CHAPTER VI

REMOVAL OF THE INDIANS

   The policy of concentrating the Indians in the western wilderness acquired from France originated, as we have seen, during Jefferson's administration, almost as soon as the Louisiana Purchase had been consummated. The practical features of the Indian policy as maintained by our government till after the Civil war were, however, first definitely indicated in the Cherokee treaty of 1817, were more completely outlined in 1825 by Monroe and Calhoun, and further defined in the Indian Intercourse act of 1834. The policy embraced the following objects: 1. The removal of the tribes beyond the limits of white settlement and the jurisdiction of state or territorial governments; 2. assignment of lands in perpetuity; 3. seclusion from the whites; government by tribal organization and Indian customs, under the supervision of the United States, and to the end that the Indians might eventually be prepared for participation in the privileges and responsibilities of full citizenship.
   The plan of Indian colonization beyond the Mississippi which formed the general basis for the action of subsequent administrations, is contained in the report of Secretary Calhoun, accompanying the message of President Monroe (January 27, 1825). It contemplated the formation of two general reservations—one in the northwest for the Indians of Algonquin and Iroquois stock and another in the southwest for the Appalachian Indians. The latter was the only one ever established with approximate boundaries, but the line between the racial stocks was never preserved, Algonquins and Iroquois being mingled with the Appalachian tribes in Indian Territory almost from the earliest migration.
   Secretary of War Calhoun's recommendation that the Indians be concentrated on the west side of the Mississippi in two grand reservations, received the approval and support of President Monroe during the session of 1824-25, and he asked the necessary appropriation to begin the work. A bill to that effect passed the senate by unanimous vote. Furthermore, the senate approved the treaties with the Kansas and Osage tribes, negotiated by General Clarke in 1825, which ceded all the vast country west of Missouri and Arkansas, thus providing the region to which the eastern tribes might be removed. Benton, in his "Thirty Years' View" (pp. 28-29), says that the recommendation of Mr. Monroe and the treaties of 1825 were the beginning of the system of total removal. He also claims that the removal of the Indians was involved with the slavery question. The cession of lands and removal of the tribes were of vital importance to the future welfare of several states and territories, but the states and territories thus to be relieved were slave-holding. "To remove the Indians would make room for the spread of slaves. No removal could be effected without the double process of a treaty and an appropriation act—the treaty to be ratified

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by two-thirds of the senate, where the slave and free states were equal, and the appropriation to be obtained from Congress [the house], where free states held the majority of members. It was evident that the execution of the whole plan was in the hands of the free states; and nobly did they do their duty by the south. Some societies, and some individuals, no doubt, with very humane motives, but with the folly, and blindness, and injury to the objects of their care which generally attend a gratuitous interference with the affairs of others, attempted to raise an outcry, and made themselves busy to frustrate the plan; but the free states themselves, in their federal action . . . cordially concurred in it, and faithfully lent it a helping and efficient hand."
   The influence of the slavery question in the location of the Indians west of the Mississippi has been stated by Rev. Isaac McCoy¹ ("Baptist Indian Missions," p. 323), who in the latter part of 1827 was in Washington as an advocate of the measure for the organization of an Indian territory, then before Congress. He says: "Among objections to the formation of an Indian territory was one on the part of the non-slaveholding states, relative to the formation of new states in the west . . . . In the formation of an Indian territory in the west, a portion of the country north of this line [the Missouri compromise line] would be assigned to the Indian tribes, and, consequently, the number of non-slaveholding states would ultimately be curtailed. A majority, however, seemed not opposed to tribes removing west upon the same parallels of latitude which they respectively occupied on the east of the Mississippi river. The two parties which are necessarily formed in our government upon the subject of slavery have continued from that time to this (1839) to manifest great tenacity for what each esteems its rights; the non-slaveholding states opposing every measure which they suppose would introduce southern Indians on to their side of the line compromised, and the southern states as warmly opposing the filling up of the country on the south side of the line with Indians from the north. The Indians, when located in the west, were not expected by either party to become citizens of the United States, and it was contemplated that white citizens would be excluded from the Indian territory."²

[Footnotes]

   ¹Isaac McCoy was perhaps the most noted of Indian missionaries. A pioneer of the Baptist church in preaching the gospel through the west, he was for years on the frontier of civilization, first in the Northwest Territory and from 1828 to the close of his life was engaged in the promotion of missions among the western Indians, spending much of his time in the Indian Territory. He had begun preaching in Indiana territory in 1805, became Indian missionary in 1817 and in 1842 was appointed first corresponding secretary and general agent of the American Indian Mission Association at Louisville. He died in 1846, aged sixty-two. With a consuming earnestness in his labors for the advancement of the Indians, he was catholic in spirit and broad in the judgment needed to handle the vexatious affairs of the Indians. His sincerity and unselfishness cannot be doubted. He was a devoted friend of the Indian, and at the same time that devotion did not carry with it the narrowness in political views from which many of the missionaries and self-appointed friends of the Indian suffered. For this reason his views on the Indian question, all the result of personal observation and working contact, have a special value as a wholesome mean between the bias of government bureau reports and the untempered advocacy of those who discussed the Indian theoretically or from purely humanitarian standpoint. In 1839 he completed his "History of the Baptist Indian Missions: embracing remarks on the former and present condition of the aboriginal tribes; their settlement within the Indian Territory, and their future prospects," which was published at Washington in 1840.
   ²Benton, in his "Thirty Years' View," constantly discusses the removal of the Indians from

