Phoenician carried to Greece letters already invented, the Cher-
okee invented thoTn himself. A true lover of his people, ho had
gone to Mexico to find ;mi(1 ])ring back tlie scattered bands of his
discontented bretlircn ;ni(l died in tlic midst of his scavcb. and was
The Cherokee Nation of Indians 67
buried far from the tomb of his fathers and unsung in the solemn
dirge of his nation.
After this great national bereavement, the factions grew more
violent, and so grea;t became their rancor that within the short
space of a few months the annals of this wretched people were
stained with a record of thirty-three murders of the nation's dis-
tinguished men. The United States again interposed their au-
thority to put an end to this state of anarohy and crime. Commis-
sioners conferred with representatives of the three factions and
negotiated with them a plan of pacification out of which grew the
treaty of 1846. It provided for the extinction of all sectional pol-
icies and a general amnesty of all political offenses; it also re-
affirmed and extended the cession of land already made, and pro-
vided for their reversion to the United ^States in case of the extinc-
tion of the Oherokees or their abandonment of tJhe possession.
After an interval of comparative repose, the Cherokees "^^ere
again aroused by serious disturbance. White settlers were tres-
passing upon their territory, and abolitionists from the ISTorth were
corrupting their slaves. The United States, in 1860, sent troops
to expel the invaders, but the Civil AVar put a stop to these mili-
tary operations. The war itself was the signal for further intestine
strife. The Indians were divided on the question of slavery, and
were, therefore, divided in their allegiance between the two con-
tending sections. The Ross party was in sympathy with the :N'orth;
its opponents were friendly to the South. The two factions, how-
ever, met in convention and there healed their differences, and as
a single nation formed an alliance with the Confederate States.
They organized two regiments for the Southern army, and placed
them in command of Col. Drew and Col. Stand Watie, adherents
of the Ross and anti-Ross parties, respectively. Col. Drew's regi-
ment of Ross men soon deserted the Confederate colors and enlist-
ed in the United States service. Ross then renounced his affilia-
tions with the South and tbrew himself into the arms of the Fed-
eral government, not, however, to incur any peril in its defense,
but to hide under the shadow of its protection; for he at once took
refuge in the safe city of Philadelphia, in which he closely abided
till the close of the war. The Indian Territory, meantime, became
the theatre of guerilla warfare, and its warring factions daily grew
in the fervor of their mutual hatred.
68 Texas Historical Association Quarterly.
At the close of the war the United States became anxious to
define their authority and to readjust Indian reservations con-
formably with plans to promote western emigration of citizens from
the States. In pursuance of this purpose, delegates from all the
tribes were summoned to meet in council at Fort Smith, and
although no definite treaty resulted from this meeting, it afforded
the commissioners an opportunity to submit the demands of the
United States government for the preservation of peace and public
order. It also enabled them to denounce John Eoss as a public
disturber, and degrade him from his chieftaincy; and it further
afforded them the personal conference necessary to give adequate
instructions to the two Cherokee factions for the submission of
their grievances to the general government. For the purposes of
this last object, representatives of the Federal and Confederate ele-
ments of the Nation repaired early in 1866 to Washington, where
for several months their cause was judicially considered, though
the court failed to effect the reunion so ardently desired by the
goverment. In consequence separate treaties were negotiated with
the hostile sections. In June that with the Southern Cherokees
was concluded, by which a certain portion of the reservation was
set apart for their exclusive use and subject to their exclusive juris-
diction. In July that with the Northern Cherokees was made, and
inasmuch as they were in the majority, and in undisputed posses-
sion of the machinery of government, the treaty with them was
made binding on the whole Nation. It provided by its terms for
the establishment of a Federal court and one or more military posts
in the Nation, also a general inter-tribal council; it authorized,
under certain conditions, the settlement of other tribes in the Na-
tion; it ceded to the United States in trust its "neutral" land and
its "Cherokee strip," to be sold for the benefit of the Nation; it
provided a right of way through the Nation from north to south
and one from east to west for the construction of railroads; and it
guaranteed the Cherokees in the peacable possession of their lands,
in the enjoyment of their domestic institutions, and against the
unauthorized intrusions of white men. Two years later a supple-
mental article to this treaty was confirmed, whereby was ratified
the sale of the "neutral land" made by the United States. Four
years after t^his the government began the sale, in limited parcels,
of the "Cherokee strip."
The Cherokee Nation of Indians. 69
About the time of the prochimation of the treaty of '66, the Sec-
retary of the Interior reeomuieuded to the commissioners to restore
John Eoss to the chieftaincy from which they had removed him.
T'he old leader, however, had passed beyond the clemency of his
Judges; he lay stricken with a mortal sickness, and died within a
few days at Washington, at the advanced age of seventy-six years.
He was of Scotch-Indian parentage, and his character was strongly
marked with the thrift of one side, the cunning of the other, and
the persistency of both. Though only a half-breed, he was always
the champion of the full-blooded Cherokees in any conflict between
them and their brethren of mixed descent. His career, though not
altogether an admirable one, was, throughout its course, singularly
remarkable.
By virtue of a provision in the treaty of '66, a body of Delawares
and a fragmentary band of Munsees, also about eight hundred
Shawnees, were assigned homes in the Cherokee domain, and were
merged into the great family tribe of the Cherokees. The Osages,
the Kaws, the Pawnees, the Poncas, the Otoes, and the Missourias,
also acquired homestead tracts in the Cherokee reservation, but
they still preserved their tribal independence and identity. This
infusion of a neAV strain into the national life of the Cherokees
seemed to bring together the fragments of this broken people. A
season of peace blessed their unhappy dwellings, and' abundant
harvests rewarded their reluctant toil. Two years of sudh content-
ment served to soften the asperities that had so long divided them,
and to cover their past with a healing oblivion.
