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22. Turmoil and Confusion

 

 

 

 

In the first decade of the nineteenth century the Cherokee were under attack on three fronts.  The federal government was pressuring them to change from their traditional hunting lifestyle to that of individual farmers.  While the Cherokees saw the inevitability of such a change, it struck at the very heart of traditional gender roles and population distribution.  Farming had always been women’s work and the Cherokees had always lived in communal villages.  The missionaries brought with them challenges to the Cherokee beliefs systems and world view, challenges the Cherokee accepted as the price for educating their children.  Toward Christianity, with few exceptions, they turned a deft ear.  The surrounding state governments continued their relentless pressure on the Cherokees to relinquish more land to their swelling populations.  All three factors used bribery, coercion, and exploitation of tribal divisions to achieve their ends.  However, on the question of relinquishing more land, the Cherokees eventually came together and spoke with one voice in their refusal.  In that unity was the beginnings of Cherokee nationalism.

 

 

 

Cherokee Council  to Colonel Thomas Butler –

March 20, 1801

The mother earth has been Divided [by treaties] one part [to the] whites and the other to the red people where those present [at Ustanali] have been raised from their infancy to the years of manhood and that ground must ever be dear to the Chiefs.  . . . the white people will not mind the Talks of the United States, but the red people minds the language of the chiefs of the Cherokee nation. . . . had the transgression been committed by [one of] our people, you would have taken him long before this time.  The beloved men of the united States Calls the red people their Children; the father ought to protect their Childrens rights.  We wish you will send a body of soldiers to remove the Inhabitants on the Currahee mountain.  We have  no disposition to encourage that Travellers should pass through our lands as there is roads enough among the white settlements to go around.  [1]

 

 

S. W. Point, 15th August, 1801.

To the chiefs and warriors of the Cherokee Nation:

We send you under cover a talk from our beloved great chief and father, Thomas Jefferson, President of the United States. We beg of you to open your ears to listen to it attentively and let it sink deep into your hearts. It is the same speech which has been sent to you by your agent, Colonel Meigs.

The people of the United States having given you a new father, we have pleasure in assuring you that he holds his red children and his white children in the same regard; that he will neither violate your lands or suffer them to be violated while you behave as you have done, like dutiful and affectionate children, who look up to him for protection; but it is our duty also to tell you that your father, the President, will expect you to pay prompt regard to this, his first invitation to meet us at this place, which he has appointed for the purpose, and where provisions and neces­saries are collected. Your father has a right to name the place where he will speak to you, and you have no right to object to his invitation, since he has for object your own good as well as that of his white children. We do therefore confidently expect you will be on your feet so soon as you receive this talk, and that we shall have the happiness to take you by the hand on the 25th of the present month, that is ten days from this day. We urge this injunction upon you because our business calls us elsewhere.

We are your friends and the representatives of your father, the President.

 

 

S. W. Point, 16th August, 1801.

To            the chiefs and warriors of the Cherokee Nation of Indians on the Tennessee:

The talk from your father, the President, was sent you by Colonel Meigs, your agent, inviting you to send such chiefs and principal men as you have full confidence in, to meet his Commis­sioners at this place on the first of this month, to state for the consideration of government all that you have upon your minds, to hear in behalf of your nation all that the Commissioners shall have to propose, and to agree to such proposals as they shall make, and your representatives shall conceive to be proper and useful.

We, two of the Commissioners of the United States, are now arrived and have sent to your council, convened at Oosetenauleh, to attend here by the 25th of this month, and as we understand from some of your most distinguished chiefs, that you will not be at the meeting at Oosetenauleh, we have proposed to them to send runners to invite you to attend here on the day appointed, where we shall expect and be glad to see you, for the purposes expressed in the talk of the President.

We are your friends and the friends of your nation.

 

 

S. W. Point, 16th August, 1801.

At the time that we do ourselves the pleasure to announce to your Excellency our arrival here as commissioners of the United States, for the purpose of holding a conference with the Cherokees on subjects interesting to our fellow citizens, we have to lament and to regret a most wicked and barbarous murder, perpetrated on Stocks Creek, Knox County, on the body of an Indian woman who was with her young child and a part of her family on her way to Knoxville seeking a market for the products of her industry.

Your excellency knows as well the effect this will have on the minds of the Indians, as the necessity there is of a speedy exertion of the competent authority to bring, with the least possible delay, the offender to justice, and we must request your interposition to produce that desired end.  The particulars of this transaction have not reached us; we are referred to Captain Flannegan, near Knoxville, who is mentioned too as a man in estimation for them; as you are near him we presume you will have received them ere this.

We have the honor to be, &c.

