Part 21

_Treaty ratified by United States Senate._--In spite of the opposition of Mr. Ross and his party, the treaty was assented to by the Senate by one more than the necessary two-thirds majority,[420] and was ratified and proclaimed by the President on the 23d of May, 1836.[421] By its terms two years were allowed within which the nation must remove west of the Mississippi.

_Measures for execution of the treaty._--Preparatory steps were promptly taken for carrying the treaty into execution. On the 7th of June Gov. Wilson Lumpkin, of Georgia, and Gov. William Carroll, of Tennessee, were designated as commissioners under the 17th article, and vested with general supervisory authority over the execution of the treaty. The selection and general supervision (under the foregoing commissioners) of the agents to appraise the value of Cherokee improvements was placed in charge of Benjamin F. Curry, to whom detailed instructions were given[422] for his guidance. General John E. Wool was placed in command of the United States troops within the Cherokee Nation, but with instructions[423] that military force should only be applied in the event of hostilities being commenced by the Cherokees.

_The Ross party refuse to acquiesce._--John Ross and his delegation, having returned home, at once proceeded to enter upon a vigorous campaign of opposition to the execution of the treaty. He used every means to incite the animosity of his people against Ridge and his friends, who had been instrumental in bringing it about and who were favorable to removal. Councils were held and resolutions were adopted denouncing in the severest terms the motives and action of the United States authorities and declaring the treaty in all its provisions absolutely null and void.[424] A copy of these resolutions having been transmitted to the Secretary of War by General Wool, the former was directed[425] by the President to express his astonishment that an officer of the Army should have received or transmitted a paper so disrespectful to the Executive, to the Senate, and through them to the people of the United States. To prevent any misapprehension on the subject of the treaty the Secretary was instructed to repeat in the most explicit terms the settled determination of the President that it should be executed without modification and with all the dispatch consistent with propriety and justice. Furthermore, that after delivering a copy of this letter to Mr. Ross no further communication should be held with him either orally or in writing in regard to the treaty.

To give a clearer idea of the actual state of feeling that pervaded the Cherokee Nation on the subject of removal, as well as the character of the methods that distinguished the negotiators on the part of the United States, a few quotations from the letters and reports of those in a position to observe the passing events may not be inappropriate.

REPORT OF MAJOR DAVIS.

Maj. William M. Davis had been appointed an agent by the Secretary of War for the enrollment of Cherokees desirous of removal to the West and for the appraisement of the value of their improvements. He had gone among the Cherokees for this specific purpose. He held his appointment by the grace and permission of the President. It was natural that his desire should be strongly in the line of securing the Executive approval of his labors.

Strong, however, as was that desire he was unable to bring himself to the support of the methods that were being pursued in the negotiation of the proposed treaty. On the 5th of March following the conclusion of the treaty of 1835, he wrote the Secretary of War thus:

I conceive that my duty to the President, to yourself, and to my country, reluctantly compels me to make a statement of facts in relation to a meeting of a small number of Cherokees at New Echota last December, who were met by Mr. Schermerhorn and articles of a general treaty entered into between them for the whole Cherokee Nation.

* * * I should not interpose in the matter at all but I discover that you do not receive impartial information on the subject; that you have to depend upon the _ex parte_, partial, and interested reports of a person who will not give you the truth. I will not be silent when I see that you are about to be imposed on by a gross and base betrayal of the high trust reposed in Rev. J. F. Schermerhorn by you. His conduct and course of policy was a series of blunders from first to last. * * * It has been wholly of a partisan character.

Sir, that paper * * * called a treaty is no treaty at all, because not sanctioned by the great body of the Cherokees and made without their participation or assent. I solemnly declare to you that upon its reference to the Cherokee people it would be instantly rejected by nine-tenths of them and I believe by nineteen-twentieths of them. There were not present at the conclusion of the treaty more than one hundred Cherokee voters, and not more than three hundred, including women and children, although the weather was everything that could be desired. The Indians had long been notified of the meeting, and blankets were promised to all who would come and vote for the treaty. The most cunning and artful means were resorted to to conceal the paucity of numbers present at the treaty. No enumeration of them was made by Schermerhorn. The business of making the treaty was transacted with a committee appointed by the Indians present, so as not to expose their numbers. The power of attorney under which the committee acted was signed only by the president and secretary of the meeting, so as not to disclose their weakness. * * * Mr. Schermerhorn's apparent design was to conceal the real number present and to impose on the public and the Government upon this point. The delegation taken to Washington by Mr. Schermerhorn had no more authority to make a treaty than any other dozen Cherokees accidentally picked up for that purpose. I now warn you and the President that if this paper of Schermerhorn's called a treaty is sent to the Senate and ratified you will bring trouble upon the Government and eventually destroy this (the Cherokee) nation. The Cherokees are a peaceable, harmless people, but you may drive them to desperation, and this treaty cannot be carried into effect except by the strong arm of force.[426]

ELIAS BOUDINOT'S VIEWS.

