USA > Georgia > Floyd County > Rome > A history of Rome and Floyd County, State of Georgia, United States of America; including numerous incidents of more than local interest, 1540-1922, Volume I > Part 10
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** Report of Secretary of War on Cherokee Treaty (1835), ps. 488-9.
*** John Howard's own statement says it was Saturday, Nov. 7, near midnight.
**** The brother estimated 24 miles. Blue Spring, Bradley County, Tenn., where the ar- rest took place, is eight miles north of the Georgia line, and about 40 miles from Spring Place as one would travel by horseback in 1835.
was seized by a party of about 25 of the Georgia Guard, and conducted by them to their headquarters, at about 20 **** miles distant from the place of seizure, where, as I am informed, he is now imprisoned.
Mr. Payne's general object, in a tour through the western and south- ern states, has been partly to obtain subscribers to a periodical work in which English and American writers may meet upon equal ground, and partly to collect such materials for his own contributions to the work as a personal acquaintance with the various peculiarities of our diversified country may supply. To one acquainted with his pacific disposition and exclusive literary habits, the supposition of his entertaining any views politically dan- gerous, either in reference to Georgia or the United States in their respec- tive relations to the Cherokees if it were not accompanied with results pain- ful and perhaps perilous to himself, would seem ludicrous. My informant, a stranger, states that "it is there re- ported that he is considered by the of- ficers of Government to be a spy." Whether by officers of Government is meant those of Georgia or of the Unit- ed States I am not informed. He like- wise states that "Mr. Payne is sup- posed to have had some influence in producing the failure of a late treaty with the Cherokees."
In the present excited state of feel- ing in that section of the country, on subjects connected with the Indian re- moval, there may, perhaps, be serious danger to the personal safety of one coming under suspicions of the char- acter above alluded
to, however groundless.
I take the liberty, I hope not un- warrantable, to request and urge a speedy inquiry into the circumstances of the case, and the use of the means within the province of your depart- ment of the Government to procure his release, if, as will undoubtedly ap- pear upon investigation, he shall be found to have been wrongfully de- tained.
I am, with great respect, your obe- dient servant,
THATCHER T. PAYNE.
Payne himself was making quill and ink fly, to such an extent that Col. Bishop resigned his commis- sion in December. Soon thereafter the Standard of Union threw Bish- op this bouquet :
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Col. Bishop at Home .- After all the abuse that has been heaped upon Col. Bishop as a man and a public officer, the people of Murray have given an additional proof of their confidence in his capacity and integrity to serve them. From the returns of the elec- tion in that county on the first Mon- day in January last (1836), Col. Wm. N. Bishop received for the office of clerk of the superior court 158 votes, and his opponent 12. We are sincere- ly gratified at the support which Col. Bishop has received from his country- men, and hold it as the highest evi- dence of his value as a private citizen and a public officer. Well done, Mur- ray County; you know you are right -go ahead!
As for Georgia, "Never again !" exclaimed the outraged playwright and budding historian in a letter of Dec. 5 from Knoxville to Gen. Harden :*
My Dear Sir: You have no doubt ere this heard of my adventures. I sent you the statement by last post. Have you ever known of a more im- pudent enormity? There has been a public meeting here, spirited and dig- nified. The proceedings will, I hope, be printed at Athens. This example ought to be followed throughout the Union; I hope especially, for these measures offer the only opportunity he has of casting the blame upon the de- linquents who deserve it.
I have no time to write now, but could not allow myself to depart on my way homeward without a card of remembrance. It will perhaps be as well for me not to make my line of march generally known, but I want to go to Hamburg ** because my trunks are all in Augusta, Ga. I shall never enter again without a formal public invitation. I will go to the border and look in .***
It would give me sincere pleasure to find a line from you at the Augusta postoffice.
Mr. Ross and many of the delega- tion are here. Many have made for- mal protest against their mission from Currey, but of this they take no heed.
My way must be made alone and on horseback. should not wonder if these scoundrels made my journey a longer one than I have intended. But no matter if the worst happens-I shall not be the first who has not lived out his time in a free country, and unless
the nation awakens, shall not be the last!
Pray offer my best remembrances to Mrs. Harden, your daughter, son, to Col. Hamilton and family, to Judge Clayton, in short, to all.
