may emigrate to the Arkansas and as a final adjustment of the treaty of July 8, 1817.
2. The United States agree to pay, according to the treaty of July 8, 1817, for all valuable improvements on land within the country ceded by the Cherokees, and to allow a reservation of 640 acres to each head of a family (not enrolled for removal to Arkansas) who elects to become a citizen of the United States.
3. Each person named in a list accompanying the treaty shall have a reserve of 640 acres in fee simple, to include his improvements, upon giving notice within six months to the agent of his intention to reside permanently thereon. Various other reservations in fee simple are made to persons therein named.
4. The reservations and 12-mile tract reserved for a school fund in the first article are to be sold by the United States and the proceeds invested in good stocks, the interest of which shall be expended in educational benefits for the Cherokees east of the Mississippi.
5. The boundary lines of the land ceded by the first article shall be established by commissioners appointed by the United States and the Cherokees. Leases made under the treaty of 1817 of land within the Cherokee country shall be void. All white people intruding upon the lands reserved by the Cherokees shall be removed by the United States, under the act of March 30, 1802.
6. Annuities shall be distributed in the proportion of two-thirds to those east to one-third to those west of the Mississippi. Should the latter object within one year to this proportion, a census shall be taken of both portions of the nation to adjust the matter.
7. The United States shall prevent intrusion on the ceded lands prior to January 1, 1820.
8. The treaty shall be binding upon its ratification.
Historical Data
Cherokees West of the Mississippi—Their Wants and Condition
Early in 1818 a representative delegation from that portion of the Cherokees who had removed to the Arkansas visited Washington with the view of reaching a more satisfactory understanding concerning the location and extent of their newly acquired homes in that region. As early as January 14 of that year, they had addressed a memorial to the Secretary of War asking, among other things, that the United States should recognize them as a separate and distinct people, clothed with the power to frame and administer their own laws, after the manner of their brethren east of the Mississippi.
Long and patient hearings were accorded to this delegation by the authorities of the Government, and, predicated upon their requests, instructions were issued243 to Governor William Clark, superintendent of Indian affairs at Saint Louis, among other things, to secure a cessation of hostilities then raging between the Arkansas Cherokees and the Osages; furthermore, to induce, if possible, the Shawnees and Delawares then residing in the neighborhood of Cape Girardeau to relinquish their land and join the Western Cherokees, or, in the event of a favorable termination of the Quapaw treaty then pending, that they might be located on lands acquired from them.
During the year the Arkansas Cherokees had also learned that the Oneidas of New York were desirous of obtaining a home in the West, and had made overtures for their settlement among them.244 The main object of the Cherokees in desiring to secure these originally eastern Indians for close neighbors is to be found in the increased strength they would be able to muster in sustaining their quarrel with their native western neighbors.
It may be interesting in this connection to note the fact that in 1825 the Cherokees sent a delegation to Wapakoneta, Ohio, accompanied by certain Western Shawnees, whose mission was to induce the Shawnees at that point to join them in the West. Governor Lewis Cass, under instructions from the War Department, held a council at Wapakoneta, lasting nine days,245 having in view the accomplishment of this end, but it was unsuccessful.
Governor Clark was also advised by his instructions of the desire of the Cherokees to secure an indefinite outlet west, in order that they should not in the future, by the encroachments of the whites and the diminution of game, be deprived of uninterrupted access to the more remote haunts of the buffalo and other large game animals. He was instructed to do everything consistent with justice in the matter to favor the Cherokees by securing from the Osages the concession of such a privilege, it being the object of the President that every favorable inducement should be held out to the Cherokees east of the Mississippi to remove and join their western brethren. This extension of their territory to the west was promised them by the President in the near future, and in the summer of 1819246 the Secretary of War instructed Reuben Lewis, United States Indian agent, to assure the Cherokees that the President, through the recent accession of territory from the Osages, was ready and willing to fulfill his promise.
Survey of east boundary of Cherokees in Arkansas.—Provision having been made in the treaty of 1817247 for a definition of the east line of the tract assigned the Cherokees on the Arkansas, Mr. Reuben Lewis, the Indian agent in that section, was designated, in the fall of 1818,248 to run and mark the line, and upon its completion to cause to be removed, without delay, all white settlers living west thereof, with the single exception mentioned in the treaty.
These instructions to Mr. Lewis miscarried in the mails and did not reach him until the following summer. The line had in the mean time been run by General William Rector, under the authority of the Commissioner of the General Land Office, which survey Mr. Lewis was authorized to accept as the correct boundary provided the Cherokees were satisfied therewith.249 The field notes of this survey were certified by General Rector April 14, 1819, and show the length of the line from Point Remove to White River to have been 71 miles 55 chains and the course N. 53° E.250
Treaty between Cherokees and Osages.—During this interval251 Governor Clark had succeeded in securing the presence at Saint Louis of representative delegations of both the Osage and Western Cherokee tribes, between whom, after protracted negotiations, he succeeded in establishing the most peaceful and harmonious relations, which were evidenced by all the usual formalities of a treaty.
Disputes Among Cherokees Concerning Emigration
The unhappy differences of mind among the Cherokees east of the Mississippi on the subject of removal, which had been fast approaching a climax as a consequence of the treaty of 1817, had been rather stimulated than otherwise by the frequent departure of parties for their new western home, and the constant importunities of the United States and State officials (frequently bearing the semblance of threats) having in view the removal of the entire tribe. The many and open acts of violence practiced by the "home" as against the "emigration" party at length called forth252 a vigorous letter of denunciation from the Secretary of War to Governor McMinn, the emigration superintendent. After detailing at much length the many advantages that would accrue to the Cherokee Nation by a removal beyond the contaminating