About this time there also appeared, in justification of the treaty and of his own action in signing it, a pamphlet address issued by Elias Boudinot of the Cherokee Nation. Mr. Boudinot was one of the ablest and most cultured of his people, and had long been the editor and publisher of a newspaper in the nation, printed both in English and Cherokee. The substance of his argument in vindication of the treaty may have been creditable from the standpoint of policy and a regard for the future welfare of his people, but in the abstract it is a dangerous doctrine. He said:

We cannot conceive of the acts of a minority to be so reprehensible and unjust as are represented by Mr. Ross. If one hundred persons are ignorant of their true situation and are so completely blinded as not to see the destruction that awaits them, we can see strong reasons to justify the action of a minority of fifty persons to do what the majority would do if they understood their condition, to save a nation from political thralldom and moral degradation.[427]

SPEECH OF GENERAL R. G. DUNLAP.

It having been extensively rumored, during the few months immediately succeeding the conclusion of the treaty, that John Ross and other evil disposed persons were seeking to incite the Cherokees to outbreak and bloodshed, the militia of the surrounding States were called into service for the protection of life and property from the supposed existing dangers. Brig. Gen. R. G. Dunlap commanded the East Tennessee volunteers. In a speech to his brigade at their disbandment in September, 1836, he used the following language:

I forthwith visited all the posts within the first three States and gave the Cherokees (the whites needed none) all the protection in my power. * * * My course has excited the hatred of a few of the lawless rabble in Georgia, who have long played the part of unfeeling petty tyrants, and that to the disgrace of the proud character of gallant soldiers and good citizens. I had determined that I would never dishonor the Tennessee arms in a servile service by aiding to carry into execution at the point of the bayonet a treaty made by a lean minority against the will and authority of the Cherokee people. * * * I soon discovered that the Indians had not the most distant thought of war with the United States, notwithstanding the common rights of humanity and justice had been denied them.[428]

REPORT OF GENERAL JOHN E. WOOL.

Again, February 18, 1837, General John E. Wool, of the United States Army, who had been ordered to the command of the troops that were being concentrated in the Cherokee country "to look down opposition" to the enforcement of the treaty, wrote Adjutant-General Jones, at Washington, thus:

"I called them (the Cherokees) together and made a short speech. It is, however, vain to talk to a people almost universally opposed to the treaty and who maintain that they never made such a treaty. So determined are they in their opposition that not one of all those who were present and voted at the council held but a day or two since, however poor or destitute, would receive either rations or clothing from the United States lest they might compromise themselves in regard to the treaty. These same people, as well as those in the mountains of North Carolina, during the summer past, preferred living upon the roots and sap of trees rather than receive provisions from the United States, and thousands, as I have been informed, had no other food for weeks."

Four months later,[429] General Wool again, in the course of a letter to the Secretary of War concerning the death of Major Curry, who had been a prominent factor in promoting the conclusion of the treaty of 1835, said that--

Had Curry lived he would assuredly have been killed by the Indians. It is a truth that you have not a single agent, high or low, that has the slightest moral control over the Indians. It would be wise if persons appointed to civil stations in the nation could be taken from among those who have had nothing to do with making the late treaty.

REPORT OF JOHN MASON, JR.

In further testimony concerning the situation of affairs in the Cherokee Nation at this period, may be cited the report of John Mason, Jr., who was in the summer of 1837[430] sent as the confidential agent of the War Department to make observations and report. In the autumn[431] of that year he reported that--

