray followed some Indian raiders from near Nashville to their camp on Tennessee river and succeeded in killing the whole party of eleven warriors. 1 A treaty of peace was signed with the Creeks in 1790, but, owing to the intrigues of the Spaniards, it had little practical effect, 4 and not i Bledsoe and Robertson letter of June 12, 1787. in Ramsey, Tennessee, p. 465, 1853. 2 Ibid., with Robertson tetter, pp. 465-476. a Ibid., pp. 479-486. 4 Monette,

whole country south of the Cumberland, while the British garrisons had not yet been with- drawn from the north. The resentment of the Indians at the occupancy of their reserved and guaranteed lands by the whites was sedulously encouraged from both quarters, and raids alone- the Tennessee fron- tier were of common occurrence. At this time, according to the official report of President Washington, over five hundred families of intruders were settled upon lands belonging rightly to the Cherokee. in addition to those between the French Broad and the Holston. 2 More than a year before the Secretary of War had stated that "the disgraceful violation of the treaty of Hopewell with the Cherokee requires the serious consideration of Congress. If so direct and man- ifest contempt of the authority of the United States tie suffered with impunity, it will hein vain to attempt to extend the arm of govern- ment 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." 3 To prevent any increase of the dissatisfaction, the general government issued a proclamation forbidding any further encroachment upon the Indian kinds on Tennessee river; notwith- standing which, early in L791, a party of men descended the river in boats, and. landing on an island at the Muscle shoals, near the present ruscumbia, Alabama, erected a blockhouse and other defensive works. Immediately afterward the Cherokee chitd'. Class, with about sixty warriors, appeared and quietly informed them that if they did notat once withdraw he would kill them. After some parley the intruders retired to their boats,

when the Indians set tire to the buildings and reduced them to ashes.' To forestall more serious difficulty it was necessary to negotiate a new treaty with a view to purchasing the disputed territory. Accord- ingly, through the efforts of Governor Blount, a convention was held with the principal men of the Cherokee at White's fort, now Knox- 1 Ramseyj Tennessee, pp. 522, ~<M ,56] . 1853. » Washington to the Si nate, lugusl 11, 1790, American State Papers: Indian Airuir*. [,p.83 1832 Knox to Presldenl Washington, July 7, 1789, ibid., p.58. * Ramsey, op. clt., pp. 550, 551. moosey] TREATY OF HOLSTON 1791 69 ville, Tennessee, in the summer of 1791. AYith much difficulty the Cherokee were finally brought to consent to a cession of a triangular section in Tennessee and North Carolina extending from Clinch river almost to the Blueridge, and including nearly the whole of the French Broad and the lower Holston, with the sites of the present Knoxville, Greenville, and Asheville. The whole of this area, with a considerable territory adjacent, was already fully occupied by the whites. Permission was also given for a road from the eastern settlements to those on the Cumberland, with the free navigation of Tennessee river. Prisoners on both sides were to be restored and perpetual peace was guaranteed. In consideration of the lands sur- rendered the Cherokee were to receive an annuity of one thousand dollars with some extra goods and some assistance on the road to civilization. A treaty was signed by forty-one principal men of the tribe and was concluded July 2, 1791. It is officially described as being held "on the bank of the Holston, near the mouth

of the French Broad." and is commonly spoken of as the "treaty of Holston." The Cherokee, however, were dissatisfied with the arrangement, and before the end of the year a delegation of six principal chiefs appeared at Philadelphia, then the seat of government, without any previous announcement of their coming, declaring that when they had 1 n summoned by Governor Blount to a conference they were not aware that it was to persuade them to sell lands; that they had resisted the proposition for days, and only yielded when compelled by the persistent and threatening demands of the governor; that the consideration was entirely too small; and that they had no faith that the whites would respect the new boundary, as they were in fact already settling beyond it. Finally, as the treaty had been signed, they asked that these intrudersbe removed. As their presentation of the case seemed a just one and it was desirable that they should carry home with them a favorable impression of the government's attitude toward them, a supplementary article was added, increasing- the annuity to eight thousand five hundred dollars. On account of renewed Indian hostilities in Ohio valley and the desire of the government to keep the good will of the Cherokee long enough to obtain their help against the northern tribes, the new line was not surveyed until 17'.*7.' As illustrating Indian custom it may be noted that one of the prin- cipal signers of the original treaty was among the protesting delegates, but having in the meantime changed his name, it appears on the supplementary paragraph as "Iskagua. or Clear Sky, formerly Nenetooyah, or Bloody Fellow.'"' As he had been one

of the prin- i Indian Treaties, pp. 34-38, 1837; Secretary of War, report, January 5, 1798, in American State Papers, I, pp. 628-631, 1832; Ramsey, Tennessee, pp. 554-560, 1853; Etoyee, Cherokee Nation, Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, pp. 158-170. with full discussion and map, 1888. '- Indian Treaties, pp. 37, 38, 1837. Til MTTH8 OF THE CHEROKEE [bth.akn.19 cipal raiders on the Tennessee frontier, the new name may have been symbolicof bis change of bear! at the prospectof a return of peace. The treaty seems to have bad little effect in preventing Indian hos- tilities, probabrj because the intruders still remained upon the Indian lands, and raiding still continued. The Creeks were known to be responsible for someof the mischief, and the hostile Chickamaugas were supposed to be the chief authors of the rest. 1 Even while the Cherokee delegateswere negotiating the treaty in Philadelphia a boat which had accidentally run aground on the Muscle shoals was attacked by a party of Indians under the pretense of offering assistance, one man being killed and another severely wounded with a hatchet.' While these negotiations had been pending at Philadelphia a young- man named Leonard D. Shaw, a student at Princeton college, had expressed to the Secretary of War an earnest desire lor a commission which would enable him to accompany the returning Cherokee dele- gates to their southern home, there to study Indian life and charac- teristics. As the purpose seemed a useful one. and he appeared well qualified tor such a work, he was accordingly commissioned as deputy agent to reside among- the Cherokee to observe and report upon their movements, to aid in the annuity distributions, and to

render other assistance to Governor Blount, superintendent for the southern tribes, to study their language and home life, and to collect materials for an Indian history. An extract from the official instructions under which this first Tinted States ethnologist began his work will he of interest. After defining his executive duties in connection with the annuity distributions, the keeping of accounts and the compiling of official reports. Secretary Knox continues — A ilin- performance of your duty will probably require the exercise of all your patience ami fortitude ami all your knowledge of the human character. Tin- school will 1 ie a severe but interesting one. [f you should succeed in acquiring the affections and a knowledge of the characters of the southern Indians, yon may lie at once use- ful to the United States ami advance your own interest. Youthe same year. with no evidence of unfriendliness at his presence." The friendly feel- ing was of short continuance, however, for a few months later we find him writing from Ustanali to Governor Blount that on account of the aggressive hostility of the Creeks, whose avowed intention was to kill every white man they met, he was not safe 50 yards front the house. Soon afterwards the Chickamauga towns again declared war, on which account, together with renewed threats by the ('recks, he was advised by the Cherokee to leave Ustanali, which he did early in September, 1792, proceeding to the home of General Pickens, near Seneca, South Carolina, escorted by a guard of friendly Cherokee. In the follow- ing winter he was dismissed front the service on serious charges, and his mission appears to have been a failure. 3 To

prevent an alliance of the Cherokee, Creeks, and other south- ern Indians with the confederated hostile northern tribes, the govern- ment had endeavored to persuade the former to furnish a contingent of warriors to act with the army against the northern Indians, and special instruction had been given to Shaw to use his efforts for this result. Nothing, however, came of the attempt. St Clair's defeat turned the scale against the United States, and in September, 1792, the Chickamauga towns formally declared war. 1 In November of this year the governor of Georgia officially reported that a party of lawless Georgians had gone into the Cherokee Nation, and had there burned a town and barbarously killed three Indians, while about the same time two other Cherokee had been killed within the settlements. Fearing retaliation, he ordered out a patrol ofbody of Creeks was on it- way against the Cum- berland settlements, and that the ( 'reck chief. Met rillivray, was trying to form a general confederacy of all the Indian tribes against the whites. To understand this properly it must lie remembered that at this time all the tribes northwest of the Ohio and as far as the heads of the Mississippi were banded together in a grand alliance, headed l>\ the warlike Shawano, for the purpose of holding the Ohio river as the Indian boundary against the advancing tide of white settlement. They had just cut to pieces one of the finest armies ever sent into the West, under the veteran General St Clair (28), and it seemed for the moment a- if the American advance would he driven hack behind the Alleghenies. In the emergency the Secretary

of War directed Governor Blount to hold a conference with the chiefs of the Chickasaw. Choctaw, and Cherokee at Nashville in dune to enlist their warriors, if possible, in active service against the northern tribes. The conference was held as proposed, in August, but nothing seems to have come of it, although the child's seemed to lie sincere in their assurances of friendship. Very few of the Choctaw or Cherokee were in attendance. At the annuity distribution of the Cherokee, shortly before, the chiefs had also been profuse in declarations of their desire for peace.' Notwith- standing all this the attacks along the Tennessee frontier continued to such an extent that the blockhouses were again put in order ami gar- risoned. Soon afterwards the governor reported to the Secretary of War that the five lower Cherokee towns on the Tennessee(the Chicka- mauga), headed by John Watts, had finally declared war against the United State-, and that from three to six hundred warriors, including a hundred Creeks, had started against the settlements. The militia was at once called out. both in eastern Tennessee and on the Cumber- land. On the Cumberland side it was directed that no pursuit should he continued beyond the Cherokee boundary, the ridge between the waters of Cumberland and Duck rivers. The order issued by Colonel White, of Knox county, to each of his captains shows how great was the alarm: ■ Governor Telfair's letters of November n ami December 5, with inclosure, 1792, American State Papers: Indian Affairs, i, pp.332, 336, 887, 1832. 2 Rainwy, Trancm 1 , i.|..;,r,_'-.«,:;,-V.is, is:,:;. mooney] ATTACK ON BUCHANAN'S STATION — L792 73 Knoxville, September n. 1792. Sir: You arc hereby commanded to

repair with your company to Knoxville, equipped, to protect the frontiers; there is imminent danger. Bring with you two days' provisions, if possible; but you are not to delay an hour on that head. I am. sir. yours, James White. 1 About midnight on the 30th of September, 1792, the Indian force, consisting of several hundred Chickamaugas and other Cherokee, ("reeks, and Shawano, attacked Buchanan's station, a few miles south of Nashville. Although numbers of families had collected inside the stockade for safety, there were less than twenty able-bodied men among them. The approach of the enemy alarmed the cattle, by which the garrison had warning just in time to close the gate when the Indians were already within a few yards of the entrance. The assault wtis furious and determined, the Indians rushing up to the stockade, attempting to set tireto it. and aiming their guns through the port holes. One Indian succeeded in climbing upon the roof with a lighted torch, but was shot and fell to the ground, holding his torch against the logs as he drew his last breath. It was learned afterward that he was a half blood, the stepson of the old white trader who had once rescued the boy Joseph Brown at Nickajack. He was a desperate warrior and when only twenty-two years of age had already taken six white scalps. The attack was repulsed at every point, and the assail ants finally drew off, with considerable loss, carrying their dead and wounded with them, and leaving a number of hatchets, pipes, and other spoils upon the ground. Among the wounded was the chief John Watts. Not one of those in the fort

was injured. It has been well said that the defense of Buchanan's station by such a handful of men against an attacking force estimated all the way at from three to seven hundred Indians is a feat of bravery which has scarcely been surpassed in the annals of border warfare. The effect upon the Indians must have been thoroughly disheartening. 2 In the same month arrangements were made for protecting the fron- tier along the French Broad by means of a series of garrisoned block- houses, with scouts to patrol regularly from one to another. North Carolina cooperating on her side of the line. The hostile inroads still continued in this section, the Creeks acting with the hostile Cherokee. One raiding party of Creeks having been traced toward Chilhowee town on Little Tennessee, the whites were about to burn thatCumberland settlement, was attacked by a mixed force of Cherokee, Creeks, and Shawano, near the Grab Orchard, west of the presenl Kingston, Tennessee. Becoming separated from his men he encountered a warrior who had lifted his hatchet to >trikc when Handley seized the weapon, crying out "Canaly" (for higtona'lii), "friend," to which the Cherokee responded with tin' same word, at oner lowering his arm. Handley was carried to Willstown, in Alabama, where he was adopted into the Wolf elan (29) and remained until the next spring. After having made use of his services in writing a peace letter to Governor Blount the Cherokee finally sent him home in safety to his friends under a protecting escort of eight warriors, without any demand for ransom. He afterward resided near Tellico blockhouse, near Loudon, where, after the wars were over, his Indian friends

frequently came to visit and stop with him. 1 The year 1T'.»H began with a series of attacks all along the Tennes- see frontier. As before, most of the depredation was by Chicka- maugas and Creeks, with some stray Shawano from the north. The Cherokee from the towns on Little Tennessee remained peaceable, but their temper was sorely tried by a regrettable circumstance which occurred in June. While a number of friendly chiefs were assembled for a conference at Echota, on the express request of the President, a party of men under command of a Captain John Beard sud- denly attacked them, killing about fifteen Indians, including several chiefs and two women, one of them being the wife of Hanging-maw (Ushwa'li-guta), principal chief of the Nation, who was himself wounded. The murderers then tied, leaving others to suffer the conse- quences. Twohundred warriors at once took up arms to revenge their loss, and only the most earnest appeal from the deputy governor could lest rain them from swift retaliation. While the chief , whose wife was thus murdered and himself wounded, forebore to revenge himself, in order not to bring war upon his people, the Secretary of War was obliged to report. " to my great pain, I find to punish Beard by law just now is out of the question." Beard was in fact arrested, but the trial was a farce and he was acquitted. 8 Believing that the Cherokee Nation, with the exception of the Chickamaugas, was honestly trying to preserve peace, the territorial government, while making provision for the safety of the exposed settlements, had strictly prohibited any invasion of the Indian country. The frontier people were of