Under another provision of this treaty of '66, the Congress of
the United States, by grants of lands and privileges, secured the
construction of two important railroads through the Indian Terri-
tory. Both opened vast regions to civilization, and peopled them
with a multitude of its pioneers. Many of these did not go beyond
the Cherokee lands, and so great was their number, and so largely
augmented by other alien residents and by the irruption of negro
freedmen, that the Cherokees, realizing their feeble minority and
the danger that threatened their power, enacted laws that limited
the privileges of citizenslhip to their own unmixed people, and that
provided for the removal of all others beyond their borders. These
acts were resisted, not only by the sufferers under them, but by the
United States government, whose authority was thereby superseded,
70 Texas Historical Association Quarterly.
in violation of treaty engagements. In consequence, an order was
promulgated, forbidding the removal of aliens unless by judicial
process after due trial and approval by the Department of the In-
terior. The haTsh procedure proposed by the Nation's legislative
council was thus averted, but for ten years the questions involved
provoked angry and unending conferences between the Federal gov-
ernment and the Nation, and kept the threatened classes in per-
petual fear of physical harm or of ultimate eviction from their
homes.
The United States government sought to remedy these evils,
which, it was thought, resulted from the system of holding the en-
tire Indian domain in a single unbroken tribal tract. Provision was,
therefore, made, under act of February 8, 1887, for the allotment
of lands in severalty to Indians on the different reservations. Four
years later, part of the cause of the irritation was removed by the
retrocession to the United States of the six million acre tract
known as the "Cherokee Outlet" and the enrichment of the Chero-
kee treasury by a deposit of eight million dollars to its credit.
By act of March 3. 1893, Congress, among other measures of
relief, made provision for the training school of the Cherokee set-
tlement in North Carolina — the last remnant of the Nation east of
the Mississippi. By the same act the system of land allotments al-
ready inaugurated was further strengthened and promoted. To
this end the President was directed to appoint three commissioners
to negotiate with the Five Civilized Tribes, of which the Cherokee
Nation is one, for the surrender of tribal title to all lands in the
Territory, either by cession to the United States, or by allotment
in severalty among the Indians, or by other equitable means to be
agreed on — this extinguishment of title to be the precursor of the
creation of one or more States out of the lands so taken from the
national domain. The agency created under this law is known as
the Dawes Commission, so called from the name of its chairman.
It has been perpetuated and its powers enlarged by subsequent acts,
the last of which abolishes tribal courts in the Territory, substitut-
ing Federal courts in their stead, and gives to the President the
veto power over all acts of tribal councils. Thus despoiled of a
Nation's vital functions, but little remains to be done to complete
the destruction of tribal autonomy; thtit little may be safely predi-
The Cherokee Nation of Indians. 71
cated of the policy that has thus far directed the counsels and the
conduct of the government.
The Dawes Commission has reported its inability to effect the
submission of the tribes, and it particularly mentions the Ohero-
kees as inflexible in their opposition to any agreement that con-
templates the final act of tribal disintegration. The chairman is of
opinion that the only remedy for the "evils that afflict these peo-
ple" lies in the division and allotment of their public domain
among the individuals of the several tribes. The Secretary of the
Interior, in his report, presents a gloomy array of vicious results
growing out of the Indians' methods of administering the public
business, and he concludes his seardhing arraignment by recom-
mending the total extinction of tribal government in the Territory
and the substitution of a system by which the Indians will become
United States citizens and be governed by United States laws. The
President, in his message to Congress, fully accepts the Secretary's
eonelusions, and adds that the conditions of Indian life have so
changed that their system of government has become "practically
impossible," and that the evils resulting from the perversion of
the great trusts confided to them can only be cured "by the re-
sumption of control by the government which created them."
It does not require any remarkable perspicacity to perceive that
history is about to close its brief page of the Cherokees as a ISTation.
Their broad fields and the boundless desire of their neighbors to
possess them is hastening this consummation. The most universal
passion in the breast of man seems to be an immortal longing after
the soil from which 'he sprung, whether continent, island, or vine-
yard. From the day he was expelled from the garden he has wanted
a paramount estate — a paradise of his own. To that end all his
aspirations have pointed, and, whether Israelite, Goth, or Anglo-
Saxon, his mania has ever been the conquest and possession of the
earth. He may be honest in all that concerns the money and the
movables of another, he may be sinless of even the desirt for the
personalty of his neighbor, but, alas, the allodium of his brother
puts too great a strain upon his virtue; 'his nature breaks down
under the temptation. And thus it is that the spacious and fertile
acres of the Cherokees are destined, through the devices of the
white man, to pass into other hands.
72 Texas Historical Association Quarterly.
The Nation now numbers about twenty eight thousand souls,
consisting of pure and mixed-blood Cherokees, of whites who have
intermarried with them, of other tribes absorbed by them, and of
negroes who, though socially distinct, have acquired civil rights
under their government. Although so composite in character, this
people has, for j^ears, been daily becoming more homogeneous in all
that appertains to its national life.
Notwithstanding the faults, the failures, and the infirmities of
the Cherokee Nation, it may be said to have achieved a splendid
victory over the calamities that have, for a hundred years, deci-
mated its numbers and imperiled its life; and history will record
that the Cherokee, in his individual progress, has demonstrated
"the capability of the American Indian, under favorable conditions,
to realize in a high degree the ^possibilities of Anglo-Saxon civili-
zation."
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