The chiefs and better informed part of the nation are convinced that they cannot retain the country. But the opposition to the treaty is unanimous and irreconcilable. They say it cannot bind them because they did not make it; that it was made by a few unauthorized individuals; that the nation is not a party to it. * * * They retain the forms of their government in their proceedings among themselves, though they have had no election since 1830; the chiefs and headmen then in power having been authorized to act until their government shall again be regularly constituted. Under this arrangement John Ross retains the post of principal chief. * * * The influence of this chief is unbounded and unquestioned. The whole nation of eighteen thousand persons is with him, the few, about three hundred, who made the treaty having left the country. It is evident, therefore, that Ross and his party are in fact the Cherokee Nation. * * * Many who were opposed to the treaty have emigrated to secure the rations, or because of fear of an outbreak. * * * The officers say that, with all his power, Ross cannot, if he would, change the course he has heretofore pursued and to which he is held by the fixed determination of his people. He dislikes being seen in conversation with white men, and particularly with agents of the Government. Were he, as matters now stand, to advise the Indians to acknowledge the treaty, he would at once forfeit their confidence and probably his life. Yet though unwavering in his opposition to the treaty, Ross's influence has constantly been exerted to preserve the peace of the country, and Colonel Lindsay says that he (Ross) alone stands at this time between the whites and bloodshed. The opposition to the treaty on the part of the Indians is unanimous and sincere, and it is not a mere political game played by Ross for the maintenance of his ascendancy in the tribe.

HENRY CLAY'S SYMPATHY WITH THE CHEROKEES.

It is interesting in this connection, as indicating the strong and widespread public feeling manifested in the Cherokee question, to note that it became in some sense a test question among leaders of the two great political parties. The Democrats strenuously upheld the conduct of President Jackson on the subject, and the Whigs assailed him with extreme bitterness. The great Whig leader, Henry Clay, in replying[432] to a letter received by him from John Gunter, a Cherokee, took occasion to express his sympathy with the Cherokee people for the wrongs and sufferings experienced by them. He regretted them not only because of their injustice, but because they inflicted a deep wound on the character of the American Republic. He supposed that the principles which had uniformly governed our relations with the Indian nations had been too long and too firmly established to be disturbed. They had been proclaimed in the negotiation with Great Britain by the commissioners who concluded the treaty of peace, of whom he was one, and any violation of them by the United States he felt with sensibility. By those principles the Cherokee Nation had a right to establish its own form of government, to alter and amend it at pleasure, to live under its own laws, to be exempt from the United States laws or the laws of any individual State, and to claim the protection of the United States. He considered that the Chief Magistrate and his subordinates had acted in direct hostility to those principles and had thereby encouraged Georgia to usurp powers of legislation over the Cherokee Nation which she did not of right possess.

POLICY OF THE PRESIDENT CRITICISED--SPEECH OF COL. DAVID CROCKETT.

Among many men of note who denounced in most vigorous terms the policy of the Administration toward the Cherokees were Daniel Webster and Edward Everett, of Massachusetts; Theodore Frelinghuysen, of New Jersey; Peleg Sprague, of Maine; Henry R. Storrs, of New York; Henry A. Wise, of Virginia; and David Crockett, of Tennessee. The latter, in a speech in the House of Representatives, denounced the treatment to which the Indians had been subjected at the hands of the Government as unjust, dishonest, cruel, and short-sighted in the extreme. He alluded to the fact that he represented a district which bordered on the domain of the southern tribes, and that his constituents were perhaps as immediately interested in the removal of the Indians as those of any other member of the House. His voice would perhaps not be seconded by that of a single fellow member living within 500 miles of his home. He had been threatened that if he did not support the policy of forcible removal his public career would be summarily cut off. But while he was perhaps as desirous of pleasing his constituents and of coinciding with the wishes of his colleagues as any man in Congress, he could not permit himself to do so at the expense of his honor and conscience in the support of such a measure. He believed the American people could be relied on to approve their Representatives for daring, in the face of all opposition, to perform their conscientious duty, but if not, the approval of his own conscience was dearer to him than all else.

Governor Lumpkin, immediately upon his appointment as commissioner, had repaired to the Cherokee country, but Governor Carroll, owing to some pending negotiations with the Choctaws and subsequently to ill health, was unable to assume the duties assigned him. He was succeeded[433] by John Kennedy. To this commission a third member was added in the summer of 1837[434] in the person of Colonel Guild, who was found to be ineligible, however, by reason of being a member of the Tennessee legislature. His place was supplied by the appointment[435] of James W. Gwin, of North Carolina.

On the 22d of December James Liddell was also appointed, _vice_ Governor Lumpkin resigned.[436]

Superintendent Currey having died, General Nathan Smith was appointed[437] to succeed him as superintendent of emigration.

_Census of Cherokee Nation._--It appears from a statement about this time,[438] made by the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, that from a census of the Cherokees, taken in the year 1835, the number residing in the States of Georgia, North Carolina, Alabama, and Tennessee was 16,542, exclusive of slaves and of whites intermarried with Cherokees.[439]

In May, 1837,[440] General Wool was relieved from command at his own request, and his successor, Col. William Lindsay, was instructed to arrest John Ross and turn him over to the civil authorities in case he did anything further calculated to excite a spirit of hostility among the Cherokees on the subject of removal. This threat, however, seemed to have little effect, for we find Mr. Ross presiding over a general council, convened at his instigation, on the 31st of July, to attend which the Government hastily dispatched Mr. John Mason, Jr., with instructions to traverse and correct any misstatements of the position of the United States authorities that might be set forth by Ross and his followers. An extract from Mr. Mason's report has already been given.