a different opinion, and in spite of the prohibition a company of nearly two hundred mounted men under i Ramsey, Tennessee, pp.571-673, 1863. »Ibid.,pp moosey] MASSACRE AT CAVITTS STATION 1793 75 Colonels Doherty and McFarland crossed over the mountains in the summer of this year and destroyed six of the middle towns, returning with fifteen scalps and as many prisoners.' Late in September a strong force estimated at one thousand war- riors — seven hundred Creeks and three hundred Cherokee — under John Watts and Doublehead, crossed the Tennessee and advanced in the direction of Knoxville. where the public stores were then deposited. In their eagerness to reach Knoxville they passed quietly by one or two smaller settlements until within a short distance of the town, when, at daybreak of the 25th, they heard the garrison tire the sunrise gun and imaginedthat they were discovered. Differences had already broken out among the leaders, and without venturing to advance farther they contented themselves with an attack upon a small block- house a few miles to the west, known as Cavitts station, in which at the time were only three men with thirteen women and children. After defending themselves bravely for some time these surrendered on promise that they should be held for exchange, but as soon as they came out Doublehead's warriors fell upon them and put them all to death with the exception of a boy, who was saved by John Watts. This bloody deed was entirely the work of Doublehead. the other chiefs having done their best to prevent it. 2 A force of seven hundred men under General Sevier wasat once put upon their track, with orders this time

to push the pursuit into the heart of the Indian nation. Crossing Little Tennessee and Hiwassee they penetrated to Ustanali town, near the present Calhoun, Georgia. Finding it deserted, although well tilled with provision, they rested there a few days, the Indians in the meantime attempting a night attack without success. After burning the town. Sevier con- tinued down the river to Etowah town, near the present site of Rome. Here the Indians— Cherokee and Creeks — had dug intrenchments and prepared to make a stand, but, being outflanked, were defeated with loss and compelled to retreat. This town, with several others in the neighborhood belonging to both Cherokee and Creeks, w-as destroyed, with all the provision of the Indians, including three hundred cattle, after which the army took up the homeward march. The Americans had lost but three men. Thiswas the last military service of Sevier. 3 During the absence of Sevier's force in the south the Indians made a sudden inroad on the French Broad, near the present Dandridge, killing and scalping a woman and a boy. While their friends were accompanying the remains to a neighboring burial ground for "inter- ment, two men who had incautiously gone ahead were tired upon. One 1 Ramsey. Tennessee, p. 579. 2 Ibid., pp. 580-583 1853; Smith. letter, September 27, 1793, American stale Papers: Indian Affairs, [, p. 468, 1832, Ramsey gives tin- Indian force 1,000 warriors; smith *nys that in many places they marched in tiles of Js abreast, each tile being supposed to number 40 men. a Ramsey, up. cit., pp. 584-588. ■ 76 MYTH- OF THE CHEROKEE [bth.akk.19 of them escaped, but the other one was fouud killed

and scalped when the resl of thecompany came up, and was buried with the first victims.. Sevier's success brought temporary respite to the Cumberland settle- ments. During the early part of the year the Indian attacks by small raiding parties had been so frequent and annoying that a force of men had been kept out on patrol service under officers who adopted with some success the policy of hunting the Indian- in their camping places in the thickets, rather than waiting for them to come i n t < . the settlements.' In February, 1 T'.*4. the Territorial assembly of Tennessee met at Knoxvillc and. among other business transacted, addressed a strong memorial to Congress calling for mure efficient protection for the frontier and demanding a declaration of war against the Creeks and Cherokee. The memorial states that since the treatyof Eiolston (July, L791), these two tribes bad killed in a most barbarous and inhuman manner more than two hundred citizens of Tennessee, of both sexes. had carried others into captivity, destroyed their stock, burned their houses, and laid waste their plantations, had robbed the citizens of their slaves and stolen at least two thousand horses. Special atten- tion was directed to the two great invasion- in September, 17'.':.'. and September, 1793, and the memorialists declare that there was scarcely a man of the assembly hut could tell of "a dear wife or child, an aged parent or near relation, besides friends, massacred by the hands of these bloodthirsty nations in their house or fields." 8 In the meantime the raids continued and every scattered cabin was a target for attack. In April a party of twenty warriors surrounded the house

of a man named Casteel on the French Broad about nine miles above Knoxville and massacred father, mother, and four children in most brutal fashion. One child only was left alive, a girl of ten years, who was found scalped and bleeding from six tomahawk gashes, vet survived. The others were buried in one grave. The massacre roused such a storm of excitement that it required all the effort of the governor and the local officials to prevent an invasion in force of the Indian country. Tt was learned that Doublehead. of the Chicka- mauga towns, was trying to get the support of the valley towns, which, however, continued to maintain an attitude of peace. The friendly Cherokee also declared that the Spaniards were constantly instigating the lower tow ns to hostilities, although John Watts, one of their prin- cipalchiefs, advocated peace. ' In June a boat under command of William Scott, laden with pot-, hardware, and other property, and containing six white men. three women, four children, and twenty negroes, left Knoxville to descend I Ramsey. Tennessee, pp. 590. 602-605. 1853. i Haywood, civil and Political Historj of Tennessee, pp 800-802; Knoxville, 1828 ii, mi pp 308-308,1828; Ramsey, op. cit., pp. 591 594. Haywood's history of this period Is little more than a continuous record of killings and petty encounters. mooney] CONFLICTS WITH CREEKS — 1794 ii Tennessee river to Natchez. As it passed the Chickamauga towns it was fired upon from Running Water and Long island without damage The whites returned the tire, wounding two Indians. A large party of Cherokee, headed by White-man-killer (Une'ga-dihi"). then started in pursuit of the boat, which they overtook at Muscle shoals,

where they killed all the white people in it. made prisoners of the negroes, an. I plundered the goods. Three Indians were killed and one was wounded in the action. 1 It is said that the Indian actors in this massacre tied across the Mississippi into Spanish territory and became the nucleus of the Cherokee Nation of the West, as will be noted elsewhere. On June 26, 1794, another treaty, intended to be supplementary to that of Holston in 1791, was negotiated at Philadelphia, being signed by the Secretary of War and by thirteen principal men of the Chero- kee. An arrangement was made for the proper marking of the boundary then established, and the annuity was increased to five thousand dollars, with a proviso that fifty dollars were to be deducted for every horse -tolen by the Cherokee andnot restored within three months. 2 In July a man named John Ish was shot down while plowing in his field eighteen miles below Knoxville. By order of Hanging-maw, the friendly chief of Echota, a party of Cherokee took the trail and cap- tured the murderer, who proved to be a Creek, whom they brought in to the agent at Tellico blockhouse, where he was formally tried and hanged. When asked the usual question he said that his people were at war with the whites, that he had left home to kill or be killed. that he had killed the white man and would have escaped but for the Cherokee, and that there were enough of his nation to avenge his death. A few days later a party of one hundred Creek warriors crossed Tennessee river against the settlements. The

alarm was given by Hanging-maw. and fifty-three Cherokee with a few federal troops started in pursuit. On the loth of August they came up with the Creeks, killing one and wounding another, one Cherokee being slightly wounded. The Creeks retreated and the victors returned to the Cherokee towns, where their return was announced by the death song and the tiring of guns. "The night was spent in dancing the scalp dance, according to the custom of warriors after a victory over their enemies, in which the white and red people heartily joined. The Upper Cherokee had now stepped too far to go back, and their pro- fessions of friendship were now no longer to be questioned." In the same month there was an engagement between a detachment of about 1 Haywood, Civil and Political History of Tennessee, p. 308.1823; Ramsey,with little success. The Cher- okee claimed to he anxious for permanent peace, hut said thai it was impossible to restore the property taken by them, as it had been taken in war, and they had themselves been equal losers from the white-. They said also that they COuld not prevent the hostile Creeks from passing through their territory. About the end of July it was learned that a strong body of ('reeks had started north against the settlements. The militia was at once ordered out alone- the Tennessee frontier, and the friendly Cherokees offered their services, while measures were taken to protect their women and children from the enemy. The ( 'reeks advanced as far as Willstown, when the news came of the com- plete defeat of the confederated northern tribes by General Wayne (30), and fearing the same

arriving at Nashville entered as heartily into the project as if no counter orders had ever been issued, and was given chief com- mand of the expedition, which for this reason is commonly known as ■•( he's expedition." < )n September 7. L794, the army of five hundred and fifty mounted men left Nashville, and five days later crossed the Tennessee near the mouth of the Sequatchee river, their guide being the same Joseph Brown of whom the old Indian woman had said that he would one day bring the soldiers to destroy them. Having left their horses on the other side of the river, they moved up along the south hank just after daybreak of the L3th and surprised the town of Nickajack, killing several warriors and taking a Dumber of prisoners. Some who attempted to escape in canoeswere shot in the water. The warriors -.1, Civil 1 Political Historj oi Tennessee, pp 809-311, 1828; Ramsey, rennessee, pp. 594, -IImvu l,op.cit.,pp 314-316; Ramsey, op. eit., p, 06. mooney] END OB 1 CHEROKEE WAR J 79-1 79 iii Running Water town, four miles above, heard the firing and came at once to the assistance of their friends, but wen 1 driven back after attempting to hold their ground, and the second town shared the fate of the first. More than fifty Indians had been killed, a number were prisoners, both towns and all their contents had been destroyed, with a loss to the assailants of only three men wounded. The Breath, the chief of Running Water, was among those killed. Two fresh scalps with a large quantity of plunder from the settlements were found in the towns, together with

a supply of ammunition said to have been furnished by the Spaniards. 1 Soon after the return of the expedition Robertson sent a message to John Watts, the principal leader of the hostile Cherokee, threatening a second visitation if the Indians did not very soon surrender their prisoners and give assurances of peace. 2 The destruction of their towns on Tennessee and Coosa and the utter defeat of the northern confederates had now broken the courage of the Cherokee, and on their own request Governor Blount held a conference with them at Tellico blockhouse, November 7 and 8, 1794, at which Hanging-maw, head chief of the Nation, and Colonel John Watt, principal chief of the hos- tile towns, with about four hundred of their warriors, attended. The result was satisfactory; all differences were arranged on a friendly basis and the longCherokee war came to an end. 3 Owing to the continued devastation of their towns during the Rev- olutionary struggle, a number of Cherokee, principally of the Chicka- mauga band, had removed across the Ohio about 1782 and settled on Paint creek, a branch of the Scioto river, in the vicinity of their friends and allies, the Shawano. In 17*7 they were reported to num- ber about seventy warriors. They took an active part in the hostili- ties along the Ohio frontier and were present in the great battle at the Maumee rapids, by which the power of the confederated northern tribes was effectually broken. As they had failed to attend the treaty con- ference held at Greenville in August, 1795, General Wayne sent them a special message, through their chief Long-hair, that if they refused to come in and

As such action would almost surely have resulted in another Indian war. Congress interposed, on the rep- resentation of President Washington, with an act for the regulation of intercourse between citizens of the United States and the various Indian tribes. Its main purpose was to prevent intrusion upon lands to which the Indian title had not been extinguished by treaty with the general government, and under its provisions a number of squatters were ejected from the Indian country and removed across the boundary. The pressure of border sentiment, however, was constantly for extend- ing the area of white settlement and the result was an immediate agita- tion to procure another treaty cession. : In consequence of urgent representations from the people of Ten- nessee, Congress took steps in IT'.tT for procuring a new treaty with the Cherokee by which the ejectedsettlers might '»■ reinstated and the boundaries of the new state so extended as to bring about closer com- munication between the eastern settlements and those on the ( lumber- land. Tin 1 Revolutionary warfare had forced the Cherokee west and south, and their capital and central gathering place was now Ustanali town, near the present Calhoun. Georgia, while Echota, their ancient capital and beloved peace town, was almost on the edge of the white settlements. The commissioners wished to have the proceedings con- ducted at Echota, while the Cherokee favored Ustanali. After some debate a choice was made of a convenient place near Tellico block- house, where the conference opened in July, hut was brought to an abrupt (dose by the peremptory refusal of the Cherokee to sell any land- or to permit the return of the ejected settlers. The

rest of the summer was spent in negotiation alone' the linos already proposed, and on October 2, L798, a treaty, commonly known as the "first treaty of Tellico." was concluded*at the same place, and was signed by thirty-nine chiefs on behalf of the Cherokee. By this t reaty the Indians ceded a tract between ( !linch river and the Cumber- land ridge, another alone- the northern hank of Little Tennessee extending up to Chilhowee mountain, and a third in North Carolina mi the heads of French Broad and Pigeon rivers and including the sites i Royce, Cherokee Nation, Fifth Ann Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, p. IT:;, 1888 s Ibid., pp. 174,175; Ramsey, Tennessee, pp ''7'.' • - mooxey] CONDITION OF CHEROKEE IX 1800 81 of the present Waynesville and Hendersonville. These cessions included most or all of the lands fromwhich settlers had been ejected. Permission was also given for laying out the "Cumberland road." to connect the east Tennessee settlements with those about Nashville. In consideration of the lands and rights surrendered, the United States agreed to deliver to the Cherokee five thousand dollars in goods, and to increase their existing annuity by one thousand dollars, and as usual, to •■continue the guarantee of the remainder of their country forever."' Wayne's victory over the northern tribes at the battle of the Mau- niee rapids completely broke their power and compelled them to accept the terms of peace dictated at the treaty of Greenville in the summer of 1795. The immediate result was the surrender of the Ohio river boundary by the Indians and the withdrawal of the British garrisons from the interior posts, which up to this time they