From Knoxville, Dec. 2, Payne had written S. L. Fairchild, of Phil- adelphia, Pa. :****
(Private.)
Dear Fairchild :
I write to you in great haste, and enclose the statement of a great wrong I have suffered. I wish you to exert your talent on this affair, not because I have been personally insulted, but because it is only by a strong expres- sion of feeling that any man's liberty can be secured. There is no freedom in America if these things can be tol- erated.
If I reach Charleston, S. C. in safety, I shall be there just in time to have your answer, provided you wish further information. At any rate, it will afford me sincere pleasure to hear of you and your fortunes.
With regards to all at home, and believe me, most truly yours,
JOHN HOWARD PAYNE.
In a communication from Wash- ington on Mar. 3, 1836, to Secre- tary of War Lewis Cass, Mr. Schermerhorn commented as fol- lows on the Payne-Ross af- fair :*****
Permit me also to make a few ob- servations in reference to the arrest of Messrs. John Howard Payne and John Ross by the Georgia Guard, which, I perceive from the public pa- pers, they charge or insinuate was done by the direction of the commis- sioner and agent of the Government.
Although the statements of Mr. Payne in reference to myself were ex- ceedingly unjust and incorrect, I could not condescend to a newspaper con-
*Courtesy of Miss Evelyn Harden Jackson, of Harden Home, Athens, a cousin of Miss Mary Harden and author of an interesting booklet on the love affair between the college beauty and Mr. Payne.
** Hamburg, Aiken County, S. C., across the Savannah river from Augusta.
*** Miss Jackson is authority for the state- ment that Payne came back in 1842 to Athens to "re-press his suit," but that he had no bet- ter success than before.
**** Courtesy of Mr. G. H. Buek, vice-presi- dent of the American Lithographic Co., New York, N. Y., and owner of the old Payne home (and collection) at Easthampton, Long Island. ***** Report of Secretary of War on Chero- kee Treaty (1835), p. 538.
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AFTERMATH OF THE PAYNE-ROSS AFFAIR
troversy with him; therefore, I have passed it by in silence; but lest my silence should be interpreted by some of the members of the Senate, as I find it has been by some others, as a tacit acknowledgement of the truth of his statement, I now say that I had no knowledge or agency, directly or indirectly, in this matter.
The first information I received on this subject was through the Geor- gia newspapers, while I was at Tusca- loosa, Ala .; and immediately on hear- ing it I left there, to use my best en- deavors to obtain their release, and I arrived at the agency only a few days after Mr. Payne had been liberated. It was owing to my interference that Mr. Ross was not taken by the Geor- gia Guard last July,* for some vio- lations of the laws of that State.
I must, however, say that it is evi- dent from Mr. Payne's own state- ments, which he has given to the pub- lic, that he did interfere at Red Clay in a very improper and unwarrantable manner with the negotiations then pending between the Government and the Cherokee Indians, and I should have been perfectly justifiable to have had him arrested and removed from the treaty ground; and if I had known what he has since disclosed of the part he acted there, I should have done it.
A Legislative committee severe- ly scored the Guard :**
The committee to whom were refer- red the several communications of His Excellency, the Governor, on the sub- ject of the establishment of the Geor- gia Guard in the Cherokee Circuit, have had the same under considera- tion, and beg leave to make the follow- ing report:
. Your Committee beg to proceed .
now to the further discharge of their duty, by enquiring, first, as to the con- duct of the Guard in the recent arrest and detention of John Howard Payne.
. Your Committee greatly regret that they have not all the facts in such a shape that implicit credit might be given to them. They are compell- ed then, in the investigation of this branch of the subject, to discard all the contradictory statements found in newspapers, and to decide only from such facts as have been legitimately brought before them, in the commu- nications of the Governor.