His Excellency,

JOHN SEVIER,

Governor of Tennessee

 

 

S. W. Point, 1st September, 1801.

Brothers:

In addition to the talk delivered to The Bark by the Bloody-fellow, we think proper to inform you that having waited here 27 days to met you in conference, agreeably to the invitation of our great father, Thomas Jefferson, President of the U. S., which was delivered to you from Colonel Meigs, the Agent of War, on the 13th ultimo, we can but express our surprise that you should not have appeared before this time.

Brothers:            We are sorry that you manifest so little respect to the voice of your new father, who is as able and as desirous to foster you and to protect your interests as his prede­cessors. We are sorry that you should be so perverse and foolish as to set up your will against that of your father, the Presi­dent of the sixteen fires, who alone is able to defend you against your enemies.

Brothers:            We are your friends and we are solicitous for your happiness. We therefore hope you will no longer turn a deaf ear to the voice of your father, the President; for if you shut your ears against his councils and refuse to meet those beloved men whom he has appointed to confer with you, you will deprive him of the power to serve you, and must not expect either his friend­ship or his protection.

Brothers:            We have given you our advise, the good and bad are before you, and you are men and can choose for yourselves. If you consider the friendship and protection of the President of the U. S. necessary to you, then come forward to this place with­out loss of time. If you do not need his friendship and protection and can stand alone without him, we expect you will, like men and warriors, speak out and declare it.

Brothers:            We have waited long for you, and we now feel it our duty to tell you, that if you are not here within four days from this date, we shall be obliged to leave the country without seeing you and to report your conduct to your father, the President.

We are your friends and the representatives of your father, the President.

 

 

4th September

 

Chiefs and Brothers:

About six moons past the people of the sixteen fires assembled in their grand national council house and thought proper to elect our beloved chief, Thomas Jefferson, to be President of the United States in the place of Adams, who had succeeded Washington. . . .

Brothers:  Your white brethren who live at Natches, at Nashville, and in South Carolina, are very far removed from each other and have complained to your father that the roads by which they travel are narrow and obstructed with fallen timber, with rivers and creeks, which prevent them from pursuing their lawful business with his red children and with each other.

Brothers:  To remove these difficulties and to accommodate his red children as well as his white children, your father is desirous to open wide these roads, but as they pass over the lands of his red children, he first asks their consent to the measure, and is willing to pay them an equivalent for the indulgence of his white children.

Brothers:  Your white brethren have also complained to your father that on these long roads they have no place for rest or accommodation, which exposes them and their horses to much inconvenience and suffering.  To remove this complaint your farther is desirous that his red children would consent to establish houses of entertainment and ferries on these roads, to be kept by persons appointed by himself, who shall give security for their good behavior, and pay such annual rent to his red children as may be agreed on.

Brothers:  This is a small request made by your father; it is intended not to extinguish your rights, but to give value to your land and to make it immediately productive to you, in the manner of your ferry over Clinch River.

Brothers:  You have been alarmed by the songs of lying birds and the talks of foolish tongues; you have heard that your father would press you for further concessions of land, and it has been said by some, even as far as the Big River.  You will know hereafter how to listen to such thieves, lyars and mischiefmakers, and will treat them as they deserve. . . .

Brothers:  We entreat you not to listen to your traders, because they are skin catchers and have more regard for their own interest than yours.  Deal with them honestly, pay them punctually and take care that they do not cheat you, but never admit them to your councils.

Brothers:  Listen not, we beseech you, to those white men who run after your women, because they are despised among their own people and seek only to gratify their lusts without regard to truth, to honor, or to your welfare, and would sell their fathers, their mothers, or their country for a wench.

Brothers:  We have nothing further at this time; we thank the great spirit for bringing us this day together in peace and friendship, which may, we hope, last as long as the waters run & the trees grow.

 

Soquilataque, called Doublehead:

The chiefs now have heard the talks of a father, and the sun is now lowering and the same hour to-morrow we will deliver our answer, and the answer we shall give will be short, and hope there will be no more of it, and hope the Commissioners will not insist on making a reply.

 

The Commissioners:  When we have heard what you have to say we shall know whether to reply or not.

 

 

5th September

 

Doublehead:

I am now going to speak.

It is but yesterday that we heard the talk of our father, the President, and to-day you will hear ours. . . .

I think that the new President ought to listen to our talks and not throw them aside.  We hope his good disposition towards us will continue, that our children may live in peace, and you who are authorized by the President have said we ought not to listen to the crooked talks of those who are about us.  I, in behalf of my nation, am authorized to speak to you.

There are a number of land speculators among you who say we want to sell lands.  We hope you will not pay any regard to them, as they give them out for the sake of getting property.  We hope you will not listen to those talks.  The chiefs, the head men of these frontiers, are themselves interested in these speculations, and they will give you fine talks, which are meant to deceive, as they are for their own interest.  We think it is a shame that these land sellers should impose on the government, and say that we want to dispose of our lands when we do not.  When you first made these settlements there were paths which answered for them.  The roads you propose we do not wish to have made through our country.  Our objection to this road is this:  A great many people of all descriptions would pass them, and that would happen which has recently happened and you would labor under the same difficulties you do now.