had continued to hold in spite of the treaty made at the close of the Revolution. By the treaty made at Madrid in October, L795, Spain gave up all claim on the east side of the Mississippi north of the thirty-first parallel, but on various pretexts the formal transfer of posts was delayed and a Spanish garrison continued to occupy San Fernando de Barrancas, at the present Memphis. Tennessee, until the fall of 1797, while that at Natchez, in Mississippi, was not surrendered until March. 1798. The Creeks, seeing the trend of affairs, had made peace at Colerain. Georgia, in June, 179t>. With the hostile European influence thus eliminated, at least for the time, the warlike tribes on the north and on the south crushed and dispirited and the Chickamauga towns wiped out of existence, the Cherokee realized that theymust accept the situation and, after nearly twenty years of continuous warfare, laid \^ aside the tomahawk to cultivate the arts of peace and civilization. The close of the century found them still a compact people (the westward movement having hardly yet begun) numbering probably about 20,000 souls. After repeated cessions of large tracts of land, to some of which they had but doubtful claim, they remained in recog- nized possession of nearly 4:3,000 square miles of territory, a country about equal in extent to Ohio. Virginia, or Tennessee. Of this 'terri- tory about one half was within the limits of Tennessee, the remainder being almost equally divided between Georgia and Alabama, with a small area in the extreme southwestern corner of North Carolina. 2 The old Lower towns on Savannah river had been broken up for twenty years, and the

whites had so far encroached upon the Upper towns that the capital and council tire of the nation had been removed from the ancient peace town of Echota to Ustanali, in Georgia. The i Indian Treaties, pp. 78-82. 1837; Ramsey, Tennessee, pp. 692-697. ls.">:;; Royce, Cherokei (with map and full discussion i, Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, pp. 174-lw, 1888. -See table in Royce, op.cit., p. 378. 19 ETH— 01 6 82 MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE [eth.ank.19 towns on Coosa river and in Alabama were almost all of recent estab- lishment, peopled by refugees from the east and north. The Middle towns, in North Carolina, were still surrounded by Indian country. Firearms had been introduced into the tribe about one hundred years before, and the Cherokee had learned well their use. Such civilized goods as hatchets, knives, clothes, and trinketshad become so common before the first Cherokee war that the Indians had declared that they could no longer live without the trader-. Horses and other domestic animals had been introduced early in the century, and at the opening of the war of L760, according to Adair, the Cherokee had "a prodigious number of excellent horses." and although hunger had compelled them t<> eat a great many of these during that period, they still had, in 1775. from two to a dozen each, and bid fair soon to have plenty of the best sort, as, according to the same authority, they were skilful jockeys and nice in their choice. Some of them had grown fond of cattle, and they had also an abundance of hoes and poultry, the Indian pork being esteemed better than that raised in the white settlements

on account of the chestnut diet. 1 In Sevier's expedition against the towns on Coosa river, in 1793, the army killed three hun- dred beeves at Etowah and left their carcasses rotting on the ground. While crossing the Cherokee country in 1796 Hawkins met an Indian woman on horseback driving ten very fat cattle to the settlements for sale. Peach trees and potatoes, as well as the native corn and beans, were abundant in their fields, and some had bees and honey and did a considerable trade in beeswax. They seem to have quickly recovered from the repeated ravages of war. and there was a general air of pros- perity throughout the nation. The native arts () f pottery and basket- making were still the principal employment of the women, and the warriors hunted with such success that aparty of traders brought down thirty wagon loads of skins on one trip." In dress and house- building the Indian style was practically unchanged. In pursuance of a civilizing policy, the government had agreed, by the treaty of 17U1, to furnish the Cherokee gratuitously with farming tools and similar assistance. This policy was continued and broadened to such an extent that in L801 Hawkins reports that "in the Cherokee agency, the wheel, the loom, and the plough is [sic] in pretty general use. farming, manufactures, and stock raising the topic of conversation among the men and women." At a conference held this year we find the chiefs of the mountain towns complaining that the people of the more western and southwestern settlements had received more than their share of spinning wheels and cards, and were consequently more advanced in making their

own clothing as well as in farming, to which 1 Adair, American Indians, pp.280,281, I77.Y 2 See Hawkins, MS journal from South Carolina to tin- Creeks, 17%, in library of Georgia Historical Society. N uney] INTERMARRIAGE WITH WHITES 83 the others retorted that these things had been offered to all alike at the same time, but while the lowland people had been quick to accept, the mountaineers had hung back. "Those who complain came in late. We have got the start of them, which we are determined to keep." The progressives, under John Watts, Doublehead. and Will, threatened to secede from the rest and leave those east of Chilhowee mountain to shift for themselves. 1 We see here the germ of dissatisfaction which led ultimately to the emigration of the western band. Along with other things of civilization, negro slavery hadbeen introduced and several of the leading men were now slaveholders (31). Much of the advance in civilization had been due to the intermar- riage among them of white men, chiefly traders of the ante-Revolu- tionary period, with a few Americans from the back settlements. The families that have made Cherokee history were nearly all of this mixed descent. The Doughertys, Galpins. and Adairs were from Ireland: the Rosses, Vanns, and Macintoshes, like the McGillivrays and Graysons among the Creeks, were of Scottish origin; the Waffords and others were Americans from Carolina or Georgia, and the father of Sequoya was a (Pennsylvania '.) German. Most of this white blood was of good stock, very different from the "squaw man" element of the western tribes. Those of the mixed blood who could afford it usually sent their children away to be educated,

while some built schoolhouses upon their own grounds and brought in private teachers from the outside. With the beginning of the present century we find influential mixed bloods in almost every town, and the civilized idea dominated even the national councils. The Middle towns, shut in from the outside world by high mountains, remained a stronghold of Cherokee conservatism. With the exception of Priber, there seems to be no authentic record of any missionary worker among the Cherokee before 1800. There is, indeed, an incidental notice of a Presbyterian minister of North Caro- lina being on his way to the tribe in 1758, but nothing seems to have come of it, and we find him soon after in South Carolina and separated from his original jurisdiction. 2 The first permanent mission was estab- lished by the Moravians, those peaceful Germanimmigrants whose teachings were so well exemplified in the lives of Zeisberger and Heckewelder. As early as 1734, while temporarily settled in Georgia, they had striven to bring some knowledge of the Christian religion to the Indians immediately about Savannah, including perhaps some stray Cherokee. Later on they established missions among the Dela- wares in Ohio, where their first Cherokee convert was received in 1773, being one who had been captured by the Delawares when a boy and had grown up and married in the tribe. In 1752 they had formed a settlement on the upper Yadkin, near the present Salem, 1 Hawkins, Treaty Commission, 1801, manuscript No. 5, m library of Georgia Historical Society. -Foote (?), in North Carolina Colonial Records, v. p. 1'2'J6, 1887. M MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE lbth.akh.1S North Carolina, where 1 1 n - \ made

friendly acquaintance with the Cherokee. 1 In L799, hearing thai the Cherokee desired teachers or perhaps bj direct invitation of the chiefs two missionaries visited the tribe to investigate the matter. Another visit wa- made in the next summer, and a council was held at Tellico agency, where, after a debate in which the Indians showed considerable difference <>t' opinion, it was decided tn open a mission. Permission having been obtained from the government, the work was begun in April. L801, by Rev. Abraham Steiner and Rev. Gottlieb Byhan at the residence of David Vann, a prominent mixed-blood chief, who lodged them in his own bouse and gave them every assistance in building the mission, which they afterward called Spring place, where now is the village of the same name in Murray county, northwestern Georgia. They were also materially aided bythe agent, Colonel Return J. Meigs (32). It was soon seen that the Cherokee wanted civilizers for their children, and not new theologies, and when they found that a school could not at once 1 pened the great council at I'stanali sent orders to the missi iries to organize a school within six months or leave the nation. Through Vann's help the matter was arranged and a school was opened, several sons of prominent chiefs being among the pupils. Another Moravian mission was established by Reverend .1. Gambold at Oothcaloga, in the same county, in 1821. Roth were in flourishing condition when broken up. with other Cherokee missions, by the Stair of Georgia in 1834:. The work was afterward renewed beyond the Mississippi. 5 In 1804 the Reverend Gideon Blackburn, a Presbyterian minister of Tennessee, opened a school among the Cherokee,

which continued for several years until abandoned for lack of funds. 8 Notwithstanding the promise to the Cherokee in the treaty of 1798 that the Government would "continue the guarantee of the remain- der of their country forever." measures were begun almost imme- diately to procure another large cession of land and road privileges. In spite of the strenuous objection of the Cherokee, who sent a delegation of prominent chiefs to Washington to protest against any further sales, such pressure was brought to hear, chiefly through the efforts of the agent, Colonel Meigs, that the object of the Government was accomplished, and in L804 and 1805 three treaties were negotiated at Tellico agency, by which the Cherokee were shorn id' more than eight thousand square miles of their remaining territory. By the first of these treaties October 24, 1804 — aof live thousand dollars in goods or cash with an additional annuity of one thousand dollars. By the other treaties — October 25 and u'7. L805 — a large tract was obtained in central Tennessee and Kentucky, extending between the Cumber- land range and the western line of the Hopewell treaty, and from Cumberland river southwest to Duck river. One section was also secured at Southwest point (now Kingston, Tennessee) with the design of establishing there the state capital, which, however, was located at Nashville instead seven years later. Permission was also obtained for two mail roads through the Cherokee country into Georgia and Ala- bama. In consideration of the cessions by the two treaties the United States agreed to pay fifteen thousand six hundred dollars in working implements, goods, orcash, with an additional annuity of three thousand dollars. To secure

the consent of some of the leading chiefs, the treaty commissioners resorted to the disgraceful precedent of secret articles, by which several valuable small tracts were reserved for Doublehead and Tollunteeskee, the agreement being recorded as a part of the treaty, but not embodied in the copy sent to the Senate for con- firmation. 1 In consequence of continued abuse of his official position for selfish ends Doublehead was soon afterward killed in accordance with a decree of the chiefs of the Nation, Major Ridge being selected as executioner. 2 By the treaty of October 25, 1805, the settlements in eastern Tennessee were brought into connection with those about Nashville on the Cumber- land, and the state at last assumed compact form. The whole southern portion of the state, as defined in the charter, was still Indian coun- try, and therewas a strong and constant pressure for its opening, the prevailing sentiment being in favor of making Tennessee river the boundary between the two races. New immigrants were constantly crowding in from the east. and. as Royce says, "the desire to settle on Indian land was as potent and insatiable with the average border settler then as it is now." Almost within two months of the last treaties another one was concluded at Washington on January 7, 1806, by which the Cherokee ceded their claim to a large tract between Duck river and the Tennessee, embracing nearly seven thousand ' square miles in Tennessee and Alabama, together with the Long island (Great island) in Holston river, which up to this time they had claimed as theirs. They were promised in compensation ten thousand dollars in five cash installments, a grist

mill and cotton gin, and a life annuity 1 Indian treaties, pp.108, 121, 125, 1837; Royce, Cherokee Nation, Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnol- ogy, pp. 183 193, 1888 (map and full discussion I. -McKenney and Hall, Indian Tribes, n, p. 92, 1858. 86 MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE [eth.ann.19 of one hundred dollars for Black-fox, the aged head chief of the nation. The signers of the instrument, including Doublehead and Tollunteeskee, were accompanied to Washington by the same commissioners who had procured the previous treaty. In consequence of some misunderstand ing, the boundaries <>l' the ceded trad were Mill further extended in a supple ntary treaty concluded at the Chickasaw Old Fields on the Tennessee, on September 11. L807. As the country between Duck river and the Tennessee was claimed also by t In- Chickasaw, their title was extinguished by separatetreaties.' The ostensible compensation for this lust Cherokee cession, as shown by the treaty, was two thou sand dollars, but it was secretly agreed by Agent Meigs that what he calls a "silenl consideration" of one thousand dollars and some rifles should be given to the chiefs who signed it. ; In L807 Colonel Elias Earle, with the consent of the Government, obtained a concession from the Cherokee for the establishment of iron works at the mouth of Chickamauga creek, on the south side of Ten- nessee river, to be supplied from ores mined in the Cherokee country. It was hoped that this would be a considerable step toward the civili- zation of the Indians, besides enabling the Government to obtain its supplies of manufactured iron at a cheaper rate, hut after prolonged effort the project was finally abandoned on

account of the refusal of the state of Tennessee to sanction the grant. 3 In the same year, by arrangement with the general government, the legislature of Tennessee attempted to negotiate with the Cherokee for that part of their unceded lands lying within the state limits, but without success, owing to the unwillingness of the Indians to part with any more territory, and their special dislike for the people of Tennessee.* In L810 the Cherokee national council registered a further advance in civilization by formally abolishing the custom of clan revenge, hitherto universal among the tribes. The enactment bears the signa- tures of Black-fox (Ina'li), principal chief, and seven others, and reads as follows: In Council, Oostinaleh, April IS, 1810. 1. Be it known this .lay, That the various clans or tribes which compose the Cher- okee nation have unanimously passed anit so happen thai a brother, forgetting his natural affections, should raise his hands in anger and kill his brother, he shall be accounted guilty of murder and suffer accordingly. ::. If a man have a horse stolen, and overtake the thief, and sin mid his anger be so great as to cause him to shed his hi 1, let it remain on his ow n conscience, bul no satisfaction shall be required for his life, from his relative or clan he may have belonged to. Bj order of the seven clans. ' Under an agreement with the Cherokee in 1813a company composed pf representatives of Tennessee, Georgia, and the Cherokee nation was organized to lay out a free public road from Tennessee river to the head of navigation on the Tugaloo branch of Savannah river, with provision for convenient

