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The following data is extracted from Cherokee of the Smoky Mountains.

It had been guaranteed to the Indians in perpetuity by the Government.

But our own Union in those days was loosely knit. The boundaries of those States bordering on the Cherokee country had been run without regard for Indian claims. Georgia, which then included all of what are now Alabama and Mississippi, claimed everything within its chartered limits, under the doctrine of State sovereignty, regardless of treaties negotiated by the Federal government.

Among the Cherokees themselves there was a disturbing element—a conservative, irreconcilable group that disdained civilization and dreamed of a free hunting ground far away where they should never be molested by the whites.

Taking advantage of this split between Indian factions, our Government then sought to compromise by proposing that the conservative Cherokees cede their proportionate share of land in return for a tract in the West, where they could enjoy the unfettered life of hunters and follow their primitive ancient ways. A treaty was negotiated, not with the Cherokee Nation but with a few chiefs of these malcontents, whereby considerable areas in Georgia and Tennessee were given in exchange for a western reservation, to which some of the Indians emigrated.

The main body of the Cherokees bitterly protested that this treaty had been effected by improper means and influences, without authority of their Nation, and could only be regarded as another move toward driving them from the land of their fathers. They pointed to the evidences of their own progress in civilization and begged that they be not forced to abandon this hard-won status and exiled to a wild land where stress of environment, and the hostility of native western tribes, would tend to make them revert to savagery.

Their pleas fell on deaf ears. Still another treaty was virtually thrust upon them by which they lost more than one-fourth of their territory, and this was declared to be a "final adjustment" of all claims and differences.

In the face of such discouragements, or perhaps stimulated by them, the Cherokees now made extraordinary efforts to win recognition as a civilized and independent people. In 1820, at the suggestion of Thomas Jefferson, they formed a

Source: Cherokee of the Smoky Mountains

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