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