It is, however, admitted on all hands
that the recent arrest of Mr. Payne was made in the State of Tennessee. Your Committee conceives that the Guard transcended their power in crossing the line of the State of Geor- gia to arrest an individual out of the limits of this State. And your Com- mittee believes that it was an act of which the sovereign State of Tennes- see has just right of complaint against the authorities of Georgia. The only testimony before your Committee rel- ative to the arrest of Mr. Payne will be found in the communication of His Excellency, William Schley, of the 10th instant. It appears then to your Committee that the Georgia Guard, in the recent arrest of John Howard Payne, trampled under foot the Con- stitution of the United States. . .. How long he was kept under guard before the arrival of Col. Bishop at Spring Place your Committee are uninform- ed. . . . But the commander of the Guard says, after examining his pa- pers, and finding him guilty of no offense for which he was answerable in our courts, I, the commander of the Guard, kept him in custody a few days and then discharged him.
Your Committee would ask with feelings of mortification, why he was kept in custody one minute beyond the time when it was ascertained he had committed no offense. Was it to pun- ish him for his indiscreet statements in relation to the Georgia Guard? Per- haps so. But in so doing the Guard have violated every principle of the Constitution, which guarantees liberty and equal rights to the citizens of this country. They have jeopardized the character and reputation of the state of Georgia abroad, by this act of wanton and uncalled for vandalism, and will bring down upon the people of the State the inevitable and odious charge of inhospitality and cruelty to the stranger. .
Resolved, That the Legislature high- ly disapproves of the conduct of the Georgia Guard in the recent arrest and confinement of John Howard Payne in the Cherokee Nation.
The pro-administration press sounded a different note on the in- cident. A Nashville Banner view proved good enough for the Geor- gia Telegraph (Macon) of Thurs- day, Dec. 24, 1835, and The Tele- graph reprinted it verbatim :
Mr. John Howard Payne, who, to- gether with John Ross, the Cherokee
*Concurrently with the pow-wow near Rome. ** House Journal (1835), ps. 427-433.
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chief, was lately seized at the house of the latter by the Georgia Guard, has availed himself of the occasion to in- flict upon the public eight mortal col- umns of the dullest, most fatiguing narrative it was ever our fortune to encounter. A concise statement of the principal facts connected with the out- rage, if given in about half a column of an ordinary newspaper, would have been read with interest; but to wade through this mass of verbiage merely to learn that Messrs. Ross and Payne were seized by a party of desperadoes, called the Georgia Guard, carried over the Georgia line, kept under duress for a day or two and then released, would be paying quite too much for the whistle.
If Mr. Payne succeeds in making his intended "literary periodical" as uninteresting as he has this account of his capture, it will certainly be a remarkable work!
Governor Lumpkin's explanation admitted the illegality of the seiz- ure, but gave Payne very much of a left-handed vindication :*
It was while these efforts were mak- ing to induce the Cherokees to emi- grate that the literary pursuits of the celebrated John Howard Payne led him to visit the Cherokee people and country. He was known to be strong- ly opposed to the views of the Gov- ernment in regard to Indian emigra- tion and this led to his arrest by Col. Bishop, the State's agent. The arrest was both premature and illegal, but the impertinent intermeddling of Payne was very unbecoming a stranger, a
MásE.
"BIG JOHN" UNDERWOOD, Rome grocer, who was one of the Georgia Guard detail which arrested Payne.
gentleman, or an author professedly collecting facts for history. He was the partisan, if not the agent, of North- ern fanatics, whose avocation is to re- pent for the sins of everybody except themselves.
The charge made by Payne that President Jackson (through his agents) had offered Ross a bribe stirred Washington as much as the arrest itself .** This charge was carried in an anonymous commu- nication printed by several news- papers in the "Payne Free-Serv- ice Syndicate," and is believed to have been played up especially by the Knoxville Register, with whose editor Payne's liaison was com- plete .*** The sum and substance was that Ross could have had $50,000 if lie had stood out of the way of the Cherokee removal; a Creek chief is said to have offered it to him, and to have been ordered from the wrathy presence of Ross.
Here is the anonymous communi- cation attributed to Payne. It was undoubtedly written from the Red Clay Council ground in Whitfield County, one day before the council convened with Payne prominently present :
**** Cherokee Nation, Tennessee Border, Sunday, Oct. 11, 1835.
Sir: I am no politician. Of this you are aware. I generally avoid, if possible, even thinking upon what are called political questions. Their dis- cussion is apt forthwith to become personal, and instead of eliciting truth, to produce brawls. But there are points of policy upon which we are sometimes forced to think; and when we are called upon to detest the Mus- sulman for his tyranny over the Greek, and to pity the exile from what once was Poland, we are at a loss to be- lieve that there are scenes passing in our free country at this very moment,
*Removal of the Cherokee Indians from Geor- gia (Lumpkin), Vol. 2, p. 265.