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   In the case of Worcester vs. State of Georgia (U. S. Sup. Court Reports, Vol. VI, p. 515) Chief Justice John Marshall stated the legal possession of Indian tribes who had been guaranteed lands and residence within the borders of the United States. His opinion, delivered in 1832, declared that the right of discovery could not affect the rights of those already in possession as aboriginal inhabitants, that while the discoverers obtained the right of purchase, that right did not include a denial of the right of the possessor to sell. The opinion was then applied in detail to the contest between the state of Georgia and the Cherokee Indians, from which the case had originated. Marshall declared that all the legislative and treaty acts of Georgia proved her acquiescence in the principle that the Cherokee Nation possessed a full right to the lands they occupied; that their territory was separated by treaty from that of any state within which they might reside; and that within their boundary the Indians possessed right with which no state could interfere, and that the whole power of regulating intercourse with them was vested in the United States.³
   The opinion thus summarized by the highest court of the United States was delivered in the nature of a final judgment on the conflict that had been going on for years between the white settlers of Georgia and adjacent states and the native Indians over the possession of lands that had been ceded to the latter and defined in numerous treaties beginning shortly after the Revolutionary war. The judicial opinion above expressed has a primary interest in this discussion not because it summarizes the principles of policy which thereafter governed Indian relations with the whites, but rather as a statement of the abstract theory which, during the history of the changing destiny of the Indian country, was assumed, by one party, as the legal shield that protected the Indians against the encroachments and intrusion of the white people. At the time this opinion was handed down by the supreme court Andrew Jackson was president of the United States, and one of the most aggressive of the advocates of territorial expansion, being quite in sympathy with the movement even then in progress for the American occupation of Texas, and for the extension of American dominon over the Oregon country. Moreover, Jackson was from Tennessee, had led the western army against the Creeks, had been active in the seizure of the western Floridas from Spain, and for these reasons was naturally allied with those who were steadily seeking to force the Indians from lands which were in the direct line of white settlement. Thus,

[Footnotes]

the southern states in its bearing on the slavery problem. In his efforts to preserve the harmony of the Union, he seeks every possible reason to prove to the south that the north had not pursued a determined policy of depriving the southern states of slaves. He says (Chap. CLIV): "To all the relieved states the removal of the tribes within their borders was a great benefit—to the slave states transcendantly [transcendently] and inappreciably great. . . . Northern votes, in the senate, came to the ratification of every treaty, and to the passage of every necessary appropriation act in the house of representatives. Northern men may be said to have made the treaties, and passed the acts, as without their aid it could not have been done, constituting, as they did, a large majority in the house, and being equal in the senate, where a vote of two-thirds was wanting. . . . And thus the area of slave population has almost doubled in the slave states, by sending away the Indians to make room for their expansion; and it is unjust and cruel—unjust and cruel in itself, independent of the motive—to charge these northern states with a design to abolish slavery in the south."

    ³The history of the Cherokees is given, from authoritative sources, by C. C. Royce ("Cherokee Nation of Indians," Fifth Annual Report Bureau of American Ethnology, 1883-84).

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between the practical forces that have been called "progress of civilization," and "western expansion and development," and those theories held by the more conservative portion of Americans (the majority of whom were never in close contact with the actual conditions) who held that the rights of the Indian tribes were paramount to the claims of white settlers, the conflict was begun with President Jackson and Justice Marshall as the respective leaders of the opposing policies; and in this as in other matters of politics they were bitter enemies, so that, after the decision in the above mentioned case, Jackson is said to have remarked: "Well, John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it."
   The history of the Georgia case, one of the issues of which was the decision of the supreme court above noted, involves the typical events in the removal of the Indians from east of the Mississippi to the country designed for the tribes in the Louisiana Purchase. As told elsewhere, the "hunter" Cherokees had in 1808 expressed a desire to remove to a country where they could continue their habits of life unobstructed by the confinement of state boundaries and the jurisdiction of white population. This had resulted in the first removal of a portion of the Cherokees to Arkansas, a few parties having emigrated voluntarily in the course of the next few years. But the causes that promoted the final removal of the Indians from the southern states originated in more or less definite promises of the federal government to extinguish the Indian titles to lands lying within state boundaries, the agreement with Georgia being of particular interest. April 24, 1802, Georgia had ceded to the United States lands lying south of Tennessee and west of the Chattahoochee river, and in return, in addition to a cash payment, the United States had agreed to extinguish the Indian title whenever the same could be done on peaceable and reasonable terms. With this contract as a basis, Georgia—and adjoining states took similar action—were persistent in their demands that the Indian lands should be vacated. In view of the slow progress of the negotiations with the Cherokees in particular, who inhabited some of the best portions of Georgia, the latter state in time coupled with its demands threats that if the federal authorities did not remove the Indians the state would take matters in its own hands and expel the Indians. South Carolina in 1810 had asked Congress to extinguish the Cherokee titles in that state, the result of which was the Cherokee cession to South Carolina, made by the treaty of March 22, 1816, followed by the treaty of July 8, 1817, by which the Cherokees exchanged, for lands in Arkansas, their lands in North Carolina and a portion of those in Georgia. In the negotiations for the latter treaty there developed an opposition of a large number of the Cherokees to disposing of their eastern lands, and the signers of the treaty embraced only part of chiefs and headmen. Immediately after the conclusion of the treaty, and while several thousand Cherokees were preparing to move beyond the Mississippi, there arose the factional division among the Cherokees that continued a source of irritation and strife for many years. Those who favored emigration were subjected to much persecution before they had left their old homes, and it became necessary for the government to take measures to protect the emigrating parties.
   About this time the white settlers of Georgia and adjoining states, perceiving the determination of the greater part of the Cherokees to remain, grew more urgent that the Indians be removed. All efforts