stopping places alone- the line. The road was completed within the next three years, and became the great high- way from the coast to the Tennessee settlements. Beginning on the Tugaloo or Savannah a short distance below the entrance of Toccoa creek, it crossed the upper Chattahoochee, passing through Clarkes- ville, Nacoochee valley, the Unicoi gap. and Hiwassee in Georgia; then entering North Carolina it descended the Hiwassee, passing through Hayesville and Murphy and over the Great Smoky range into Tennessee, until it reached the terminus at the Cherokee capital, Echota, on Little Tennessee. It was officially styled the Unicoi turn- pike,' but was commonly known in North Carolina as the Wachesa trail, from Watsi'sa or Wachesa, a prominent Indian who lived near the crossing-place on Beaverdam creek, below Murphy, this portion of the road being laid out along the oldIndian trail which already bore that name. 3 Passing over for the present some negotiations having for their pur- pose the removal of the Cherokee to the West, we arrive at the period of the Creek war. Ever since the treaty of Greenville it had been the dream of Tecum- tha, the great Shawano chief (33), to weld again the conf ederacj' of the northern tribes as a harrier against the further aggressions of the white man. His own burning eloquence was ably seconded by the subtler persuasion of his brother, who assumed the role of a prophet with a new revelation, the burden of which was that the Indians must return to their old Indian life it' they would preserve their national existence. The new doctrine spread among all the northern tribes and at hist reached those of the south,

where TecumAha himself had gone to enlist the warriors in the great Indian confederacy. The prophets of the Upper Creeks eagerly accepted the doctrine and in a short time their warriors were dancing the "dance of the Indians of the lakes." In iln American State Papers: Indian Affairs, n, p. 283, 1831. 2 See contract appended to Washington treaty, 1819, Indian Treaties, pp. 269-271, 1837; Royce map, Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, 1888. 3 Author's personal information. MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE i ™ anticipation of an expected war with the United Stair- the British agents in Canada had I n encouraging the hostile feeling toward the Americans by talks and presents of goods and ammunition, while the Spaniards also covertly fanned the flame of discontent.' At the beighl of the ferment war was declared between thi- country and England on June28, 1812. Tecumtha, :it the bead of fifteen hundred warriors, at once entered the British service with a commission as general, while the Creeks began murdering and burning along the southern frontier, after having vainly attempted to secure the cooperation of the ( Iherokee. From the Creeks the new revelation was brought to the Cherokee, whose priests at once began to dream dreams and to preach a return to the old life as the only hope of the Indian rare. A greal medicine dance was appointed at (Jstanali, the national capital, where, after the dance was over, the doctrine was publicly announced and explained by a Cherokee prophet introduced by a delegation from Coosawatee. He began by saying that some of the mountain towns had abused him and refused to receive his message, hut nevertheless he must continue to hear

testimony of his mission whatever might happen. The Cherokee had broken the road which had been given to their fathers at the begin- ningof the world. They hud taken the white man's clothes and trinkets. they had beds and tables and mills; some even had hooks and cats. All this was had, and because of it their gods were angry and the game was leaving their country. If they would live and be happy as before they must put off the white man's dress, throw away his mills and looms, kill their cats, put on paint and buckskin, and be Indians again; otherwise swift destruction would come upon them. His speech appealed strongly to the people, who cried out in great excitement that his talk was good. Of all those present only Major Ridge, a principal child', had thecourage to stand up and oppose it, warning his hearers that such talk would inevitably lead to war with the United States, which would end in their own destruction. The maddened followers of the prophet sprang upon Ridge and would have killed him hut for the interposition of friends. As it was. he was thrown down and narrowly escaped with his life, while one of his defender- was stabbed by his side. The prophet had threatened after a certain time to invoke a terrible storm, which should destroy all hut the true believers, who were exhorted to gather for safety on one of the high peaks of the Great Smoky mountains. In full faith they abandoned their bees, their orchards, their slaves, and everything that had come to them from the white man. and took up their toilsome march for

hostile Creeks, and on the contrary had promised to assist the whites and the friendly towns. 2 More than a year before the council had sent a friendly letter to the Creeks warning them against taking the British side in the approach- ing war, while several prominent chiefs had proposed to enlist a Chero- kee force for the service of the United States.' Finding that no help was to be expected from the Cherokee, the Creeks took occasion to kill a Cherokee woman near the town of Etowah, in Georgia. With the help of a conjurer the murderers were trailed and overtaken and killed on the evening of the second day in a thicket where they had concealed themselves. After this there could be no alliance between the two tribes.* At the time of the Fort Mims massacre Mcintosh (35),the chief of the friendly Lower Creeks, was visiting the Cherokee, among whom he had relatives. By order of the Cherokee council he was escorted home by a delegation under the leadership of Ridge. On his return Ridge brought with him a request from the Lower Creeks that the Cherokee would join with them and the Americans in putting down the war. Ridge himself strongly urged the proposition, declaring that if the, prophets were allowed to have their way the work of civil- ization would be destroyed. The council, however, decided not to interfere in the affairs of other tribes, whereupon Ridge called for volunteers, with the result that so many of the warriors responded that the council reversed its decision and declared war against the Creeks." For a proper understanding of the situation it is necessary to state that the

hostile feeling was confined almost entirely to the Upper Creek towns on the Tallapoosa, where the prophets of the new religion had their residence. The half-breed chief, Weatherford (•".»'.). was the leader of the war party. The Lower Creek towns on the Clu.ttahoo- iSee Mooney, Ghost dance Religion, Fourteenth Aim. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, pp. 670-677, 1896; McKennej and Hall, Indian Tribes, II, pp. 93-95, 1858; see also contemporary letters (1813, etc.) by Hawkins. Cornells, and others in American state Papers: Indian Affairs, i, 1S32. -Letters of Hawkins, Pinckney, and Cussetah King, July, 1813, American State Papers: Indian Affairs, II, pp. 847-849, 1832. :l Meigs, letter, May s. 1812, and Hawkins, letter. May 11, 1812, ibid., p.809. 4 Author's information from James I). Wafford. 'MeKenney and Hall, Indian Tribes, n, pi.. 96-97, IS 8 ■ Mi MYTHS OF THE CHKEOKEE[bth inn- .19 chec, under Mcintosh, another half-breed chief , were friendly, and acted with the Cherokee and the Americans against their own brethren. It is not our purpose to give a history of the Creek war, but only to note the part which the Cherokee had in it. The friendly Lower Creeks, under Mcintosh, with a few refugees from the Upper towns, operated chiefly with the army under Genera] Floyd which invaded the southern pari of the Creels country from Georgia. Some friendly Choctaw and Chickasaw also lenl their assistance in tin- direction. The Cherokee, with some friendly Creeks of the Upper towns, acted with tli*' armies under Generals White and .lack-on. which entered the Creek country from the Tennessee side. While some hundreds of their warriors were thus fighting in the field, the Cherokee at home were busily collecting

provisions for the American troops. As Jackson approached from the north, about the end of October, L813, be wa- met by runners asking him to come to the aid of Path- killer, a Cherokee chief, who was in danger of being cut off by the hostilcs. at his village of Turkeytown, on the upper Coosa, near the present Center. Alabama. A fresh detachment on its way from east Tennessee, under General White, was ordered by Jackson to relieve the town, and successfully performed this work. White's force con- sisted of one thousand men. including four hundred Cherokee under Colonel Gideon Morgan and .John Lowrey. 1 As the army advanced down the Coosa the Creeks retired to Tallasee- hatchee, on the creek of the same name, near the present Jacksonville, Calhoun county. Alabama. One thousand men under General Coffee, together with acompany of Cherokee under Captain Richard Brown and some few Creeks, were sent against them. The Indian auxiliaries wore headdresses of white feathers and deertails. The attack was made at daybreak of November •"». 1813, and the town was taken after a desperate resistance, from which not one <ff the defenders escaped alive, the Creeks having been completely surrounded on all sides. Says Coffee in his official report: They made all the resistance thai an overpowered soldier could '1<> — they fought as long as "lie existed, but their destruction was very Boon completed. Our men rushed up i" the doors of the house- ami in a few minutes killed the last warrior of then). The enemy f ought with savage fury and met death with all its horrors, without shrinking or complaining — not one asked to he

spared, butfought as long as they could stand or sit. < )f such fighting stuff did the Creeks prove themselves, against over whelming numbers, throughout the war. The bodies of nearly two hundred dead warriors were counted on the field, and the general reiterates that "not one of the warriors escaped." A number of women and children were taken prisoners. Nearly every man of the Creeks had a how with a bundle of arrows, which he used after the 'Drake, Indians, pp. 895-396, 1880; Pickett, Alabama, p, 556, reprint "i 1896. mookey] BATTLES OF TALLADEGA AND HILLABEE — 1813 91 first fire with his gun. The American loss was only five killed and forty-one wounded, which may not include the Indian contingent. 1 White's advance guard, consisting chiefly of the four hundred other Cherokee under Morgan and Lowrey, reached Tallaseehatchee thesame evening, only to find it already destroyed. They picked up twenty wounded Creeks, whom they brought with them to Turkeytown. 5 The next great battle was at Talladega, on the site of the present town of the same name, in Talladega county. Alabama, on November 9, 1813. Jackson commanded in person with two thousand infantry and cavalry. Although the Cherokee are not specifically mentioned they were a part of the army and must have taken part in the engagement. The town itself was occupied by friendly Creeks, who were besieged l>y the hostiles, estimated at over one thousand warriors on the out- side. Here again the battle was simply a slaughter, the odds being two to one. the Creeks being also without cover, although they fought .so desperately that at one time the militia was driven back. They left two

hundred and ninety-nine dead bodies on the field, which, according to their own statement afterwards, was only a part of their total loss. The Americans lost fifteen killed and eighty-five wounded. 3 A day or two later the people of Hillabee town, about the site of the present village of that name in Clay county. Alabama, sent mes- sengers to Jackson's camp to ask for peace, which that commander immediately granted. In the meantime, even while the peace mes- sengers were on their way home with the good news, an army of one thousand men from east Tennessee under General White, who claimed to be independent of Jackson's authority, together with four hundred Cherokee under Colonel Gideon Morgan and John Lowrey. surrounded the town on November 18, 1813, taking it by surprise, the inhabitants having trusted so confidently to the successkilling about two hundred warriors and burning four hun- dred well-buill nouses. On December .'•': the Creeks were again defeated by General Claiborne, assisted by some friendly Choctaws, at Ecanachaca or the Holy Ground on Alabama river, near the present Benton in Low ndes county. This town and another a few miles awav were also destroyed, with a great quantity of provisions and other property. 1 It is doubtful if any Cherokee were concerned in either action. Before the close of the year Jackson's force in northern Alabama had been so far reduced by mutinies and expiration of service terms that he had l>ut one hundred soldiers left and was obliged to employ the Cherokee to garrison Fort Armstrong, on the upper Coosa, ami to protect his provision depot.' With theopeningof the new year, L814, having received reinforcements from Tennessee, together

with about two hundred friendly Creeks and sixty-five more Cherokee, he left his camp on the Coosa and advanced against the towns on the Tallapoosa. Learning, on arriving near the river, that he was within a few miles of the main body of the enemy, he halted for a reconnoissance and camped in order of Wattle on Fmukfaw creek, on the northern hank of the Tallaj sa, only a short distance from the famous Horseshoe bend. Here, on the morning of June 24, 1814, he was suddenly attacked by the enemy with such fury that, although the troops charged with the bayonet, the Creeks returned again to the fight and were at last broken only by the help of the friendly Indians, who came upon them from the rear. As it was, .lack-on was so badly crippled that heretreated to Fort Strother on the Coosa, carrying his wounded, among them ( ren- eral Coffee, on horse-hide litters. The Creeks pursued and attacked him again as he was crossing Enotochopco creek on January 24, hut after a severe fight were driven back with discharges of grapeshot from a six-pounder at close range. The army then continued its retreat to Fort Strother. The American loss in these two battles was about one hundred killed and wounded. The loss of the ( 'reeks was much greater, hut they had compelled a superior force, armed with bayonet and artillery, to retreat, and without the aid of the friendly Indians it is doubtful if Jackson could have saved his army from demoralization. The Creeks themselves claimed a victory and boasted afterward that they had " whipped Jackson and run him to the Coosa

fiver." Indian! pp 191, 898, 1880; Pickett, Alabama, pi 9 92 96 reprint of 189C 'Ibid., p. 579; Lossfng Field Book of the War of 1812, p. 77:; hookey] BATTLE OF HORSESHOE BEND — 1814 V)3 Pickett states, on what seems good authority, that the Creeks engaged did not number more than five hundred warriors. Jackson had prob- ably at least one thousand two hundred men. including Indians. 1 While these events were transpiring in the north, General Floyd again advanced from Georgia with a force of about one thousand three hundred Americans and four hundred friendly Indians, but was sur- prised on Caleebee creek, near the present Tuskegee, Alabama, on the morning of January 27, 1814, and compelled to retreat, leaving the enemy in possession of the field. 2 We come now to the final event of the Creek war,the terrible battle of the Horseshoe bend. Having received large reenforcements from Tennessee, Jackson left a garrison at Fort Strother, and. about the middle of March, descended the Coosa river to the mouth of Cedar creek, southeast from the present Columbiana, where he built Fori Williams. Leaving his stores here with a garrison to protect them, he began his march for the Horseshoe bend of the Tallapoosa, where the hostiles were reported to have collected in great force. At this place, known to the Creeks as Tohopki or Tohopeka, the Tallapoosa made a bend so as to inclose some eighty or a hundred acres in a nar- row peninsula opening to the north. On the lower side was an island in the river, and about a mile below was Emukfaw creek, entering from the north, where Jackson had been driven