We mean to hold fast the peace that is subsisting between you and us; to preserve this we hope you will not make roads thro' our country, but use those which you have made yourselves.  I mean within your own limits.  There is a road we have consented to be made from Clinch to Cumberland, and another, the Kentucky trace.  I expect you think we have a right to say yes or no as answers, and we hope that you will say no more on this subject; if you do, it would seem as if we had no right to refuse.  You who are picked by the government from among the first and best men of the U.S., we hope you will take our talks and assist us; likewise you who are placed on our borders to see our rights maintained, that we may not be plagued by those people who want land. . . .

I am now done speaking for this day, and I hope that you will not say anything more about the lands or about roads.

 

Commissioners: 

What has passed between us will be faithfully reported to the President, who knows how best to estimate it.  The Commissioners, having business with other nations, will leave this as soon as the boats are prepared to take them down the river.

 

Chuleoah: 

I will now address myself to that man, meaning Colonel Hawkins, who was appointed by our former father, the President, who was to use every exertion for our benefit. I have been to the seat of government where you came from, and I hope you will have those people removed to where they formerly lived; meaning those at the Currahee Mountain.

Those people who live on our lands deceive the government; therefore to ascertain our claims we wish to remove those people.  Those lines were run by order of the government; you, yourself, run those lines, and we hope this inconvenience will be removed, as the general of the army is present.  There are now upwards of 50 families settled over the lines, which you did run.

 

 

South West Point, 6^th September, 1801

To the Honourable Henry Dearborn, Secretary of War.

Sir:

. . . The decided tone of "Doublehead" on the subject of their lands, his pathetic appeal to the justice and magnanimity of the government respecting the roads, and the pressing demands which followed them from himself and from Chuleoah for the fulfillment of existing treaties, and for the reparation of injuries recorded in blood, rendered it, in our judgment, unavailing and inconsistent with our instructions to press the conference further; while by dissolving it, we not only obliged the Indians, but gave them an impregnable testimony of the consideration and sincerity of the President. . . .

Jas. Wilkinson

Benjamin Hawkins

Andrew Pickens

 

 

South West Point, 6^th September, 1801

To the Honourable Henry Dearborn, Secretary of War.

Sir:

The conference with the Cherokees having terminated yesterday without the Commissioners of the United States being able to accomplish any of the objects contemplated in their mission, I judged it advisable to give you the impressions I have received of the affairs in this quarter to accompany the report of the Commissioners. . . .

The Commissioners had received information soon after their arrival to justify the belief that the Cherokees were indisposed to any conference at this time, and it is probable the causes suggested in their letter of the 1^st this month had produced it.

I find that the pressure for land exhibited from all quarters has alarmed the chiefs of the nation.  The exultation of the frontier citizens on the election of the President produced a belief that the President would favor the views of those deemed by the Indians inimical to their rights.  The report circulated through the nation soon after the adjournment of Congress that a treaty was soon to be held to extinguish the Indian claims to the lands to the right side of the Tennessee, and the withdrawing of troops from the frontier. . . .

It is questionable to me whether the division of land among the individuals would tend to their advantage or not.  In such an event, the long and well tried skills of land speculators might soon oust a whole tribe, whereas the whole country being a common, each of the community having exclusive property in their own farms only, the combined intelligence of the whole might be sufficient to resist such an evil, and secure at all times land for the cultivation of the indigent and improvident.

Your obedient servant,

Benjamin Hawkins  [2]

 

 

James Wilkinson to Henry Dearborn –

If the Chickasaw should consent to the opening of the Natchez Road, it is my intention, notwithstanding the contumacy of the Cherokees, to order the Troops to proceed in building the Road through the disputed territory until the Winter stops them, while I leave the Red people to adjust their respective pretensions to the soil.  [3]

 

Secretary Henry Dearborn to Return J. Meigs –

April 7, 1802

The Cherokees have no reason to expect any more liberality on our part, until a more friendly disposition shall be discovered on their part.  It may not be improper to inform the Chiefs that from their conduct at the late treat they must not expect any particular favors from the United States. [4]

 

Meigs to William S. Lovely –

July 20, 1802

[our Friend Double Head] talks like a man of Sense and reflection on the subject of mechanics and of mills being erected ect.  In the present situation of things I can not say anything more than has been said, that our Government will continue to do them Justice, ‘that when they become more liberal, they may expect liberality of the Government.’. . .   [5]

 

Dearborn to Meigs –

February 19, 1803

The opening of the road through Cherokee Country to Georgia has become highly necessary, and you will please to take the earliest opportunity of holding a conference with the principal Chiefs of the Cherokees to obtain it.  You are authorized to make them some presents not exceeding 500 dollars for their consent.  Additional presents may be made for the purpose, but in all events, we must have a road.  [6]