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to convince the Indians that their best welfare lay in emigration were in vain. Instead of being able to secure a general cession of Cherokee lands, the commissioners had to rest content with the treaty concluded February 27, 1819, by which the United States obtained lands in area proportionate to the number of Cherokees who had gone west after the treaty of 1817.
   Georgia now charged the federal government with bad faith, since only a small part of the relinquished Indian titles were located in Georgia, whereas Tennessee had gained a large area of free land by the recent treaties. The Cherokees, on the other hand, took a determined stand upon their rights, and in reply to the commissioners sent to treat for their lands said: "We beg leave to present this communication as a positive and unchangeable refusal to dispose of one foot more of land." When the failure of these negotiations became known in Georgia, Governor Troup of that state addressed a communication to the secretary of war (February 28, 1824), in which he declared that Georgia was determined at all hazards to become possessed of the Cherokee domain, that if the Indians persisted in their refusal to yield, the consequences would be that the United States must either assist the Georgians in occupying the country which was theirs by right, or, in resisting the occupation, to make war upon and shed the blood of brothers and friends. President Monroe responded to this threatening language in a message to Congress, in which it was shown that since the date of the compact of 1802 the government had succeeded in extinguishing the Indian title to over fifteen million acres within the boundaries of Georgia, obtained by treaties with the Creeks and Cherokees; and, further, that the compact of 1802 did not invalidate the Indian title, and the the United States could not use force in removing the Indians when it was stipulated that it should be done "peaceably and on reasonable conditions."
   Matters were now approaching a climax. The order of the president to remove all intruders from the Indian lands was sufficient to rouse the Georgians to armed resistance, and in order to maintain the dignity and power of the federal government, it became a problem, without precedent in the history of the nation, how far the United States might go in enforcing a law the violation of which had within a single state been prescribed by a legislative act of that state. The danger of the situation was increased by the act of the Cherokee convention at New Echota, July 26, 1827, in adopting a constitution which declared their sovereignty and independence as one of the distinct nations of the earth.⁴
   In 1828 the treaty with the western

[Footnotes]

   ⁴The arguments advanced at this time by a committee of the Georgia legislature relative to Indian land tenure should be noticed, since they have been repeated in various forms in more recent years in the history of Indian Territory. The committee asserted that anterior to the Revolutionary war the Cherokee lands in Georgia belonged to Great Britain, and that the possession by the Indians were permissive only, their title being temporary and they being mere tenants at will, the tenancy being subject to termination either by force or negotiation at the pleasure of the superior power. Upon the close of the Revolution, Georgia assumed all the rights and powers in relation to lands and Indians in question previously belonging to Great Britain, and was now at full liberty and had the power and right to possess herself, by any means she might choose, of the lands in dispute, and to extend over them her authority and laws. A final appeal was now made to the federal government to open negotiations with the Cherokees on this subject. Should the Indians still refuse to negotiate, they were solemnly warned of the unfortunate consequences likely to follow, as the land belonged to Georgia, and that she must and would have them.