back two months before Both locations were in the present Tallapoosa county. Alabama, within two miles of the present post village of Tohopeka. Across the neck of the peninsula the Creeks had built a strong breastwork of logs, behind which were their houses, and behind these were a number of canoes moored to the bank for use if retreat became necessary. The fort was defended by a thousand warriors, with whom were also about three hundred women and children. Jackson's force numbered about two thousand men, including, according to his own statement, five hundred Cherokee. He had also two small cannon. The account of the battle, or rather massacre, which occurred on the morning of .March •_'". 1814, is best condensed from the official reports of the principal commanders. Having arrived in the neighborhood of the fort, Jackson disposed his menfor the attack by detailing General Coffee with the mounted men and nearly the whole of the Indian force to cross the river at a foi-d about three miles below and surround the bend in such manner that none could escape in that direction. He himself, with the restof his force, advanced to the front of the breastwork and planted hiscan- • Fay and Davison, Sketches of the War. pp. 247-250, 1815; Pickett. Alabama, pp. 579-584, reprint of 1896; Drake, Indians, pp. 398-400, 1S80. Piekett says Jackson had "767 men. with mi friendly Indians " ; Drake says he started with 930 men and was joined at Talladega by 200 friendly Indians; Jackson himself, as quoted in Fay and Davison, says that In- started with 930 men, excluding Indians, and was joined at Talladega " by between

rifle fire to no great purpose, "Captain Russell's company of spies and a party of the Cherokee tone, headed by their gallant chieftain, Colonel Richard Brown, and conducted by the brave Colonel Morgan, crossed over to the peninsula in canoes and set fire to a few of their buildings there situated. They then advanced with great gallantry toward the breastwork and com- menced firing upon the enemy, who lay behind it. Finding that this force, notwithstanding the determination they displayed, was wholly insufficient to dislodge the enemy, and that General Coffee had secured the opposite hanks of the river. I now determined on taking possession of their works by storm.'" ' Coffee's official report to his commanding officer states that he had taken seven hundred mounted troops and about six hundred Indians, of whom five hundred were Cherokee and the restfriendly Creeks, and had come in behind, having- directed the Indians to take position secretly along the bank of the river to prevent the enemy crossing, as already noted. This was done, but with fighting going on so near at hand the Indians could not remain quiet. Continuing, Coffee says: The firing of your cannon and small arms in a short time l>ecame general and heavy, which animated our Indians, and seeing about one hundred of the warriors and all the squaws and children of the enemy running about among the huts of the village, which was open to our view, they could no longer remain silent spectators. While some kept up a fire across the river to prevent the enemy's approach to the hank, others plunged into the water ami swam the river for canoes thai lay

at the other shore in considerable numbers and brought them over, in which crafts a num- ber of them embarked and landed on the bend with the enemy. Colonel Gideon Morgan, who < unanded the Cherokees, Captain Kerr, and Captain William Rus- sell, with a part of his company of spies, were a lg the first that crossed the river. They advanced into the village and very soon drove the enemy from the huts up the river bank to the fortified works from which they were fighting you. They pursued and continued to annoy during your whole action. This movement of my Indian forces left the river bank unguarded and made it necessary that I should send a part of my line to take possession of the river bank. 9 According to the official report of Colonel Morgan,who commanded the Cherokee and who was himself Severely wounded, the Cherokee took the places assigned them along the bank in such regular order ■Jackson's report !<• Governor Blount, March 81, 1814, in Fay and Pavison, Sketches of the War, pp. 253,234, 181 • 'General Coffee's report to General Jackson, April 1,1814, Ibid., i>. 267. MoosEv] BATTLE OF HORSESHOE BEND — 1814 95 that no part was left unoccupied, and the few fugitives who attempted to escape from the fort by water "fell an easy prey to their ven- geance." Finally, seeing that the cannonade had no mure effect upon the breastwork than to bore holes in the logs, some of the Cherokee plunged into the river, and swimming over to the town brought back a number of canoes. A part crossed in these, under cover of the guns of their

companions, and sheltered themselves under the bank while the canoes were sent hack for reenforcements. In this way they all crossed over and then advanced up the bank, where at once they were warmly assailed from every side except the rear, which they kept open only by hard righting. 1 The Creeks had been righting the Americans in their front at such close quarters that their bullets flattened upon the bayonets thrust through the portholes. This attack from the rear by five hundred Cherokee diverted their attention and gave opportunity to the Tennes- seeans, Sam Houston among them, cheering them on. to swarm over the breastwork. With death from the bullet, the bayonet and the hatchet all around them, and the smoke of their blazing homes in their eyes, not a warrior begged for his life. When more than halftheir number lay dead upon the ground, the rest turned and plunged into the river, only to rind the banks on the opposite side lined with enemies and escape cut off in every direction. Says General Coffee: Attempts to cross the river at all points of the bend were made by the enemy, but nnt .me ever escaped. Very few ever reached the bank and that lew was killed the instant they landed. From the report of my officers, as well as from my own obser- vation, I feel warranted in saying that from two hundred and fifty to three hundred of the enemy was buried under water and was not numbered with tin- dead that were found. Some swam for the island below the bend, but here too a detach- ment had been posted and " not one

ever landed. They were sunk by Lieutenant Bean's command ere they reached the bank." : Quoting again from Jackson — The enemy, although many of them fought to the last with that kind of bravery which desperation inspires, were at last entirely routed and cut to pieces. The battle may be said to have continued with severity for about five hours, but the firing and slaughter continued until it was suspended by the darkness of night. The next morning it was resumed and sixteen of the enemy slain who had concealed them- selves under the banks. 3 It was supposed that the Creeks had about a thousand warriors, besides their women and children. The men sent out to count the dead found five hundred and fifty-seven warriors lying dead within the inclosure, and Coffee estimates that from two hundred andto their numbers, their fighting having been hand to hand work without protecting cover. In view of the fact that Jack- son had only a few weeks before been compelled to retreat before this same enemy, and that two hours of artillery and rifle fire had produced no result until the, Cherokee turned the rear of the enemy by their daring passage of the river, there is considerable truth in the boast of the Cherokee that they saved the day for Jackson at Horseshoe bend. In the number of men actually engaged and the immense proportion killed, this ranks as the greatest Indian battle in the history of the United States, with the possible exception of the battle of Mauvila, fought by the same Indians in De Soto's time. The result was decisive. Two weeks later Weatherford came in

the chronicler. Thus. McKenney and Hall make Major Ridge the hero of the war. especially of the Horseshoe fight, although he is not mentioned in the official reports. Jackson speaks particularly of the Cherokee in that battle as being "headed by their gallant chieftain, Colonel Richard Brown, and conducted by the brave Colonel Mor- gan." Coffee says that Colonel Gideon Morgan "commanded the Cherokees," and it is Morgan who makes the official report of their part in the battle. In a Washingtoi wspaper notice of the treaty > Jackson a report and Colone] Morgan's report, in Fay and Davison, Sketches ol the War, pp. 255, 250,259, 1815. Pickett makes tin- lossoi the white troops 82 killed and 99 wounded, rhi Houston reference Is (rom Lossing. The battle Is described also bj Pickett, Alabama, pp.588 691, reprint ol 1896; Drake,Cherokee returned to their homes to rind them despoiled and ravaged in their absence by disorderly white troops. Two years after- ward, by treaty al Washington, the Government agreed to reimburse them for the damage. Interested parties denied that they had suffered any damage or rendered any services, to which their agent indignantly replied: "It may he answered that thousands witnessed both; that in nearly all the battles with the Creeks the Cherokees rendered the most efficient service, and at the expense of the lives of many tine men. whose wives and children and brothers and sisters are mourning their fall." 2 In the spring of 1816 a delegation of seven principal men. accom- panied by Agent Meigs, visited Washington, and the result was the negotiation of two treaties at that place on the Name date. March 22, 1816. By the

first of these the Cherokee ceded for five thousand dollars their last remaining territory in South Carolina, a small strip in the extreme northwestern corner, adjoining Chattooga river. By the sec- ond treaty a boundary was established between the lands claimed by the Cherokee and Creeks in northern Alabama. This action was made necessary in order to determine the boundaries of the great tract which the Creeks had been compelled to surrender in punishment for their late uprising. The li no was run from a point on Little Bear creek in northwestern Alabama direct to the Ten islands of the Coosa at old Fort Strother, southeast of the present Asheville. Gen- era] Jackson protested strongly against this line, on the ground that all the territory south of Tennessee river and west of the Coosa belonged to the Creeks and wasof the Tennessee, the Govern- ment being especially desirous t" extinguish their claim north of thai river within the- limit - of the state of Tennessee. Failing in this. pressure was at once begun t<> bring about a cession in Alabama, with the result thai on September 11 of the same year a treat] was con- cluded at the Chickasaw council-house, and afterward ratified in gen- eral council at Turkeytown on the Coosa, by which the Cherokee ceded all their claims in thai state south of Tennessee river and wesl of an irregular line running from Chickasaw island in thai stream, below the entrance of Flint river, to the junction of Wills creek with the Coosa, al the presenl Gadsden. For this cession, embracing an area of nearlj three thousand five hundred square miles, they were to receive sixty thousand

dollars in ten annual payments, together with five thousand dollars t'<>r the improvements abandoned. We turn aside now for a time from the direel narrative to note the developmenl of events which culminated in the forced expatriation of the Cherokee from their ancestral homes and their removal to the far western wilderness. With a few notable exceptions the relations between the French and Spanish colonists and the native tribes, after the first occupation of the country, had been friendly and agreeable. Qnder the rule of France or Spain there was never any Indian boundary. Pioneer and Indian built their cabins and tilled their fields side by side, ranged the w Is toe-ether, knelt before the >ame altar and frequently inter- married on terms of equality, so far as race was concerned. The 7-esult is seen to-day in the mixed-blood communities ofCanada, and in Mexico, where a nation lias been built upon an Indian foundation. Within the area of English colonization it was otherwise. From the lir-t settlement to the recent inauguration of the allotment system it never occurred to the man of Teutonic blood that he could have for a neighbor anyone not of his own stock and color. While the English colonists recognized the native proprietorship so far as to make trea- ties with tile Indians, it was chiefly for the purpose of fixing limits beyond which the Indian should never come after he had ;e parted with his title for a consideration of goods and trinkets. In an early Virginia treaty it was even stipulated that friendly Indians crossing the line should sutler death. The Indian was regarded as an incum- brance to be cleared oil', like the

trees and tin- wolves, before white men could live in the country. Intermarriages were practically 1 Indian Treaties, pp. 186 187, 1837; Royce, Cherokee Nation, Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, pp. 197 209, 1888 'Indian Treaties, pp 199,200, 1887; Royce, op. cit., pp. 209-211. mooney] EARLY WESTWARD EMIGRATION 99 unknown, and the children of such union were usually compelled by race antipathy to cast their lot with the savage. Under such circumstances the tribes viewed the advance of the English and their successors, the Americans, with keen distrust, and as early as the close of the French and Indian war we find some of them removing from the neighborhood of the English settlements io a safer shelter in the more remote territories still held by Spain, Soon after the French withdrew from Fort Toulouse, in 1763, a part of the Alabama,an incorporated tribe of the ('reek confederacy, left their villages on the Coosa, and crossing the Mississippi, where they halted for a time on its western bank, settled on the Sabine river under Spanish protection. 1 They were followed some years later by a part of the Koasati. of the same confederacy." the two tribe.- subsequently drifting into Texas, where they now reside. The Hichitee and others of the Lower Creeks moved down into Spanish Florida, where the Yamassee exiles from South Carolina had long before preceded them, the two combining to form the modern Seminole tribe. When the Revolution brought about a new line of division, the native tribes, almost without exception, joined sides with England as against the Americans, with the result that about one-half the Iroquois tied to Canada, where they still reside upon lands granted by

the British gov- ernment. A short time before' Wayne's victory a part of the Shawano and Delawares, worn out by nearly twenty years of battle with the Americans, crossed the Mississippi and settled, by permission of the Spanish government, upon lands in the vicinity of Cape Girardeau, in what is now southeastern Missouri, for which they obtained a regular deed from that government in 1793. 3 Driven out by the Americans some twenty years later, they removed to Kansas and thence to Indian territory, where they are now incorporated with their old friends, the Cherokee. When the first Cherokee crossed the Mississippi it is impossible to say, but there was probably never a time in the history of the tribe when their warriors and hunters were not accustomed to make excur- sions beyond the great river. According to an old tradition,the earliest emigration took place soon after the first treaty with Carolina, when a portion of the tribe, under the leadership of Yunwi-usga'se'ti, ••Dangerous-man," forseeing the inevitable end of yielding to the demands of tin 3 colonists, refused to have any relations with the white man, and took up their long march for the unknown West. Commu- nication was kept up with the home body until after crossing the Mississippi, when they were lost sight of and forgotten. Long years '■Claiborne, letter to Jefferson, November 5, 1808, American State Papers, i, p. 755, 1832; Gatschet, Creek Migration Legend, i, p. 88, 1884. - Hawkins, 1799. quoted in Gatschet, op. cit., p. 89. 3 See Treaty of St Louis, 1S25, and of Castor hill, 1S52, in Indian Treaties, pp. 388, 539, 1837. 100 MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE afterward a rumor came from

the west thai they were Mill livingnear the base of the Rocky mountains.' In 1782 the Cherokee, who bad fought faithfully on the British side throughout the long Revolution- ary struggle, applied to the Spanish governor al New Orleans for permission to settl > the wesl side of the Mississippi, within Spanish territory. Permission was granted, and it i- probable that some of them removed to the Arkansas country, although there seems to be no definite record of the matter.' We learn incidentally, however, that about this peried the hostile Cherokee, like the Shawano and other northern tribes, were in the habit of making friendly visits to the Spanish settlements in that quarter. According to Reverend Cephas Washburn, the pioneer misssionary of the western Cherokee, the first permanent Cherokee settlement beyond the Mississippi was the direct result of the massacre, inL794, of the Scott party at Muscle shoals, on Tennessee river, by the hostile warriors of the Chickamauga towns, in the summer. As told by the missionary, the story differs considerably from that given by IIa\ wood and other Tennessee historians, narrated in another place. According to Washburn, the whites were the aggressors, having first made the Indians drunk and then swindled them out of the annuity money with which they were just returning from the agency at Tellico. When the Indians became sober enough to demand the return of their money the whites attacked and killed two of them, whereupon the others boarded the boat and killed every white man. They spared the wi n and children, however, with their negro slaves and all their personal belongings, and permitted them to continue on their way. the chief and his party

personally escorting them down Tennessee, Ohio, and Mississippi rivers as far as the mouth of the St. Francis, whence the emigrants descended in safety to New Orleans, while their captors, under their chief. The Bowl, went up St. Francis river then a part of Spanish territory — to await the outcome of the event. As soon as the news came to the Cherokee Nation tin' chiefs formally repudiated the action of the Howl party and volunteered to assist in arresting those i cerned. Bowl and his men were finally exonerated, but had conceived such bitterness at the conduct of their former friends, and. moreover, had found the soil so rich and the game so abundant where the] were, that they refused to return to their tribe and decided to remain permanently in the West. Others joined them from timeenough money from that source to pay such extravagant prices as sixteen dollars apiece for pocket minors, which it is alleged the boatmen obtained. Moreover, as the Chickamauga warriors had refused to sign any treaties and were notoriously hostile, they were not as yet entitled to receive payments. Haywood's statement that the emigrant party was first attacked while passing the ( Ihickamauga towns and then pursued to the Muscle shoals and there massacred is probably near the truth, although it is quite possible that the whites may have provoked the attack in some such way as is indicated by the missionary. As Washburn got his account from one of the women of the party, living long afterward in New Orleans, it is certain that some at least were spared by the Indians, and it is probable that, as he states,

only the men were killed. The Bowl emigration may not have been the first, or even the most important removal to the western country, as the period was one of Indian unrest. Small bands were constantly crossing the Mississippi into Spanish territory to avoid the advancing Americans, only to find themselves again under American jurisdiction when the whole western country was ceded to the United States in 1803. The persistent land- hunger of the settler could not be restrained or satisfied, and early in the same year President Jefferson suggested to Congress the desira- bility of removing all the tribes to the west of the Mississippi. In the next year. 1804, an appropriation was made for taking prelimi- nary steps toward such a result. 1 There were probably but few Chero- kee on the Arkansas at this time, as theyare not mentioned in Sibley's list of tribes south of that river in 1805. In the summer of 1808, a Cherokee delegation being about to visit Washington, their agent. Colonel Meigs, was instructed by the Secre- tary of War to use every effort to obtain their consent to an exchange of their lands for a tract beyond the Mississippi. By this time the government's civilizing policy, as carried out in the annual distribution of farming tools, spinning wheels, and looms, had wrought a consider- able difference of habit and sentiment between the northern and southern Cherokee. Those on Little Tennessee and Hiwassee were generally farmers and stock raisers, producing also a limited quantity of cotton, which the women wove into cloth. Those farther down in Georgia and Alabama, the old hostile element, still preferred the hunting life and rejected all effort

return for a tract west of the Mississippi of suf- ficient area to enable them to continue the hunting life. The plan was approved by President Jefferson, and a sum was appropriated to pay the expenses of a delegation to visit and inspect the lands on Arkansas and White rivers, with a view to removal. The visit was made in the summerof 1809, and the delegates brought back such favorable report that a large number of ( Iherokee signified their intention to remoi e at once. A- no funds were then available for their removal, the matter was held in abeyance for several years, during which period families and individuals removed to the western country at their own expense until, before the year 1817, they numbered in all two or three thousand souls. 1 They became known as theArkansas, or Western. Cherokee. The emigrants soon became involved in difficulties with the native tribes, the Osage claiming all the lands north of Arkansas river, while the Quapaw claimed those on the south. Upon complaining to the government the emigrant Cherokee were told that they had originally been permitted to remove only on condition of a cession of a portion of their eastern territory, and that nothing could he done to protect them in their new western home until such cession had been carried out. The body of the Cherokee Nation, however, was strongly opposed to any such sale and proposed that the emigrants should he compelled to return. After protracted negotiation a treaty was concluded at the Cherokee agency (now Calhoun. Tennessee) on July 8, 1817, by which the Cherokee Nation ceded two considerable tracts — the first in Georgia, lying

east of the Chattahoochee, and the other in Tennessee. between Waldens ridge ami the Little Sequatchee — as an equivalent for a tract to he assigned to those who had already removed, or intended to remove, to Arkansas. Two smaller tracts on the north bank of the Tennessee, in the neighborhood of the Muscle shoals. were also ceded. In return for these cessions the emigrant Cherokee were to receive a tract within the present limits of the state of Arkan- ■ Royce, Cherokee Nation, Fifth Aim. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, pp. 202-204, 1888; see also Indian Treaties, pp. 209-215, 1887. The preamble to the treaty of 1817 snys thut the delegation of 1808 had de treda division of the tribal territory in order that the people of the Upper (northern townt might "begin the establishment of fixed lawsand « regular government," while those of tin- Lower (southern) towns desired t.. remove t" the West Nothing i- said of severalty allotments >>r citizenship. mooney] TREATY OF CHEROKEE AGENCY — 1817 103 sas, bounded on the north and south by White river and Arkansas river, respectively, on the east l>y a line running between those .streams approximately from the present Ratesville to Lewisburg. and on the west by a line to lie determined later. As afterward estab- lished, this western line ran from the junction of the Little North Fork with White river to just beyond the point where the present western Arkansas boundary strikes Arkansas river. Provision was made for taking the census of the whole Cherokee nation east and west in order to apportion annuities and other payments properly in the future, and the two hands were still

to he considered as forming one people. The United States agreed to pay for any substantial improvements abandoned by those removing from the ceded lands, and each emigrant warrior who left no such valuable property behind was to be given as full compensation for his abandoned field and cabin a rifle and ammunition, a blanket, and a kettle or a beaver trap. The government further agreed to furnish boats and provisions for the journey. Provision was also made that individuals residing upon the ceded lands might retain allotments and become citizens, if they so elected, the amount of the allotment to be deducted from the total cession. The commissioners for the treaty w*ere General Andrew Jackson, General David Meriwether, and Governor Joseph McMinn of Ten- nessee. On behalf of the Cherokee it was signed by thirty-one princi- pal men of the easternattention was paid to the memorial, and the treaty was carried through and ratified. Without waiting for the ratification, the authorities at once took steps for the removal of those who desired to go to the West. Boats were provided at points between Little Tennessee and Sequatchee rivers, and the emigrants were collected under the direction of Governor McMinn. Within the next year a large number had emigrated, and before the 'Indian Treaties, pp. 209-215, 1837; Royee, Cherokee Nation, Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, pp. 212-217, 1888; see also maps in Royce. 104 MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE [eth.ann.19 end of 1819 the number of emigrants was said to have increased to six thousand. "Flic chiefs of the nation, however, claimed that the esti- mate was greatly in excess of the truth. 1 "There can be no question that a very

large portion, and probably a majority, of the Cherokee nation residing east of the Mississippi had been and still continued bitterly opposed to the terms of the treaty of 18 L 7. They viewed with jealous and aching hearts all attempts to drive them from the homes of their ancestors, for they could not but consider the constant and urgent importunities of the federal authori- ties in the light of an imperative demand for the cession of more territory. They felt that they were, as a nation, being slowly but surely compressed within the contracting coils of the giant anaconda of civilization; yet they held to the vain hope that a spirit of justice and mercy would be born of their helpless condition which would anally prevail in their favor. Their traditions furnished them no guide by which to judgeof the results certain to follow such a conflict as that in which they were engaged. This difference of sentiment in the nation upon a subject so vital to their welfare was productive of much bitterness and violent animosities. Those who had favored the emigration scheme and had been induced, either through personal preference or by the subsidizing influences of the government agents, to favor the conclusion of the treaty, became the object of scorn and hatred to the remainder of the nation. They were made the subjects of a persecution so relentless, while they remained in the eastern country, that it was never forgotten, and when, in the natural course of events, the remainder of the nation was forced to remove to the Arkansas country and join the earlier emigrants, the old hatreds and dissensions broke out afresh, and

to this day they find lodgment in some degree in the breasts of their descendants." 2 Two months after the signing of the treaty of July 8, 1817, and three months before its ratification, a council of the nation sent a dele- gation to Washington to recount in detail the improper methods and influences which had been used to consummate it. and to ask that it be set aside and another agreement substituted. The mission was without result. 3 In 1817 the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions established its first station among the Cherokee at Brainerd, in Ten- nessee, on the west side of Chickamauga creek, two miles from the Georgia line. The mission took its name from a distinguished pioneer worker among the northern tribes (37). The government aided in the erection of the buildings, which included aschoolhouse, gristmill, and workshops, in which, besides the ordinary branches, the boys were taught simple mechanic arts while the girls learned the use of the ' Royce, Cherokee Nation, Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, 217-218, 1888. •Ibid., pp. 218-219. "Ibid., p. 219. « mn PRESSURE FOB REMOVAL 105 needle and the spinningwheel. There was also a large work farm. The mission prospered and others were established at Willstown, Hightower, and elsewhere by the same board, in which two hundred pupils were receiving instruction in L820. ] Among the earliest and most noted workersat the Brainerd mission were Reverend I). S. But trick and Reverend S. A. Worcester {'■'■*<). the latter especially having done much for the mental elevation of the Cherokee, and more than once having suffered imprisonment for his zeal in defending their cause. The missions flourished until broken up

by the state of Georgia at the beginning of the Removal troubles, and they were afterwards renewed in the western country. Mission ridge preserves the memory of the Brainerd establishment. Early in 1818 a delegation of emigrant Cherokee visited Washing- ton for the purpose of securing a more satisfactory determination of the boundaries of their new lands on the Arkansas. .Measures were soon afterward taken for that purpose. They also asked recognition in the future as a separate and distinct tribe, but nothing was done in the matter. In order to remove, if possible, the hostile feeling between the emigrants and the native Osage, who regarded the former as intruders. Governor William Clark, superintendent of Indian affairs for Missouri, arranged a conference of the chiefs of the two tribes at St. Louis in October of that year, at which, after protractedeffort, he succeeded in establishing friendly relations between them. Efforts were made about the same time, both by the emigrant Cherokee and by the government, to persuade the Shawano and Delawares then residing in Missouri, and the Oneida in New York, to join the western Cherokee, but nothing- cameof the negotiations. 2 In 1825 a delegation of western Cherokee visited the Shawano in < )hio for the same purpose, but without success. Their object in thus inviting friendly Indians to join them was to strengthen themselves against the Osage and other native tribes. In the meantime the government, through Governor McMinn, was bringing- strong pressure to bear upon the eastern Cherokee to compel their removal to the West. At a council convened by him in November, L818, the governor represented to the chiefs that it was now no longer possible to protect

them from the encroachments of the surrounding white population: that, however the government might wish to help them, their lands would be taken, their stock stolen, their women cor- rupted, and their men made drunkards unless they removed to the western paradise. He ended by proposing to pay them one hundred thousand dollars for their whole territory, with the expense of removal, if they would go at once. Upon their prompt and indignant refusal he offered to double the amount, but with as little success. •Morse, Geography, i, p.577, 1819; and p. 185, 1822. -Rc.yiT, Cherokee Nation, Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau ol Ethnology, pp. 221-222, 18S8, 106 MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE [eth.ann.19 Every point of the negotiation having failed, another course was adopted, and a delegation was selected to visit Washington under the conduct of Agent Meigs. Here the effort wasrenewed until, wearied and discouraged at the persistent importunity, the chiefs consented to a large cession, which was represented as necessary in order to com- pensate in area for the tract assigned to the emigrant Cherokee in Arkansas in accordance with the previous treaty. This estimate was based on the tigures given by Governor McMinn, who reported 5,291 Cherokee enrolled as emigrants, while the eastern Cherokee claimed that not more than 3,500 had removed and that those remaining num- bered 12.544, or more than three-fourths of the whole nation. The governor, however, chose to consider one-half of the nation as in favor of removal and one-third as having already removed. 1 The treaty, concluded at Washington on February 27, 1819, recites that the greater part of the Cherokee nation, having expressed an earnest desire to remain in the East, and being

anxious to begin the necessary measures for the civilization and preservation of their nation, and to settle the differences arising out of the treaty of 1817, have offered to cede to the United States a tract of country "at least as extensive" as that to which the Government is entitled under the late treaty. The cession embraces (1) a tract in Alabama and Ten- nessee, between Tennessee and Flint rivers; (2) a tract in Tennessee, between Tennessee river and Waldens ridge; (3) a large irregular tract in Tennessee, North Carolina, and Georgia, embracing in Tennessee nearly r all the remaining Cherokee lands north of Hiwassee river, and in North Carolina and Georgia nearly everything remaining to them east of the Nantahala mountains and the upper western branch of the Chattahoochee; (4) six small pieces reserved by previous treaties. The entire cessionaggregated nearly six thousand square miles, or more than one-fourth of all then held by the nation. Individual reservations of one mile square each within the ceded area were allowed to a num- ber of families which decided to remain among the whites and become citizens rather than abandon their homes. Payment was to be made for all substantial improvements abandoned, one-third of all tribal annuities were hereafter to be paid to the western hand, and the treaty was declared to be a final adjustment of all claims and differences aris- ing from the treaty of 1817. 2 Civilization had now progressed so far among the Cherokee that in the fall of 1820 they adopted a regular republican form of govern- ment modeled after that of the United States. Under this arrangement the nation was divided into eight districts, each