 

Meigs to Dearborn –

May 4, 1803

They have a long time since resolved not to part with any more land, there is not a man in the nation who dares advocate it; it is said that it would endanger his life.  [7]

 

Meigs to Dearborn –

October 25, 1803

Mr. Vann has done much in bringing the minds of the Indians to the measure of agreements to the opening of the road, and yet they do not know it and he wishes it to remain so.  [8]

 

 

Treaty Agreement – October 1803

. . . the ferry at Southwest Point shall be put in the hand of our beloved chief Doublehead and the other two shall be rented by our agent to citizens of the United States to the highest bidders; the preference in Renting these Ferries shall be in favor of persons having connections to the Cherokee Nation. . . . the Cherokee Nation and their connections will form a Turnpike Company for keeping the said Road in constant good repair. . . .  [9]

 

Daniel Ross to Meigs –

December 17, 1803

Mr. Lowery wishes me to remind you of the promise (he says) you made to each other; that is, you requested him to assist you in getting a grant of the road; he has done so; now he wishes the Col. [Meigs] to assist him by directing the Tellico Road to pass Highwassee at the mouth of the Ammoye where he proposes to settle and do business.  [10]

 

Charles Hicks to Meigs –

December 26, 1803

. . . there is some people in the upper towns who are dissatisfied of granting this road as the upper towns they say was not present when granted.  [11]

 

 

Meigs to Benjamin Hawkins –

February 13, 1805

This man [Doublehead], it is true, from the force of his discernment estimates useful improvements and is exerting himself to live in a stile of some degree of taste; at the same time he is a vindictive, bloody minded Savage and his exertions to raise himself do no appear to arise from any refinement of disposition but to place himself in such a situation as that he may set his foot on the neck of anything that may oppose itself to his ill founded pride.  He is a man of small stature, compact and well formed, very dark skin, small piercing black eyes, the fixture of which when engaged in conversation are as immovable as diamonds set in metal and seem to indicate clearly that he comprehends the subject and in his reply to an address will omit nothing that has been said.  He is occasionally guilty of intemperance and then off his guard, and if he considers himself insulted the explosion of his passion resembles that of gunpowder.  [12]

 

The Glass and other chiefs to Meigs –

March 23, 1805

We should be glad for you to write us that we sold no land to you.  Such a letter is needed to satisfy the young men that we sold no land . . . the young warriors is trying all they can to put us out of place, but we hope to do everything for the good of our Country.  [13]

 

Doublehead –

I, Doublehead, a principle Cherokee Chief, wishing to excellerate useful improvements in my Nations, and finding that Mills are much wanting in the Cherokee Country for the purpose aforesaid, determine to erect a sawmill and Gristmill on a stream on the South side of the River Tennessee.  [14]

 

Nicholas Byerst to Meigs –

Doublehead may be bought, but it will be a hard matter to sell him.  [15]

 

 

August 9, 1805

To: Black Fox, Dick Justice, Turtle at Home, Chinowe, Slave Body, Eusanalee, Toochelar, Parched Corn Flour, Taugustuska

We have with much care and attention considered the results of the late Conference [in July] with the Commissioners on the Highwassee, and we think that . . . we shall agree to the request of our Father, at least in part.  . . . the Agent had informed us that he could not be Justified in continuing the presents of wheels, cards, and implements of husbandry and in giving corn and provisions [in time of famine] as he had done before [unless there was cooperation from us].

Doublehead, Tolluntuskee, Katigiskee,

the Seed, Sequeechee, Sikula, the Redbird  [16]

 

 

Dearborn to Meigs –

October 8, 1805

The average price paid for Indian land in the last four years does not amount to one cent per acre and the highest price we paid for cession of Indian claims to land well suited and of good quality is two cents per acre.[17]

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thomas Jefferson –

January 8,1806

The President of the United States presents to Doublehead the sum of one hundred dollars in consideration of his active influence in forwarding the views of the Government in the introduction of the arts of civilization among the Cherokee Nation of Indians and for his friendly disposition towards the United States and for the purpose of enabling him to extend his useful example among the Red people.  [18]

 

 

 

 

 

 

Return J. Meigs to the Cherokees at Willstown

April 2,1806

. . . he [the President] saw by these things that you were beginning to encourage your people to have individual property and having a tendency to make your people industrious and to feel like freemen acting entirely for the comfort and benefit of their families. 