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Cherokees was negotiated, providing for their removal from Arkansas to their new homes in the Indian country, and at the same time offering inducements for the consolidation of the eastern bands with those already in the west. The agent of the eastern Cherokees was instructed to use all means within his power to effect the removal, especially of those living in Georgia. At the same time the general government changed its policy with regard to removal. Either by the logic of the arguments adduced that removal meant the ultimate welfare of the tribes concerned, or by the exigencies of the relations with a single state, the government was forced to abandon its position in maintaining the federal authority over state laws, and adopted the easier plan of removing the Indians from the danger zone. President Jackson's views on the subjects were found to be very different from those entertained by his predecessors. A delegation of eastern Cherokees went to Washington early in 1829 and appealed to the government for protection against the extension of Georgia's jurisdiction over their reservation. To this request the president replied that they "must yield to the operation of those laws which Georgia claims and has a right to extend throughout her own limits," or else remove beyond the Mississippi, "carrying along with you that protection, which, there situated, it will be in the power of the government to extend."
   Successive efforts to negotiate with the eastern Cherokee had failed, and the general government and the state of Georgia were now combined in devising expedients to compel the acquiescence of the Indians in the demands for emigration. Annoyed and harassed by official delegations, in constant fear of hostile encroachment from the advancing white settlers, and with all progress and improvement suspended by the uncertain status of their tenure of lands, the Cherokees remained obstinately in their old homes, relying upon the justice of their claims and upon strong sympathy which was expressed in many quarters of the United States for this unfortunate people.
   Determined to test the constitutionality of the hostile legislation of Georgia, application was made at the January term, 1831, of the United States supreme court, by John Ross, as principal chief of the Cherokee Nation, for an injunction against the state of Georgia. The application was based on the theory that the Cherokee Nation was a sovereign and independent power in the sense of the language of the second section of the third article of the constitution of the United States, providing for judicial jurisdiction of cases arising between a state, or the citizens thereof, and foreign states, citizens or subjects.
   At the January term of the supreme court, 1831, Chief Justice Marshall delivered his opinion in the Cherokee case, in which the status of the Indian in the body of politic was considered.
   With the proposition, maintained by the Cherokee counsel, that the Cherokee Nation is a state, a distinct political society, separated from others, capable of managing its own affairs, and governing itself, the court agreed. "The acts of our government," says the court, "plainly recognize the Cherokee Nation as a state, and the courts are bound by those acts."
   The supreme court was unwilling, however, to uphold the contention of the counsel that the Cherokees constituted a foreign nation. "They may more correctly perhaps be denominated domestic dependent nations. They occupy a territory to which we assert

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a title independent of their will, which must take effect in point of possession when their right of possession ceases. Meanwhile they are in a state of pupilage. Their relation to the United States resembles that of a ward to his guardian. They look to our government for protection, rely upon its power, appeal to it for relief of their wants, and address the president as their Great Father."
   The court believes the status of the Indians, in their relations with the federal government, is defined in that clause of the Constitution that empowers Congress to "regulate commerce with foreign nations, among the several states, and with the Indian tribes." Here are distinguished three contra-distinct classes, and within the meaning of the Constitution the Indian tribes could not be called "foreign nations." On this ground the majority of the court held "that an Indian tribe or nation within the United States is not a foreign state in the sense of the Constitution, and cannot maintain an action in the courts of the United States." Hence, concludes the court, "if it be true that the Cherokee Nation have rights, this is not the tribunal in which those rights are to be asserted. If it be true that wrongs have been inflicted, and that still greater are to be apprehended, this is not the tribunal which can redress the past or prevent the future. The motion for an injunction is denied."
   The failure of the plea for injunction before the federal supreme court had not been conclusive as a test of the sovereignty of the Cherokee Nation. Georgia had in the meantime continued to enact laws designated to be oppressive to the Indian tribes and as coercive measures for their removal from the state. One of these laws required all whites residing in the Cherokee Nation within the chartered limits of Georgia to take an oath of allegiance to the state, and made it an offense punishable by four years' imprisonment to refuse to do so. Under this law two missionaries, Worcester and Butler, were indicted by a state court for residing without license in that part of the Cherokee country attached to Georgia. Worcester's case was made a test case, and after he had been tried and convicted to four years in the penitentiary by the state court the case was carried to the United States supreme court, where the opinion was delivered which has been reviewed on former pages, as a result of which the judicial department of the government was squarely opposed to the policy of Indian administration as then being carried out by President Jackson and his associates.
   Jackson in his message of December, 1830, interpreted the relations of the states and the Indians and laid a basis for administrative action. "It is a duty," declared the president, "which this government owes the new states, to extinguish as soon as possible the Indian title to all lands which Congress has included within their limits. When this is done the duties of the general government in relation to the states and Indians within their limits are at an end. The Indians may leave the state or not, as they choose . . . . The states have a right to demand [the extinguishment of title]. It was substantially a part of the compact which made them members of our confederacy. With Georgia there is an express contract; with the new states, an implied one, of equal obligation. Why, in authorizing [various new states] to form constitutions, did Congress include within their limits extensive tracts of Indian lands? Was it not understood by both parties that the power of the states was to