of which was entitled 1 Royce, Cherokee Nation, Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, pp. 222-228, 1888. ^Indian Treaties, pp. 265-269, 1S37; Royce, op. cit., pp. 219-221 and table, p. 378. mooney] CHEEOKEE GOVEENMENX — Missions 107 to send lour 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 expressthe will of the coun- cil 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 loads, 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 pun- ish 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 \ested 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. 1 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 oili- est, founded by tin 1 Moravians at Spring place, Georgia, in 1801; Oothcaloga, Georgia, founded by the same denomination in 1S21 on thecreek of that name, near the present Calhoun; Brainerd, Tennes- see, founded by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions in L817; "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 fs2L. 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 1 Laws of theCherol Nation several documents), 1820, American State Papers: Indian Affairs, it, pp. 279-283, 1834; letter quoted by McKei y, 1825, ibid., pp. 651, 652; Drake, In. linn-, pp. 137, 138 i 108 MYTHS OF THE CHEBOKEE [eth.ann.19 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 Currab.ee Dick, a promi- nent 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. Watford, 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. 1 Since 1817 the American Board had also supported at Cornwall, Con- necticut, an Indianschool at which a number of young Cherokee were being educated, among them being Elias Boudinot, afterward the editor of the Cherokee Phcenix. 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 Sikwa'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 Phnni.r, in lsi's. says that only his paternal grandfather was a white man." McKenney and Hall say that his father was a white man named Gist. 3 Phillips asserts that his father was George Gist, an unlicensed German trader from Georgia, who came into the Cherokee Nation in 1708. 4 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 cap- tured 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 inthe family as his son. 1 Aside from the fact thai the Cherokee acted as allies of the English during the war in whim Braddock's defeat occurred, and that Sequoya, so far from being a preacher, was not even a Christian, the story con- tains other elements of improbability and appears to he one of those genealogical myths built upon a chance similarity of name. On the other hand, it is certain that Sequoya was horn before the dale that Phillips allows. On his mother's side he was of good family in the tribe, liis uncle being a chief in Echota. 2 According to personal infor- mation of dames Watford, who knew him well, being his second cousin, Sequoya was probably horn about the year L760, 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. 3 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 17Ty.' His early years were spent amid the stormy alarms of the Revolution, and as he grew to manhood he devel- oped a considerable mechanical ingenuity, especially in .silver work- ing. Like most of his tribe he was also a hunter and fur trader. Having nearly reached middle age before the first mission was estab- lished in theand within a few months thousands of hitherto illiterate Chero- kee 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 acknowledg- ment of his merit by sending to him, through John Ross, then presi- dent of the national committee, a silver medal with a commemorative inscription in both languages. 1 In 1828 he visited AVashington as one of the delegates from the Arkansas band, attracting much attention, and the treaty

made on that occasion contains a provision for the pay- ment 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. 1 ' 2 His subsequent history belongs to the West and will be treated in another place (40). 3 The invention of the alphabet had an immediate and wonderful effect on Cherokee development. On account of the remarkable adapta- tion 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 expenseof time or money, the Cherokee were able to read and write in their own language. 4 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. 5 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 1821 Atsi or John Arch, a young native convert, made a manuscript translation of a portion of St. John's gospel, in the sylla- bary, this being the first Bible translation ever given to the Cherokee. It was copied hundreds of times and was widely disseminated through 1 AtcKenneyand Hall, Indian Tribes, i,

translation in the Roman alphabet, completed a translation of the N i • w Testament in the new syllabary, the work being handed about in manuscript, as there were asyet no typescast in the Sequoya characters. 8 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. ; In L827 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 Hoard 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 firstappearance 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'lehisanun' 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. Worcesterwas 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, aftei having been shipped by water from Boston, were trans- ported 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 precari- ous existence of about six years the Phoenix was suspended, owiny 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 Oheroke* Advocate, of which the first number appeared at Tahlequah in 1S44. 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 tostaple, including cotton, tobacco, and wheat, and some cotton was exported by boats as far as New Or- leans. Apple and peach orchards were numerous, butter and cheese were in use to some extent, and both cotton and woolen cloths, espe- cially blankets, were manufactured. Nearly all the merchants were native Cherokee. Mechanical industries nourished, the Nation was out of debt, and the population was increasing.'- 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 pur- pose 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

middle of the eight- eenth century. As the cap between the conservative and progressive elements widened after the Revolution the idea grew, until in L808 representatives of both parties visited Washington to propose an arrangement by which those who clung to the old life might he allowed to remove to the western hunting grounds, while the rest should remain to take up civilization and "begin the establishment of fixed law- and a regular government." The project received the warm encourage- ment 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 agree- ably to the friendly suggestions of Jefferson. ; By this time the rapid strides of civilization andChristianity had alarmed the conservative element, who saw in the new order of things only 7 the evidences of apostasy and swift national decay. In 1828 "White-path (Nun'na-tsune'ga), an influential full-blood and councilor, living at Turniptown (U'lun'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 consti- tution, 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

with the year 1808. 19 ETH— 01 8 114 MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE [eth.ann.19 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. 1 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.'' In this long period, comprising the momentous episodes of the Removal and the War of the Rebellion, it may lie truly said that his history is the history of the Nation. And now. just when it seemed that civilization and enlightenment wcic 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 landof their birth. By an agreement between the United States and the state of Georgia in L802, 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." 3 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.* No Indian was to be allowed to live within those states on any pretext whatsoever. In the meantime, owing to persistent pressurethe fact that by the very wording of the L802 agreement the compact was a conditional one which could not he 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 stand- ing now upon the soil of their own territory, with limits denned 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. ' 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 Presi- dent Monroe, in which the government was censured for ha\ ing instructed the Indians in the arts of civilized life and having therebj imbued them with a de-ire to acquire property." 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, ormore 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 'Cherokee correspondence 1823 and 1824, American State Papers: Indian Affairs, n, pp. 168 it::, 1834; Royce, Cherokee Nation, Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, pp. j 16 237, 1888. 'Cherokee memorial, February 11. 1824, in American State Papers: Indian Lffairs, a, pp. II I 194, 1834 Royce, op cit, p J 17 i Letters of Governor Troup of Georgia, February 28, 1824, and of Georgia delegates, March 10,1824, American State Papers Indian Affairs, n. pp. 475, 177, 1834; Royce, op. cit., pp. 287, 238. V 116 MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE [eth.ann.19 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 per- forming 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 con- ditional 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. 1 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 passedbut 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 con- cealed the knowledge of the exact spot of its origin, it was soon known that the golden dreams of DeSoto 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. 3 About 1828 gold was found on Ward's creek, a western branch of Chestatee, near the present Dahlonega. 4 and the doom of the nation was sealed (11). 1 Monroe, message to the Senate, with Calhoun's report, March 30, 1824, American State Papers: Indian Affairs, II, pp. 460, 462, 1834. 2 Royce, Cherokee Nation, Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, pp. 241, 242, 1888. 3 Personal information from J. D. Warlord. 4 Nitze, H. B. C. , in Twentieth Annual Report United States Geological Survey, part 6 (Mineral Resources), p. 112,1899. hookey] EXTENSION OF GEORGIA LAWS —1830 117 In November, L828, Andrew Jackson was elected to succeed John Quinoy Adams as President. He was a frontiersman and Indian bater, and the change boded no good to the ( Jherokee. His position waswe'd understood, and there is good ground for believing thai the action at once taken by Georgia was at bis own suggestion. 1 On December 20, 1828, a month after his election, Georgia passed an act annexing thai part of the Cherokee countrj 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 Mood or descent residing within the Indian country was henceforth to he allowed as a witness or party in any suit where a white man should be defendant. The act was to take effect June 1. L830 (42). The whole territory was soon after mapped out into counties and surveyed by state surveyors into •'land lots" of L60 acres each, and "gold lots" of 40 acres, which were put

Ethnology, p. '-".>7, ee also Everett, speech in the House of Representatives on May 31, 1838, pp. 16-17, 3 s-33, i " -For extracts and synopses of these nets sit Royce, op. clt., pp. 259-264; Drake, indians, pp. 43! i 6, 1880; Greeley, American Conflict, i, pp. 105, 106, 1864; Edward Everett, speech in the House of Rep- resentatives, February 14, 1831 I lottery law). The Hold lottery is also noted incidentally by Lanman, Charles, Letters from the Alleghany Mountains, p. 10; New York. 1849, and by Nitze, in his repO] l >n the Georgia gold fields, in the Twentieth annual Report of the United States Ge part 6 I Mineral Resources |, p. L12, 1899. The author has himseli seen in a mountain villas in Georgia an old book titled "The Cherokee Land and Goldpresent 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. 1 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. 5 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, anil stood beside the sheriff while the Indian was being hanged. 6 1 -I eh of May 19, 1830, Washington; printed by Gales & Seaton,1830. ^Speech in the Senate of the United States, April 16, 1830; Washington, Peter Force, printer, 1830. B See Cherokee Memorial to Congress, January 18, 1831. * Personal information from Prof. Clinton Duncan, of Tahlequah, Cherokee Nation, whose father's house \\:is the one thus burned. ^Cherokee Memorial to Congress January 18, 1831. c lbid.; see also speech of Edward Everett in House of Representatives February 14, 1831; report >>i the select committee of the senate of Massarhusettsuponused for the maintenance of their schools and national press. A- a per capita payment it amounted to forty-two cents to each individual. Several years afterward it still remained unpaid. Fed- eral 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 Chero- kee 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 thesubject. 1 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. 8 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 Cherokei Phmnix, and the missionaries. Worcester. But- ler. Thompson, and Proctor, who. being there by permission of the agent and feeling that plain American citizenship should hold good in an\ part of the United States, refused to take the oath. Soi if 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 permis- sion ofthe President of the United Statesand approval of the Cherokee Nation: and that as the United States by several treaties had acknowl- edged the Cherokee to be a nation with a guaranteed and definite ter- ritory, the state had no right to interfere with him. 1 Ie was sentenced to four year- in the penitentiary. On March 3, 1832, the matter was appealed as a test ease 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 ^n ernor. had defied the summons with a threat of opposition, even tothe i erokee Nation, Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, pp. 261,262, 2 Ibid., p. 262. 120 MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE [etb.ann.19 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." 1 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, asa rational and Christian community, humbly to bow in humiliation," etc. 2 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. 3 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 unoc- cupied 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 b}^ 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 Iry their removal to the west of the Mississippi. In the meantime a removal treaty was being negotiated with a self-styled committee of some fif- teen 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 inand humiliations of the past, refused to he convinced that justice, prosperity, and happiness awaited them beyond the Mississippi." ' In August of this year another council was held at Ued Clay, south- eastward from Chattanooga and just within the Georgia line, where the question of removal was again debated in what i- officially described a- a tumultuous and excited meeting. One of the prin- cipal advocates of the emigration scheme, a prominent mixed-blood named John Walker, jr.. was assassinated from ambush while return- ing 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 ,1. 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.* 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 tight 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 he 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 toin 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 improve- ments at their own valuation, if in any degree reasonable, or to con- clude 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 fev^ He was also informed that, as it would probably be contrary to his wish, his letter would not be put on file. 1 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 rnajoruy, most unex- pectedly 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 languageand 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. 2 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 Washing- ton. 8 Before their departure John Ross, who had removed to Ten- nessee 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 scien- i Royce, Cherokee Nation, Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, pp. 278-280, 1888; Everett speech in House of Representatives, May 31, 1838, pp. 28, 29, 1839, in which the Secretary's reply is given in full. = Royce, op. cit., pp. 280-281. » Ibid., p. 281. hooney] TKKATY OF NEW ECHOTA 1835 L23 tific manuscripts. The national paper, the Cheroket Phamix, had been suppressed and its oilier plant seized by the same guard a few days before. 1 Thus in their greatest need the Chei'okee were deprived of the help and counsel of their teachers, their national press, and their chief. Although fortwo 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 lT.ooii. 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, L835. s Briefly stated, by this treaty id' New Echota, Georgia, the Cherokee Nation ceded to the United States its whole remaining territory cast of the Mississippi for the sum of five million dollars and a common joint interest in the territory already occupied by the western Chero- kee, 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 lie 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 allowedby the commis- sioners, hut was afterward struck out on the announcement by Presi- dent 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 reestab- lishment 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 he deemed necessary; for satisfying Osage claims in the western territory and iRoyce, Cherokee Nation, op. cit. (R.'ss arrest), p. 281; Drake, Indian- Ross Paj le, Phcenix), p. 159,