When land is owned in fee simple, the whites cannot buy your land as has before been done.  It will not be in the power of any council to sell your farms.  . . . you may be assured that this is the only way to save your Country for yourselves and your children to live in. [19]

 

Meigs to Dearborn –

July 30, 1806

The conduct of these intruders is just such of others in numerous instances on the frontiers of the Cherokee country - Under some pretext they enter on the Indian lands disturb the peace & quiet of the Indians; then tease the Government to purchase the land, which raises the price, & embarrasses the Government in effecting purchases - If they are moved they complain of hardship, while at the same time they are the sole cause of all that they suffer . . . . [20]

 

Doublehead to Meigs –

October 3, 1806

You know very well that this annuity could not support the nation in clothing or houseall furniture; it is the Traders that Brings these things to us and it is the same with the white people; we cannot live without Trade, for the Trader brings his hoes, axes, hatchets, and Brass and Tin Kettles, powder, ect. amongst us and our people has got indebted to them.

. . . you know and so do the marchants that I can pay my debts myself, but some who are in debt are poor people and the best hunting ground now belongs to the United States and I can't see how the poor Indians is to pay their debts if the nation would not use its tribal resources to do it.  It seems hard to Take away from a family that has but two or three cowes to pay the Trader with it.

It seems that my people think hard of me, and if you know of anything I have done that is not Right, Tell it to the people. Such great and Good men as the young chiefs pretend to be ought to be ashamed.  Their behavior has hardly been unselfish in the past: when the annuity was given out did they not keep some of the Best goods and say that they would give in money to the nation, and where is that money?

. . . [I can] quit my nations Concearns and goe hom and mind my own Buisness.  [21]

 

Chief John Lowery  to Meigs –

October 23, 1806

. . . the Young chifes, and indede some of them no chiefes atole are trying to Break that law.  If that be the case, what is our cuntry to cum to, if the young, simple, drunken, idel people is to breake laws that all the Chifes and the king makes.

My feelings was much Hurte to think these yong people was holding ther Talke in order to demonstrate that we old chiefs and King shold be made as if they was Nothing.

There is many of them pore simple Creatuers who oppose us as I was some years ago - could see nothing before them; but, dear father, it appearse that few years back that my eise hase Bin opend and I can have nolldge of things that is to come.  [22]

 

Thomas Jefferson -

The Mississippi Valley now belongs to us, and it might be that some Cherokees would prefer to move across the Mississippi to live with the Cherokees on the other side.  There they would find more game, fewer white men, less pressure to abandon the hunt and adopt new ways.  That country is ours.  We will permit them to live in it.  [23]

 

Doublehead to Meigs –

January 14, 1807

Desing and foolish persons that are Enemies to the improvement and Civeliation of their People, Enemies to all Improvement, Enemies to all that wish to improve the Blessing that the great and good all-being has Blessed them with; their Eyes and Ears are shut to such things as they ought to know.  [24]

 

Meigs to Dearborn –

May 1, 1807

The people in the Upper and Valley Towns are poorer people than the lower Towns and the money they would make from selling that land would be of great assistance to them in procuring stock and farming tools.[25]

 

Doublehead to Meigs –

May 1,1807

We have agreed to let our young people take the land that lies on the North Side of Tennessee; they are to do what they please with it, to Lease or sell it to the white people, every one to make his choice, and then to dispose of it as they please.  [26]

 

Colonel Joseph Phillips –

August 15, 1807

[George Saunders explained] the Indians were much displeased with Double Head and Chisholm and I expected they would be killed as it had been concluded on by a number of the leading characters of the Nation.  Doublehead would be called to account at a Bawl Play.  A man called the Ridge was appointed to Execute the Business.  [27]

 

 

 

 

Meigs to Dearborn –

December 3, 1807

The opposition of Vann and his party had led them to threaten the lives of those who are in favor of the Government's view . . .  This threatening the friends of good order is intolerable and requires strong measures of an exemplary kind on the part of the United States to deter such hardy villains and their abettors and for the relief of the well affected.[28]

 

John Boggs to Meigs –

Friend and Brother

I had a Piece of Land allotted for myself upon . . . Sequatchie River the head men allotted it for me Since that there is a white man Come and Settled upon it which I do not like his name is James Blair I don't Like him as he has left his own wife and Taken up with an Indian woman I look upon him as a Base man.  [29]

 

John Lowery  to Meigs-

February 8, 1808

Vann has confused the nation so much that Chulioa sent word to me to get ready for war because I was the head of selling that bit of land. . . . They have threatened to come and rob me and steal all my horses because I sold their land.  . . . if that quarter of the Nation is earnest to go to war, I and my quarters are ready to join the white people.  This quarter of the nation does give up Vann to you to do what you see cause to do with him. . . . I hope you will have him taken and put to death, for he has reigned long enough.  [30]

 

Meigs to Dearborn –

February 9, 1808

I understand some years ago that the Government had in contemplation an exchange of land with the Indians South of the Ohio.  It is my opinion that if specific propositions were made to the Cherokees . . . that it would in a short time produce a general sentiment amongst them in favor of exchange. 