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be co-extensive with their limits, and that with all convenient dispatch the general government should extinguish the Indian title?"
   The administration clearly favored the states in their contention against the Indians. In the report of the secretary of war, December, 1830, is related concerning the visit to the Choctaws in Mississippi the preceding summer and the conclusion of treaties. "We told them the opinion entertained by the government as to the authority of Mississippi to extend over them her laws; and that the United States possessed not the power to prevent it, and could not . . . . Arguments were the means employed. No threat was used." Under these circumstances a treaty was concluded, more than five thousand Indians being in attendance at the time. Some objected and were dissatisfied, not as regards the general policy of treating, but because they believed themselves entitled to obtain large reservations.
   Commenting on some reports and recommendations before the house of representatives—to induce the Indians to cross the Mississippi and make new locations on lands "which the United States will forever secure and guarantee to them," with a "reversionary interest," however, to the United States—the editor of Niles Register (March 20, 1830) states his opinion that "the argument seems to begin and end with power—originally to claim, and now to possess the right of the soil . . . . Such is the condition of this people in Georgia, Alabama, etc., hemmed in by the whites, that they must and will rapidly decrease in numbers, unless advancing in the arts of civilized life." The former alternative, it seems to the editor, is the general destiny of this people.
   In his special message of February 22, 1831, the president enters upon a defense of his general policy in regard to the Indians—an argument (comments the North American review) "one of the least successful attempts to make the worse appear the better reason, that we have ever met with."
   The Review then summarizes the situation as follows: The treaties between the United States and Cherokee Indians recognize these Indians as a nation, guarantee to them the exclusive possession of and jurisdiction over the territory marked out in the treaties, declare that they are not under the jurisdiction of any state, stipulate that citizens of the United States shall not settle on their territory or enter it without a passport, and finally state, as one of the objects of these arrangements, the establishment by the Cherokees of fixed laws and a regular government, and the preservation of their national existence. These treaties are sixteen in number, beginning with that of Hopewell, concluded under the old Confederation in 1785, and ending with that of Washington, concluded in 1819. The act of 1802 was passed for the purpose of carrying into effect the provisions of these and other Indian treaties. It states, among other things, that "it shall be lawful for the president to take such measures and to employ such military force as he may judge necessary to remove from the lands belonging to, or secured by treaty to any Indian tribe, any citizen who shall make a settlement thereon." Instead of carrying into effect the provisions, instead of employing military force to remove the citizens who had intruded upon the territory of the Cherokees

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under a pretended authority from the state of Georgia, the president (so charges the writer in the Review) actually removed the troops that had previously been stationed in the Indian territory (Georgia), and has used, and is still using all the means in his power to remove the Indians themselves.
   The president based his actions in this matter on the following reasons:
1. The clause respecting the employment of military force is not imperative.
2. The act provides, that "nothing therein contained shall be so construed as to prevent any trade or intercourse with the Indians living on lands surrounded by settlements of citizens of the United States, and being within the ordinary jurisdiction of the individual states." This provision the president interprets as "prospective in its operation, and as applicable, not only to Indian tribes, which at the time of the passage of the act were subject to the jurisdiction of a state, but to such also as should thereafter become so. As soon, therefore, as Georgia had extended her jurisdiction over the Indians within her limits, orders were given to withdraw from the state the troops which had been detailed to prevent intrusion upon the Indian lands within it, and these orders have been executed."
   The logic of the policy adopted by the Jackson administration for the removal of the Indians beyond the jurisdiction of the several states did not pass unattacked. The "Vassalborough Memorial," from the inhabitants of that town in Maine, prayed that the Congress should extend protection over the Indian tribes, against the usurpation of state governments. The memorial reviews the Hopewell treaty of 1785, by which the United States guaranteed the Cherokees the entire control and possession of all the lands defined by the treaty. In the thirteen treaties made subsequently, in all the Indians were acknowledged to be an independent people, and sole and exclusive owners of all lands not voluntarily relinquished. The words of Washington were quoted from a treaty with the Senecas in 1790, "In future," said he, "you cannot be defrauded of your lands; you possess the right to sell, and the right of refusing to sell your lands"; "and the United States will be true and faithful to their engagements." The memorialists, in noting the recent extension of state laws over the Indians, and the activity of the general government in dispossessing the tribes of their guaranteed homes, saw in such action "the knell of departed national virtue" and "a gross and palpable violation of public faith."
   Similar memorials to Congress, imploring a "vindication of the national character" and protesting against the course adopted by the administration, were presented by citizens from Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. (Senate Documents, 2d Sess. 21st Cong.)
   In the report of Secretary of War Lewis Cass, dated Nov. 21, 1831, attention is called to the fact that the government has decided, whether rightly or wrongly, that it has no power to interfere between the exercise of the state's laws over the Indian residents. Therefore the Indians now have, says the secretary, the alternative of remaining in their present positions, or of migrating to the country west of the Mississippi. If the former, they must either retain all those institutions which constitute them a peculiar people, socially and politically, or they must become a portion of that great community which is gathering round

