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