The Cherokees complain that intrusions on their land on the frontier of Georgia by the white people are still continued and are increasing.  . . . it is my opinion that there never will be any quietness on any of these frontiers until the Indians are removed over the Mississippi.  [31]

 

Toochelar to Jefferson –

My part of the Nation, the Lower towns, is deturmed to move over the missippa if they like the Cuntry when they exploar it, perfided there father will assist them in persute.  [32]

 

Lower Chiefs –

February 16, 1808

. . . we complain of a Sham Treaty lately held with a few of our people to sell land. . . . [some who signed] were deceived and some of them threatened by the Hand of Power.  [Others] were induced to sign because they were told by your Agent that if . . . they refused it, you would be angry with them and that their annual stipend would in future be withheld. 

We, as a free people, have a Right to claim for ourselves and our children the right of ratifying or rejecting treaties after they are concluded.  The Cherokees can never consider any future Treaty binding upon us until it is reviewed and approved by a Majority of all our beloved Men, Chiefs and Warriors. [33]

 

Dearborn to Meigs –

March 25, 1808

If you think it practicable to induce the Cherokees as a nation generally to consent to exchange their present country for a suitable tract of country on the other side of the Mississippi, you will please to embrace every favorable occasion for sounding the Chiefs on the subject, and let the subject be generally talked about among the natives until you shall be satisfied of the prevailing opinion.  [34]

 

Meigs to Black Fox –

April 6, 1808

It seems as though a great part of your people are not inclined to become farmers; they prefer the hunting life.  Numbers, I am informed are already gone over the Mississippi and I believe that many others think of going over to that Country where there is good hunting ground.  [35]

 

Tahlonteskee of the Lower Towns –

Tell our Great Father, the President, that our game has disappeared, and we wish to follow it to the West.  We are his friends, and we hope he will grant our petition, which is to remove our people toward the setting sun.  But we shall give up a fine country, fertile in soil, abounding in water-courses, and well adapted for the residence of white people.  For all this we must have a good price. [36]

 

Dearborn to Meigs –

May 5, 1808

For several years [they say] their part of the nation [the Upper Towns] had received scarcely anything from the United States either as annuities or as pay for land sold. 

. . . the Great Chiefs generally live in the lower parts of the nation [and took most of the national income for their own people].

They therefore wished to propose a division of the lands of the Nation between the upper and lower Cherokees by a fixed line and to have certain tracts for farms laid off for each family inclined to be farmers and to be under the jurisdiction and laws of the United States and become actual citizens.  [37]

 

Thomas Jefferson –

You inform me of your anxious desires to engage in the industrious pursuits of agriculture and civilized life; that finding it impractible to induce the nation at large to join in this you wish a line of separation to be established between the upper and lower towns so as to include all of the waters of the Hiwassee in your part; and that having thus contracted your society within narrower limits, your propose, within these, to bring the establishment of fixed laws and regular government.

This council can make a law for giving to every head of a family a separate parcel of land, which, when he had built upon and improved it, shall belong to him and his descendants forever, and which the nation shall have no right to sell under his feet.  They will determine, too, what punishments shall be inflicted for every crime.  [38]

 

Meigs to Dearborn –

June 3, 1808

The land now held by the Cherokees on the South side of the river Tennessee is at least equal to an oblong 100 by 200 miles . . . there is at least 14,000,000 acres.  Suppose the U. States should give them land equal to one half by estimation in Arkansas having some natural boundaries, and buy the other half at one and one-half cents per acre, say total 105,000 dollars. . . . When this sum is considered separated from the object it appears great, but when compared with the results of the whole exchange, it shrinks to nothing, for in a very few years only a partial sale of the lands acquired will bring millions into the Treasury.

Notwithstanding they are Indians, they have strong local prejudices and to induce them to migrate, they must have strong excitements to leave the place of their nativity and the graves of their fathers.

. . . at least 1600 good, active, gun men living in Arkansas, could shoot and trap skins and peltry to the amount of $150,000 annually while the old men, women and Children were raising corn and making cloth.

 The Glass has proposed to have some of his people sent out to explore the country on the West Side of the Mississippi . . .  [39]

 

Young Chiefs to Jefferson –

. . . for some time past we have reason to believe that your agent has not the good disposition toward us that he ought to have.  . . . in a full Council last April it was determined that no act of any Chief or Chiefs should be considered binding on the nation unless they were first appointed in council and then to be ratified by a full council of the Nation before whom their proceedings is to be laid.

Col. Meigs is now about to get The Glass and 2 or 3 other Chiefs to proceed to the Federal City.  . . . he has kept the object of their journey a profound secret nor can a man amongst us, except two or three favorites, obtain one title of information respecting it.  [40]

 

Meigs to Dearborn –

July 11, 1808

A crises in their national existence is taking place.  Those in the lower towns ostensibly hold up the Idea of becoming farmers but their real object is to sell their excess land to the white people.  Those of the upper towns will try everything before they conquer indolence. . . . They can no more hold their property as citizens than a sieve can hold water.  . . . if their land is divided out here to individuals, it will deprive the government of many millions of dollars by the sales of it and the Indians will become more wretched than they now are.  There are perhaps two or three hundred families that might hold land as individuals and would make useful citizens, [but the principal mass would soon be cheated out of what they had by unscrupulous whites].