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them, responsible to its laws, and looking to them for protection.
   The removal of the tribes beyond the Mississippi attracted attention from de Tocqueville, in his "Democracy in America." He was collecting material for this work during the second administration of President Jackson, and from his observations he thus described the transfer of the Indians from the states (Quoted in Benton's "Thirty Years' View," pp. 691-2):
   "The ejectment of the Indians very often takes place, at the present day, in a regular, and, as it were, legal manner. When the white population begins to approach the limit of a desert inhabited by a savage tribe, the government of the United States usually dispatches envoys to them, who assemble the Indians in a large plain, and having first eaten and drunk with them, accost them in the following manner: 'What have you to do in the land of your fathers? Before long you must dig up their bones in order to live. In what respect is the country you inhabit better than others? Are there no woods, marshes, or prairies, except where you dwell? And can you live nowhere but under your own sun? Beyond those mountains which you see at the horizon—beyond the lake which bounds your territory on the west—there lie vast countries where beasts of chase are found in great abundance. Sell your lands to us, and go and live happily in those solitudes.'
   "After holding this language, the spread before the eyes of the Indians firearms, woolen garments, kegs of brandy, glass necklaces, bracelets of tinsel, ear-rings, and looking glasses. If, when they have beheld all these riches, they still hesitate, it is insinuated that they have not the means of refusing their required consent, and that the government itself will not long have the power of protecting them in their rights. What are they to do? Half convinced, half compelled, they go to inhabit new deserts, where the importunate whites will not permit them to remain ten years in tranquility. In this manner do the Americans obtain, at a very low price, whole provinces, which the richest sovereigns in Europe could not purchase."
   These paragraphs aroused indignation among the supporters of the Jackson administration. Senator Benton in particular marked them for refutation as soon as the book appeared, and with the skill of the partisan debater collected evidence to contradict the statements; perhaps not with complete success as far as the essential facts were concerned, though he succeeded in presenting other viewpoints and much statistical proof that the removal was for the economic good of both parties concerned, and was undertaken at comparatively great sacrifice on part of the government. From a table prepared at his request,⁵ Senator Benton showed that the United States had paid to the Indians eighty-five millions of dollars for land purchases from 1789 to 1840. The aggregate sum paid for this purpose up to 1850, about ninety millions, was, said Benton , nearly six times as much as was paid for the entire Louisiana purchase, and nearly three times as much as Louisiana, Florida and California cost. to the Creeks alone had been paid an amount greater by seven million dollars than France had received for Louisiana. Fifty-six millions had been paid to the four great southern tribes—Creeks, Cherokees, Choctaws and Chickasaws—for the lands ceded by them. And besides this the government maintained a special department to look after the interests of the Indians, and by numerous regulations and by a large body of superintendents, agents and other officials

[Footnotes]

   ⁵1stSess., 26th Cong., Sen. Doc. No. 616

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exercised extreme care for the welfare of these wards. Having recited this unexampled generosity on the part of the government, Benton then endeavors to discredit (though he does not disprove or deny), the description of the methods used in securing the treaties and land cessions. "How unfortunate, then, in M. de Tocqueville to write, that kegs of brandy are spread before the Indians to induce them to sell their lands. How unfortunate in representing these purchases to be made in exchange for woolen garments, glass necklaces, tinsel bracelets, ear-rings and looking glasses! What a picture this assertion of his makes by the side of the eighty-five millions of dollars at that time actually paid to those Indians for their lands, and the long and large list of agricultural implements—long and large list of domestic animals and fowls—the ample supply of mills and shops, with mechanics to work them and teach their use—the provisions for schools and missionaries, for building fences and houses, . . . . which are to be found more or less in every treaty with every tribe emerging from the hunter state . . . . Great is the wrong and injury which the mistake of this writer has done our national character abroad, in representing the United States as cheating and robbing these children of the forest."
   In the early months of 1830 the subject of Indian colonization was before Congress for final settlement. The bill being considered was looked upon as a test of the strength of the parties upon this question. The bill passed the senate by a vote of 28 to 20, and on May 26 passed the house by the close vote of 102 to 97. The debates on the bill excited much interest, and long and strong speeches were made on both sides.
   The "act of May 28, 1830," as it became known, was considered the first efficient step toward settling the policy of colonizing the Indians.⁶ The first section authorized "the president of the United States to cause so much of any territory belonging to the United States west of the river Mississippi, not included in any state or organized territory, and to which the Indian title had been extinguished, as he might judge necessary, to be divided into a suitable number of districts, for the reception of such tribes or nations of Indians as might choose to exchange the lands where they then resided, and remove there, and to cause each of said districts to be so described by natural or artificial marks as to be easily distinguished from every other." Section second authorized the president "to exchange such districts with any tribe then residing within the limits of any of the states or territories." And by the third section it was "lawful for the president solemnly to assure the tribe or nation with which the exchange should be made, that the United States would forever secure and guarantee to them and their heirs and successors the country so exchanged with them; and if they preferred it, the United States would cause a patent to be executed to them for the same."
   The secretary of war, in his report of November, 1832, reviewing the Indian affairs, analyzes the provisions of the act of May 28, 1830. That act created a barrier, he states, beyond which the dispersed remnants of our various Indian tribes may be collected and preserved. It is a solemn national declaration, containing pledges, which neither the government nor the country will suffer to be violated. It secures to the Indians forever the undisputed possession

[Footnote]