** Authorities : Letter of Apr. 16, 1836, Major Currey to Elbert Herring, Commissioner of In- dian Affairs, and Exhibit 14 as inclosure of same, both included in Report of Secretary of War on Cherokee Treaty (1835), ps. 549-590. *** Payne asserted it was never published, but Maj. Currey's report to Jackson claimed The Register editor used it anonymously.
**** Exhibit 14 of Currey inclosures.
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to which both the Turk and the Rus- sian might triumphantly appeal, for a sanetion to the despotism at which all have shuddered. Shall I tell you what they are?
In travelling through Georgia I, of course, heard frequent mention of the Cherokees; but I took little heed of what I heard. I considered the Cher- okees as they had been represented, as but the miserable remnant of a broken race, given up to all sorts of degradation; and I thought the sooner they could be transported beyond the bounds of civilization, the better for the world. Accident, however, brought me to some very different views of the question. I inquired more thoroughly. I determined to judge them with my own eyes. I purchased a horse, trav- ersed the forests alone and went among them.
Still I was perplexed. I was desir- ous of seeing the head men of the na- tion; I was particularly desirous of seeing John Ross. Some Georgian told me I ought not to see him, that he was a selfish, and a sordid, and a si- lent man, in whom I should take no interest, from whom I should obtain no information. At one moment I had turned aside from my purpose, and was proceeding homeward. But I felt as if my errand would be a fruitless one if I went away. So, little instruct- ed, I changed my course, and travelled the wilderness for three days to the abode of Mr. Ross.
I found Mr. Ross a different man in every respect from what I had heard him represented to be. His person is of the middle size, rather under than over; his age is about five and forty; he is mild, intelligent and entirely un- affected. I told him my object. He received me with cordiality. He said he regretted than he had only a log cabin of but one room to invite me to, but he would make no apologies. If I could put up with rough fare, he should be glad if I would stay with him.
From a visitor I afterwards learn-
* Fourth Ward, site of Rome.
** Lavender or Alto.
*** About 10 o'clock, according to Ross.
**** Silas and Geo. W. Ross were undoubtedly born at Rome, and an infant died there and was buried on the lot, as was Daniel Ross, father of John.
***** Land Lot 237, Twenty-third, District Third Section (160 acres) was drawn by Hugh Brown, of Deavour's District, Habersham Co., Ga. The office of the Secretary of State, the Capitol, Atlanta, has the date Nov. 11, 1835. Most of the lottery drawings were held in Oc- tober, 1832. Land lot 244 was drawn by Stephen Carter, of Robinson's District, Fayette County. (The Cherokee Land Lottery, p. 288).
ed how the principal chief happened to live in such discomfort. The story con- tains the story at this moment of the whole nation. Last winter he was delegated with others to Washington, in order to attempt a treaty upon available terms-such terms as his people would accept. He could not obtain such. It was evening when he had arrived, on his returning way, within twenty miles of the dwelling he had left, then a beautiful abode at the head of Coosa*, upon a rising ground, overlooking a luxuriant plain below, and rivers running through it, and in the distance a noble mountain .** A friend desired him to remain all night. No, he was approaching home after a long absence; he was impatient to see his family. He hurried on. In the dead of night *** he aroused the house; strange voices answered him. His fam- ily had just been turned from the spot where his children were eradled .**** and it was occupied by a Georgian. The land was drawn in the Georgia lottery, and though not claim- able until the Indians should be remov- ed by treaty, was seized in his absence to petition Congress for his country- seized under the delusion of that way- ward and selfish policy which has led Georgia to defy the General Govern- ment and all its solemn pledges to pro- tect the Indians and vindicate its honor, in not swerving from its treat- ies.
It was this hard conduct which had driven the principal chief to one of the humblest dwellings in his nation. But he made no complaint, even after I had grown familiar with him. I learned this wrong from other lips.
Some of your readers may have glanced, but lightly, as I did, at the real position of the Cherokee case. