period properly comes to a close
and the rest may be dismissed in a few paragraphs as of concern rather
to the local historian than to the ethnologist. Having traced for three
full centuries their gradual evolution from a savage tribe to a civilized
Christian nation, with a national constitution and national press printed
in their own national alphabet, we can afford to leave the rest to
others, the principal materials being readily accessible in the Cherokee
national archives at Tahlequah, in the tiles of the Gheroket Advocate
and other newspapers published in the Nation, and in the annual
reports and other documents of the Indian office.
For many years the hunter and warrior had been giving place to the
farmer and mechanic, ami the forced expatriation made the change
complete and final. Torn from their native streams and mountains,
theirfathers. Here, as in other lands, the conservative
element has taken refuge in the mountain districts, while the mixed-
bloods and the adopted whites are chiefly on the richer low grounds
and in the railr I towns.
On the reorganization of the united Nation the council ground at
Tahlequah was designated as the seat of government, and the present
town was soon afterward laid out upon the spot, taking its name from
the old Cherokee town of Talikwa,', or Tellico, in Tennessee. The
missions were reestablished, the Acfrvocatt was revived, and the work
of civilization was again taken up, though under great difficulties, as
continued removals and persecutions, with the awful suffering and
mortality of the last great emigration, had impoverished and more
than decimated the Nation and worn out the courage even of the
bravest. The bitterness engendered by the