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