   ⁶McCoy, "Baptist Indian Missions," p. 400

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and control of the region allotted to them. No similar attempt has ever been heretofore made, and therefore no unfavorable deductions can be drawn from the failure of preceding efforts. No organized government exists, or can exist, to assert jurisdiction over these tribes, and treaties of cession are incompatible with the whole basis of the plan of settlement.
   The missionary, McCoy, was among those who upheld the policy of removal, and from motives of sincere desire for the permanent welfare of the Indians. In 1832 he published an address, in which he stated in apt terms the strongest argument from a political standpoint for the removal: "All Indian tribes which now reside or ever have resided east of the Mississippi, are, or have been, within the claims of some state or territory of the United States. Here [Indian Territory] no such claim exists. Hitherto the several tribes have not been united to one another, nor to the United States. Here they are to be united in one common bond of civil community, and constituted an integral part of the United States. Consequently, in the absence of all claims, excepting those of the United States, their rights to the soil can be made secure as are those of other citizens within the United States and territories; for they may hold their lands by the same tenure . . . . .United States' troops may be necessary to prevent imposition upon them by lawless persons from among ourselves, and to defend our frontiers against occasional injuries by war parties from remote tribes; but not to preserve peace among those who are, or shall be located within the territory. Here it will be their interest to be at peace among themselves. United in one community, war among themselves would be as unnatural as war between so many counties of one of our states. Here arrest and punishment for violence to each other's persons, or depradations upon their property, can be exercised with the same salutary effects as in our states and territories."
   Concerning the progress in removing the tribes beyond the Mississippi, the report of the Indian Bureau of November, 1831, stated that the Indians of the Choctaw tribe were already in motion, and it was estimated that about 5,000 would emigrate before winter. "Sanguine expectations may be indulged that the whole nation will be moved within the time (three years) prescribed by the treaty.
   "The Chickasaw Indians," continues this report, "who are disposed to follow their friends and neighbors, the Choctaws, and to reside near them have not yet been provided with suitable lands. For the purpose of procuring such for their accommodation it became necessary to effect an arrangement with the Choctaws for a cession of a portion of their country in the west."
   Regarding the Cherokees, the report states the continued refusal of the chiefs to accept the propositions of the government. But recently the department had attempted to revive emigration under the provisions of the treaty of 1828. The Creek Indians were in the same predicament, and showed no inclination to relive themselves from the difficulties of residence among the whites by accepting the offers of the government.
   By November, 1832, the office of Indian affairs had only little progress to report in the removal of the southern tribes. About 630 Cherokees had gone to their allotted lands in the Indian country during the summer, but the people as a whole were held back by the influence of the chiefs, though it was claimed that a change of sentiment was going on, more favorable to the government's policy. Among the

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other tribes no definite movements to the west were reported, the matter being still in a state of negotiation with the Creeks, Seminoles and Chickasaws.
   The secretary of war reported in December, 1833: "From the reports which have been made to the department it appears that about 15,000 individuals of this [the Choctaw] tribe have been removed."
   Under date of November 12, 1835, the commissary general of subsistence, in his capacity as superintendent of Indian emigraton, said: "The efforts to effect Indian emigration have, during the past year, met with no very encouraging success; yet they have been most strenous. No proper expedient has been left untried to accelerate the departure for their destined homes of the tribes east of the Mississippi." Elsewhere he states: "No removal of the Florida Indians has been effected, whilst the Creeks have funished but a very insignificant body of emigrants. Only a few families of the Cherokees have gone west; and of the other tribes with whom there are treaty stipulations for emigration, none have yet redeemed the pledge, freely given, to exchange their eastern for a trans-Mississippi residence."
   One of the principal obstructing causes assigned for the delay in the removal was the influence of the Indian traders, who exercised a great power over the Indians, who were usually in debt to these traders. The annuities were often paid almost directly from the government agents to the traders.
   The report of the office of Indian affairs for 1835 summarizes the status of Indian emigration. Since September 30, 1834, the number of Indians who had emigrated to their allotted lands in the Indian country were the following: Quapaws, 176; Creeks, 630; Seminole and other Florida Indians, 265; Cherokees, 48. Of the Choctaws, only 3,500 remained east of the Mississippi. Only a small proportion of the Creeks were as yet in their new homes, the total being given as 3, 089, while 22,000 of them were still east of the Mississippi. The western band of the Cherokees by this time numbered 6,000, while ten thousand clung tenaciously to their old homes, under the leadership of such men as John Ross. Only 265 of the Seminoles had reached their new homes, those in Florida being 3,500.
   The following table from the report of the Indian commissioner in 1836 affords a definite view of the movement of the Indians up to that time.

	No. of the tribe originally for emigration	No. removed prior to Sept. 30, 1835	No. removed since last report	No emigrant Inds. now west of Mississippi	No. to be removed hereafter
Chocktaws	18,500	15,000	..........	15,000	3,500
Quapaws	476	176	300	476	......
Creeks	22,000	3,089	14,805	17,894	4,106
Florida Ind	3,765	265	407	672	3,98
Cherokees	22,000	6,048	24	6,072	15,928
Senecas from Sandusky	251	251	.........	251	..........
Senecas and Shawnees	211	211	.........	211	.......