_Cherokee memorial in Congress._--Again, in the spring of 1838 Ross laid before Congress a protest and memorial for the redress of grievances, which, in the Senate, was laid upon the table[441] by a vote of 36 to 10, and a memorial from citizens of New York involving an inquiry into the validity of the treaty of 1835 shared a similar fate in the House of Representatives two days later by a vote of 102 to 75.

_Speech of Henry A. Wise._--The discussion of these memorials in Congress took a wide range and excited the warmest interest, not only in that body, but throughout the country. The speeches were characterized by a depth and bitterness of feeling such as had never been exceeded even on the slavery question. Hon. Henry A. Wise, of Virginia, who was then a member of the House of Representatives from that State, was especially earnest in his denunciation of the treaty of 1835 and of the administration that had concluded it. He looked upon it as null and void. In order to make treaties binding the assent of both parties must be obtained, and he would assert without fear of contradiction that there was not one man in that House or out of it who had read the proceedings in the case who would say that there had ever been any assent given to that treaty by the Cherokee Nation. If this were the proper time he could go further and show that Georgia had done her part, too, in this oppression. He could show this by proving the policy of that State in relation to the Indians and the institutions of the General Government. That was the only State in the Union that had ever actually nullified, and she now tells you that if the United States should undertake to naturalize any portion of the Indian tribes within her limits as citizens of the United States she would do so again. He had not disparaged the surrounding people of Georgia, far from it--"but" (said he) "there are proofs around us in this city of the high advancement in civilization which characterizes the Cherokees." He would tell the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Halsey) that a statesman of his own State, who occupied a high and honorable post in this Government, would not gain greatly by a comparison, either in civilization or morals, with a Cherokee chief whom he could name. He would fearlessly institute such a comparison between John Ross and John Forsyth.[442]

_Speech of Daniel Webster._--Mr. Webster, of Massachusetts, also took occasion[443] to remark in the Senate that "there is a strong and growing feeling in the country that great wrong has been done to the Cherokees by the treaty of New Echota."

_President Van Buren proffers a compromise._--Public feeling became so deeply stirred on the subject that, in the interests of a compromise, President Van Buren, in May, 1838, formulated a proposition to allow the Cherokees two years further time in which to remove, subject to the approval of Congress and the executives of the States interested.

_Georgia hostile to the compromise._--To the communication addressed to Governor Gilmer, of Georgia, on the subject, he responded:

* * * I can give it no sanction whatever. The proposal could not be carried into effect but in violation of the rights of this State. * * * It is necessary that I should know whether the President intends by the instructions to General Scott to require that the Indians shall be maintained in their occupancy by an armed force in opposition to the rights of the owners of the soil. If such be the intention, a direct collision between the authorities of the State and the General Government must ensue. My duty will require that I shall prevent any interference whatever by the troops with the rights of the State and its citizens. I shall not fail to perform it.

This called forth a hurried explanation from the Secretary of War that the instructions to General Scott were not intended to bear the construction placed upon them by the executive of Georgia, but, on the contrary, it was the desire and the determination of the President to secure the removal of the Cherokees at the earliest day practicable, and he made no doubt it could be effected the present season.[444]

GENERAL SCOTT ORDERED TO COMMAND TROOPS IN THE CHEROKEE COUNTRY.

The executive machinery under the treaty had in the mean time been placed in operation, and at the beginning of the year 1838, 2,103 Cherokees had been removed, of whom 1,282 had been permitted to remove themselves.[445]

Intelligence having reached the President, however, causing apprehension that the mass of the nation did not intend to remove as required by the treaty General Winfield Scott was ordered[446] to assume command of the troops already in the nation, and to collect an increased force, comprising a regiment of artillery, a regiment of infantry, and six companies of dragoons. He was further authorized, if deemed necessary, to call upon the governors of Tennessee, North Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama for militia and volunteers, not exceeding four thousand in number, and to put the Indians in motion for the West at the earliest moment possible, following the expiration of the two years specified in the treaty.

_Proclamation of General Scott._--On reaching the scene of operations General Scott issued[447] a proclamation to the Cherokees in which he announced that--