1880; Bee also Everett speech .»■" May 31, 1888, op. cit. -Royce, op. cit., pp. :M i m [>n .[..,■! ii is:>. 124 MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE Leth.ann.19 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,1 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 pro- vided 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. o. The United States also agree that the lands above ceded by the treaty of February 14, 1833, including the nutlet, 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,against interruption and intrusion from citizens of the United stairs who may attempt to settle in the country without their consent; an. 1 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, mechan- ics, and teachers for the instruction of the Indians according to treaty stipulations. Ajrticle 7. The Cherokee nation having already made great progress in civiliza- tion, 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 tin- 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 Hou i Representa- tives of the United States whenever Congress shall make provision for the same. The instrument was signed by (Governor) "William Carroll of Ten- nessee and (Reverend) .1. 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, 1S36. 1 Upon the treaty of New Echota and the treaty previously made with tlie western Cherokee atcoun- cil should be permitted to assemble to discuss the treaty. Ross had already been informed that the President had ceased to recognize any existing government among the eastern Cherokee, and that any fur- ther effort by him to prevent the consummation of the treaty would be suppressed. 1 Notwithstanding this suppression of opinion, the feeling of the Nation was soon made plain through other sources. Before the ratifi- cation of the treaty Major W. M. Davis had been appointed to enroll the Cherokee for removal and to appraise the value of their improve- ments. He soon learned the true condition of affairs, and, although holding his office by the good will of President Jackson, he addressed to the Secretary of War a strong letter upon the subject, from which the following extract is made: I conceive that my duty to the

than three hundred, including women and children, although the weather was everything that could be desired. The Indians had long been notified of the meeting, and blankets were promised to all who would come and vote for the treaty. The most cunning and artful means were resorted to to conceal the paucity of numbers present at the treaty. No enumeration of them was made by Schermerhorn. The business of making the treaty was transacted with a committee appointed by the Indians present, so as not to expose their numbers. The power of attorney under which the committee acted was signed only by the president and secretary of the meeting, so as not to disclose their weakness. . . . Mr. Schermerhorn's apparent design was to conceal the real number present and to impose on the public and thein the Cherokee country to prevent opposition to the enforce- ment of the treaty, reported on February L8, 1837, thai he had called them toe-ether and made them an address, but "'it is. however, vain to talk to a people almost universally opposed to the treaty and who maintain that they never made such a treaty. So determined are they in their opposition that not one of all those who were present ami voted at tin' council held hut a day or two since, 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 upon the roots and sap of trees rather than receive provisions from

would remove every Indian to-morrow beyond the reach of the white men. who, like vultures, are watching, ready to pounce upon their prey and strip them of everything they have or expert from the government of the Dinted state-. Yes, sir, nineteen-twentieths, if not ninety-nine out of every hundred, will go penniless to the West. :l How it was to be brought about is explained in part by a letter addressed to the President by Major Ridge himself, the principal signer of the treaty: We now come to address you on the subject of our griefs and afflictions from the acts of the white people. They have got our lands and now they are preparing to fleece US of the money accruing from the treaty. We found our plantations taken either in whole or in part by the Georgiansbacks, and our oppressors will get all the money. We talk plainly, as chiefs having property and life in danger, and we appeal to you for protection. . . .' ( reneral Dunlap, in command of the Tennessee troops called out to prevent the alleged contemplated Cherokee uprising, having learned for himself the true situation, delivered an indignant address to his men in which he declared that he would never dishonor the Tennessee arms by aiding to carry into execution at the. point of the bayonet a treaty made by a lean minority against the will and authority of the Cherokee people. He stated further that he had given the Cherokee all the protection in his power, the whites needing none. 2 A confidential agent sent to report upon the situation wrote in Sep- tember, 1837, that opposition to the

treaty was unanimous and irrecon- cilable, the Cherokee declaring that it could not bind them because they did not make it. that it was the work of a few unauthorized indi viduals and that the Nation was not a party to it. They had retained the forms of their government, although no election had been held since 1830, having continued the officers then in charge until their gov- ernment could again be reestablished regularly. Under this arrange- ment John Ross was principal chief, with influence unbounded and unquestioned. "The whole Nation of eighteen thousand persons is with him. the few — about three hundred — who made the treaty having left the country, with the exception of a small number of prominent individuals — as Ridge, Boudinot, and others — who remained to assist in carrying it into execution. Itthe opposition were Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, Edward K\ erett, Wise of Virginia, and 1 >avid ( Ii'ockett. The speeches in Congress upon the subject ••were characterized by a depth and bit- terness of feeling such as had never been exceeded even on the slavery question." 1 It was considered not simply an Indian question, but an issue between state rights on the one hand and federal jurisdiction and the ( institution on the other. In spite of threats of arrest and punishment, Ross still continued active effort in behalf of his people. Again, in the spring of I 838, t wo months before the time fixed for the removal, he presented to Con- gress another protest and memorial, which, like the others, was tabled by the Senate. Van Buren had now succeeded Jackson and was dis- posed to allow

only he accom- plished by force. Genera] Winfield Scott was now appointed to that duty with instructions to start the Indians for the West at the earliest possible moment. For that purpose he was ordered to take command of the troops already in the Cherokee country, together with addi- tional reenforcements of infantry, cavalry, and artillery, with authority to call upon the governors of the adjoining states for as many as 4,000 militia and volunteers. The whole force employed numbered about 7,000 men -regulars, militia, and volunteers. 3 The Indian- had already been disarmed by General Wool. On arriving in the Cherokee country Scott established headquarters at the capital, New Echota, whence, on May 10, he issued a proclama- tion to tin* ( Iherokee, warning them that the emigration must he com- menced in haste and that before another moon had(43). From these, squads of troops were sent to search out with rifle and bayonet every small cabin hidden away in the coves or by tin 1 sides of mountain streams, to seize and bring in as prisoners all the occupants, however or wherever they might be found. Families at dinner were startled by the sudden gleam of bayonets in the doorway and rose up to be driven with blows and oaths along the I weary miles of trail that led to the stockade. Men were seized in their fields or going along the road, women were taken from their wheels and children from their play. In many cases, on turning for one last look as they crossed the ridge, they saw their homes in flames. fired by the lawless rabble that followed on the heels of the

soldiers to loot and pillage. So keen were these outlaws on the scent that in some instances they were driving off the cattle and other stock of the Indians almost before the soldiers had fairly started their owners in the other direction. Systematic hunts were made by the same men for Indian graves, to rob them of the silver pendants and other valu- ables deposited with the dead. A Georgia volunteer, afterward a colonel in the Confederate service, said: " I fought through the civil war and have seen men shot to pieces and slaughtered by thousands, but the Cherokee removal was the cruelest work I ever knew." To prevent escape the soldiers had been ordered to approach and surround each house, so far as possible, so as to come upon the occu- pants without warning. One old patriarch, whenthus surprised, calmly called his children and grandchildren around him, and. kneel- ing down, bid them pray with him in their own language, while the astonished soldiers looked on in silence. Then rising he led the way into 1 Royce, Cherokee Nation, op. cit., p. 291. = Ibid, p. 291. hoonby] OONCENTEATION INTO STOCKADES — 1838 18] exile. A woman, on finding the house surrounded, went to the door and <al l>'i I up the chickens to be fed for the last time, after which, taking her infant on her back and her two other children by the hand, she followed her husband with tin' soldiers. All were not thus submissive. One old man named Tsall, "( lharley," was seized with his wife, his brother, his three sons ami their families. Exasperated at the brutality accorded his wife, who, being

trusted friend, that if they would surrender Charley and his party for punishment, the rest would he allowed to remain until their ease could lie adjusted by the government. On hearing of the proposition, Charley voluntarily came in with his sons, offering himself as a sacrifice for his people. By command of General Scott, Charley, his brother, and the two elder -oils were -hot near the mouth of Tuckasegee,a detachment of Chero- kee prisoners being compelled to do the shooting in order to impress upon the Indians the fact of their utter helplessness. From those fugitives thus permitted to remain origina ted the present eastern band oft Iherokee.' When nearly seventeen thousand Cherokee had thus been gathered into the various stockades the work of removal began. Early in June several parties, aggregating about five thousand persons, were brought down by the troopsto the old agency, on Hiwassee, at the present Calhoun. Tennessee, and to Ros-"s landing (now Chattanooga), and Gunter's Landing (now Guntersville, Alabama), lower down on the Tennessee, where they were put upon steamers and transported down the Tennessee and Ohio to the farther side of the Mississippi, when the journey was continued by land to Indian Territory. This removal. 1 The notes on the Cherokee round-up and Removal are almost entirely from author's information asfumishedby actors in the events, both Cherokee and white, among whom may benamed the ne] W. It. Thomas; the late Colonel /.. A. Zile, of Atlanta, of the Georgia volunteers; the Bryson, of Dlllsboro, North Carolina, a ho a volunteer; James l». Wafford, of ■ Cherokee Nation, who commanded oi i the emigrant detachments; and old [ndians, both east and west, who remembered tin-

Removal and had heard the story from their parents. Charley's story is a matter of common note among the ha-: Cherokee, and was heard in full detail from Colonel Thomas and from Wasituna ("Washington" , Charley's youngest -on, who alone was spared bj <■■ ■ on account of his youth. The incident is also noted, with some slight inaccuracies, in Lanmau, Letters from the Alleghany Mountains. See i> 157, 182 MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE [eth.ann.19 in the hottest part of the year, was attended with so great sickness and mortality that, by resolution of the Cherokee national council, Ross and the other chiefs submitted to General Scott a proposition that the Cherokee be allowed to remove themselves in the fall, after the sickly season had ended. This was granted on condition that all should have started by the 20thof October, excepting the sick and aged who might not be able to move so rapidly. Accordingly, officers were appointed by the Cherokee council to take charge of the emigration; the Indians being organized into detachments averaging one thousand each, with two leaders in ehai"ge of each detachment, and a sufficient number of wagons and horses for the purpose. In this way the remainder, enrolled at about 13,000 (including negro slaves), started on the long march overland late in the fall (11). Those who thus emigrated under the management of their own officers assembled at Rattlesnake springs, about two miles south of Hiwassee river, near the present Charleston, Tennessee, where a final council was held, in which it was decided to continue their old consti- tution and laws in their new home. Then, in October, 1S3S, the long procession of exiles

was set in motion. A very few went by the river route; the rest, nearly all of the 13,000, went overland. Crossing to the north side of the Hiwassee at a ferry above Gunstocker creek, the}' proceeded down along the river, the sick, the old people, and the smaller children, with the blankets, cooking pots, and other belong- ings in wagons, the rest on foot or on horses. The number of wagons was fI45. It was like the march of an army, regiment after regiment, the wagons in the center, the officers along the line and the horsemen on the flanks and at the rear. Tennessee river was crossed at Tuckers (?) ferry, a short distance above Jollys island, at the mouth of Hiwassee. Thence the route lay south of Pikeville, through McMinnville and on to Nashville, where the Cumberlandwas crossed. Then they went on to Hopkinsville, Kentucky, where the noted chief White-path, in charge of a detachment, sickened and died. His people buried him by the roadside, with a box over the grave and poles with stream- ers around it, that the others coming on behind might note the spot and remember him. Somewhere also along that march of death — for the exiles died by tens and twenties every day of the journey — the devoted wife of John Ross sank down, leaving him to go on with the bitter pain of bereavement added to heartbreak at the ruin of his nation. The Ohio was crossed at a ferry near the mouth of the Cum- berland, and the army passed on through southern Illinois until the great Mississippi was reached opposite Cape Girardeau, Missouri. It was now

the middle of winter, with the river running full of ice. so that several detachments were obliged to wait some time on the east- ern bank for the channel to become clear. In talking with old men HOOKEY] VIJKIYAl. IN INDIAN TKKKIToRY 1839 133 and women ;it Tahlequafa tln> author found that the lapse of over half a century had not sufficed to wipe <>ut the memory of the miseries of thai hall beside the frozen river, with hundreds of sick and dying penned up in wagons or stretched upon the ground, with only a blanket overhead to keep out the January blast. The crossing was made at last in two divisions, at Cape Girardeau and at Green's ferry, a short distance below, whence the march was on through Missouri to Indian Territory, the later detachments making a northerlycircuit l>y Spring- field, because those who had gone before had killed oil all the game along the direct route. At last their destination was reached. They had started in October, 1838, and it was now March. 1839, the journey having occupied nearly six mouths of the hardest part of the year.' It i- difficult to arrive at any accurate statement of the number of Cherokee who died as the resull of the Removal. According to the official figures those who removed under the direction of Ross lost over L,600 on the journey.- The proportionate mortality among those previously removed under military supervision was probably greater, as it was their suffering that led to the proposition of the Cherokee national officers to take charge of the emigration. Hundreds died in the stockades and the waiting camps, chiefly by reason of

the rations furnished, which were of flour and other provisions to which they were unaccustomed and which they did not know how to prepare properly. Hundreds of others died soon after their arrival in Indian territory, from sickness and exposure on the journey. Altogether it is asserted, probably with reason, that over 4. nun Cherokee died as the direct result of the removal. On their arrival in Indian Territory the emigrants at once set about building houses and planting crop-, the government having agreed under the treaty to furnish them with rations for one year after arrival. They were welcomed by their kindred, the •'Arkansas Cherokee" hereafter to be known for distinction as the "Old Settlers" — who held the country under previous treaties in 1828 and Is:'.::. These, however, being already regularly organized under a government and chiefs of their own.two weeks of debate without having been able to bring about harmonious action. Major Ridge was waylaid and shot close to the Arkansas line, his son was taken from bed and cut to pieces with hatchets, while Boudinot was treacherously killed at his home at Park Hill. Indian territory, all three being killed upon the same day. June 22, 1839. The agent's report to the Secretary of War, two days later, says of the affair: The murder of Boudinot was treacherous and cruel. He was assisting some workmen in building a new house. Three men called upon him and asked for medicine. He went off with them in the direction of Wooster's, the missionary, who keeps medicine, about three hundred yards from Boudinot's. When they got about half way two of the men seized Boudinot and the other stabbed him,

after which the three cui him to pieces with their knives and tomahawks. This murder taking place within two miles of the residence of John Ross, his friends were appre- hensive it might be charged to his connivance: and at this moment I am writing there are six hundred armed ( Iherokee around the dwelling of Ross, assembled for his protection. The murderers of the two Ridges and Boudinot are certainly of the late Cherokee emigrants, and. of course, adherents of I loss, but I can not yet believe that Ross has encouraged the outrage. He is a man of too much good sense to em- broil his nation at this critical time: and besides, his character, since I have known him, which is now twenty-five years, has been pacific. . . . Boudinot's wife is a whitewoman, a native of New Jersey, as I understand. He has six children. The wife of John Ridge, jr.. is a white woman, but from whence, or what family left, I am not informed. Boudinot was in moderate circumstances. The Ridges, both father and son, were rich. . . .' While till the evidence shows that Ross was in no way a party to the affair, there can be no question that the men were killed in accordance with the law of the Nation — three times formulated, and still in exist- ence — which made it treason, punishable with death, to cede away lands except by act of the general council of the Nation. It was for violating a similar law among the Creeks that the chief. Mcintosh, lost his life in 1825. and a party led