[At the national council to be held at Broomstown in August] it is probable that a Division of the Cherokees into upper and lower towns will be agreed on.  . . . the result of all these alterations will finally eventuate in the exchange of Country.  To preserve their national existence they must migrate west.

[Though some Cherokees] have become good farmers, great numbers who have been bro't up to the hunting life will not, nor can it be expected that they will, change habits too long in use for habits of agriculture and manufacture

In order to place the Cherokees in a situation where all may have objects of pursuit agreeable to them, it is proposed to place the Cherokees on good hunting grounds to the west.  . . . farming and domestic manufactures may still be pursued there by those who shall chose those pursuits in preference to hunting.

. . . there is a good number who wish to go over the Mississippi.  . . . the general idea of an exchange is that they shall have an equal extent of land to which they now hold here, I think they will think it better to have a less extent of land in Arkansas, say one half, and that they have the difference in value in cash or goods and payable in installments in ten or perhaps twenty years without interest.  [41]

 

The Ridge to Dearborn –

Your advise has Been to us to lay by our guns and go to farming.  Git hoes, plowes and axes.  The young peopel holds your talk fast respecting farming and Industrey ; the old chiefs are fickle, they throw away the plow and pick up the Gun and also throw away the wimmen's Spining wheles. [42] 

 

 

Return J. Meigs to Cherokee Council at Broomstown

August 29, 1808

You have your choice to stay here and become industrious, like white people, so that the women and children will not cry any more for bread, or go over the Mississippi where meat is plenty and where corn may be raised as well as here.  Your Father the President wants what is best for you, but in the east it will be difficult.  That is why from time to time your people Straggle one or two at a time to the West or in small parties.

Brothers, it is well known everywhere that the Cherokees stand on the highest ground of reputation as a Nation of Red men.  The Cherokees have more knowledge as farmers, as manufacturers, and have more knowledge of literature than any nation of Red men in America, I may safely say, than all the Red men in America put together. . . . You have more money, more cattle, more horses, more and better clothing than any other nation of Red men of equal numbers in America. . . .  I wish to excite in yourselves a just pride, that is, to have you value yourselves as Cherokees; the word “Cherokee” or “Cherokees” should always convey an Idea of Respectability to your people.  [43]

 

 

Megis to David Campbell -

September 30, 1808

Ever since my return from the seat of government in 1806, Charles Hicks has joined the party against Doublehead, of which party Vann is the head.  Hicks has become so insolent that I had been obliged to dismiss him as an Interpreter by which the Lower Town Chiefs were much pleased. [44]

 

Meigs to Dearborn –

September 30, 1808

The well disposed Chiefs who are ten to one of the refectory, dare not even make a proposition to have Vann delivered up for fear of assassination when at the same time they would rejoice to see him punished with the utmost severity.

Their own government is as nothing, and in the last resort murder and assassination follows as in the case of Doublehead.  If a man manifests a decided predilection in favor of complying with the propositions of Government at treaties, his life is threatened and they dare not act.  [45]

 

Meigs to John Sevier –

October 28, 1808

If Vann is properly brought to Justice, it will have a very good effect, will silence his partizans - negotiations with the Cherokees will be conducted with ease. 

It would appear in the opinion of Mesrs. Tremble and Dardes, lawyers hired to prosecute Vann, is correct, that the law as it now stands will not reach the case of Vann.  [46]

 

Turtle at Home and the Glass to Jefferson –

November 25, 1808

I have tried to make our people sensible of our own good but they would not listen.

. . .  I and my party are determined to cross the river toward the West.  Our bad brothers may dispute, but with me 12 towns go. [47]

 

Lower Town Chiefs to Jefferson-

November 26, 1808

It is only 4 days since the upper Division of the Nation met in Council and had very contrary talks and very distant from our wishes; they there with a usurped authority, attempted to stop the mouths of our old and beloved chiefs and leaders. 

[We] are true friends to you and your Government.  These men have done nothing that could be laid to their charge except holding fast to our father the President's and Government's advise and wishing the true happiness of the Nation and the Interest of the United States. 