   The Indians reproted in December, 1837, as having been moved beyond the Mississippi were as follows:

Chickasaws	549
Chocktaws	15,000
Quapaws	476
Creeks	20,347
Seminoles	407
Appalachicolas	265
Cherokees	7,911
Kickapoos	588
Delawares	826
Shawnees	1,272
Ottawas	374
Weas	222
Plankeshaws	162
Peorias and Kasakaskias	132
Pottawotomies of Indians	53
Chippewas, Ottawas, Pottawotomies	2,191
Senecas	251
Senecas and Shawnees	211
	51,327

   In his report of November 1, 1838, the commissioner of Indian affaris tabulates the results of Indian removal as follows:

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	No. for emigration originally	No. removed prior to last annual report.	No. removed since last annual report.	No. of emigrating Indians west of Mississippi.	No. now to be removed.	No. now under subsistence west.
Choctaws	18,500	15,000	177	15,177	3,323	.......
Creeks	22,000	20,437	4,106	24,543	750	4,106
Florida Indians	3,765	1,079	1,851	2,730	835	1,651
Cherokees	22,000	7,911	*18,000	25,911	........	*18,000
Chickasaws	5,000	.........	4,600	4,600	400	4,600

*Including parties now on route.

   The decision of the supreme court in the Worcester case failed of effect so far as regarded Georgia's relations with the Cherokee Indians. The governor defied the summons that the missionary be released, and he was kept in prison for over a year, so the he could say with truth, when he died in the Cherokee Nation some years later (in 1859) that he had endured chains, imprisonment and exile for their sake. In the meantime the persecution of the Cherokee people had continued. Bands of armed men invaded their country, forcibly seizing horses and cattle, taking possession of houses from which they had ejected the occupants, and assaulting the owners who dared to make resistance.
   Despite these circumstances which rendered the lot of the Cherokees one of constant danger, the government was unable to prevail upon them to accept the proposed terms of emigration. They finally consented to a further limitation of their lands, but Georgia refused to assent. In August, 1834, at a council meeting the question of removal was debated, and a new sentiment was introduced among the Indians favorable to emigration. John Walker, who took the leading part in advocating emigration, while returning to his home from the council, was assassinated from ambush. Being a man of superior education and of influential connections, his murder created great excitement. This was the first of a long series of killings that resulted from the feuds of the Cherokees growing out of this political question of emigration. The Cherokees were now narly worn out by constant battle against a fate from which there seemed no hope of escapt. "In February, 1835,^{8 two rival delegations arrived in Washington. One, the national party, headed by John Ross, came prepared still to fight for home and national existence. The other, headed by Major John Ridge, a prominent sub-chief, despairing of further successful resistance, was prepared to negotiate for removal. Rev. J. F. Schermerhorn was appointed commissioner to arrange with the Ridge party a treaty to be confirmed later by the Cherokee who were to cede their whole eastern territory and remove to the west in consideration of the sum of $3,250,000, with some additonal acreage in the west and asmall sum for depradations committed upon them by the whites. Finding that these negotiations were proceeding, the Ross party filed a counter proposition, for $20,000,000, which was rejected}

[Footnote]

   ⁸James Mooney, "Myths of the Cherokee," 19th annual report. B. A. E.

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by the senate as excessive. The Schermerhorn compact with the Ridge party, with the consideration changed to $4,500,000, was thereupon completed and signed March 14, 1835, but with the express stipulation that it should receive the approval of the Cherokee Nation in full council assembled before being considered binding. 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 Cherokees. Having exhausted the summer and fall in fruitless effort to secure favorable action, the reverend gentleman notifed the president, proposing either to obtain the signatures of the leading Cherokees by promising them payment for their improvements at their own valuation, if in any degree reasonable, or to conclude the 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 few. He was also informed that, as it would probably be contrary to his wish, his letter would not be put on file.
   "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 the majority. . . . During the session of the council, notice was served on the Cherokees to meet commissioners at New Echota in December following for the purpose of negotiating a treaty. The notice was also printed in the Cherokee language and 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. . . .
   "Although for two 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 17,000. 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, 1835." The instrument was signed by William Carroll of Tennessee and J. F. Schermerhorn and by twenty Cherokees, among whom the most prominent were Major John Ridge and Elias Boudinot. Neither John Ross nor any of the officers of the nation were present.
   Two delegations of Cherokees accompanied the commissioners who negotiated the treaty of 1835 on their return to Washington. The delegation fromt he majority declared that the treaty had not been made with the Cherokee Nation, or by its authority, but with a small minority. "Both delegations of Cherokees," says McCoy, " were composed of men of sound judgment, and both were averse to removal. The party which had signed the treaty said they had acted unter the influence of necessity in choosing between two evils which hung over their nation. Notwithstanding their removal was a severe oppression, they believed that far greater evils would follow if they refused to go. The majority appeared to rely upn the intrinsic justness of their cause. They made good their plea