[We represent] 13 Towns composing nearly one half of the Cherokee Nation in their population and taking into view our people that are already crossed the Mississippi, we are a majority.  [48]

 

The Ridge –

My friends, you have heard the talk of the principal chief.  He points to the region of the setting sun as the future habitation of this people.  As a man he has the right to give his opinion; but the opinion he has given as the chief of this nation is not binding; it was not formed in council in the light of day, but was made up in a corner - to drag this people, without their consent, from their own country, to the dark land of the setting sun.  I resist it here in my place as a man, as a chief, as a Cherokee, having the right to be consulted in a matter of such importance.  What are your heads placed on your bodies for, but to think, and if to think, why should you not be consulted?  I scorn this movement of a few men to unsettle the nation and trifle with our attachment to the land of our forefathers!  Look abroad over the face of this country - along the rivers, the creeks, and their branches, and you behold the dwellings of the people who repose in content and security.  Why is this grand scheme projected to lead away to another country the people who are happy here?  I, for one, abandon my respect for the will of a chief, and regard only the will of thousands of our people.  [49]

 

John Chisholm to Meigs –

March 18, 1809

I am preparing to move over the massisipi this summer, all the Indians are preparing in this qarter for the same purpas.  [50]

 

Turtle at Home to Meigs –

June 27, 1809

Since the spring that you was down here to drive off the white people who had settled on our lands, they have returned as thick as ever, the same as crows that are startled from their food by a person passing on the road, but as soon as he is passed, they return again. . . .  It is very unpleasant to see our land occupied in this manner.  [51]

 

Meigs to James Trimble –

September 21, 1809

. . . if the United States would be at the expense of thirty, forty, or fifty thousand dollars to encourage a migration over the Mississippi . . . one half at least of the Cherokees would remove to that Country, perhaps nearly all.  What would one hundred thousand dollars be considered to bring about an exchange of fifteen millions of acres of land and giving us a boundary to near the mobile bay.  [52]

 

 

Cherokee Council

September 27, 1809

 

It has now been a long time that we have been much confused and divided in our opinions, but now we have settled our affairs to the satisfaction of both parties and become as one.  You will now hear from us not from the lower towns nor the upper towns but from the whole Cherokee Nation.

We have this day appointed thirteen men to manage our national affairs, for we found it to be very troublesome to bring anything to bear where there were as many as we formally had in our council.

Concerning the people who want to move over the Mississippi, we have read and understood the late president's speech, and we understand by it that nothing could be done toward removal, exchange, or division of the nation in any way without a national council and by the majority of the nation.  [53]

 

 

Meigs to Secretary of War William Eustis –

October 26, 1809

Should this disposition to make intrusions on Indian land increase, they will perhaps at last put the few troops here in defiance.  These intruders are always well armed, some of them shrewd and desperate characters, having nothing to lose and hold barbarous sentiments towards the Indians. . . .  With these people remonstrance has no effect; nothing but force can prevent their violation of Indian rights.  [54]

 

Meigs to Eustis –

September 1, 1809

Since finding the advantages arising from roads, they have at their own expense open'd upwards of 300 miles of wagon road for communication. . . .  One road of 100 miles in length was opened by Doublehead, commencing at Franklin County, Tennessee, and runs to the muscle Shoals, and it is contemplated to be continued to the navigable waters of Mobile.  [55]

 

 

Cherokee Council at Oostenally

April 10, 1810

 

Be it known, that this day , the various clans or tribes which compose the Cherokee Nation, have unanimously passed an act of oblivion for all lives for which they may have been indebted, one to the other, and have mutually agreed that after this evening the aforesaid act shall become binding upon every clan or tribe; and the aforesaid clans or tribes, have also agreed that if, in future, any life shall be lost without malice intended, the innocent aggressor shall not be accounted guilty.

Be it known, also, That should it happen that a brother, forgetting his natural affection, shall raise his hand in anger and kill his brother, he shall be accounted guilty of murder and suffer accordingly, and if a man has a horse stolen, and overtakes the thief, and should his anger be so great as to cause him to kill him, let his blood remain on his own conscience, but no satisfaction shall be demanded for his own life from his relatives or the clan he may belong to.  [56]

 

The country left to us by our ancestors has been diminished by repeated sales to a tract barely sufficient for us to stand on and not more than adequate to the purpose of supporting our posterity. . . .  Some of our people have gone across the Mississippi without the consent of the nation, although by our father, the President, in his speech, required that they should obtain it  previous to their removing.

We rest assured that the General Government will not attend to or be influenced by any straggling part of the Nation to accede to any arrangement of our country that may be proposed contrary to the will and consent of the main body of the Nation.  [57]

 

 

Laws for the Upper  Towns

February 1, 1811

 

Any person stealing a horse shall Receive one hundred lashes on there Bere Back; a Cow, fifty; or a hog, twenty-five; A Corn 5; any small artickel, 10.

Any person refusing to pay according to a Contract, his property to be taken at the validation of two men; the Debtor to be brought before the head man of his town; a debt over twenty dollars: stay Acicution six months; from twenty to Tenn, three months; under Tenn, Too months.

Any white man living on our land and workes on Sunday except the work of Neadsity or gambels on the Day or huntes for game, shall pay one dollar to every such Afence.  . . . this is to let us now when Sunday is comm so we may lern from them. [58]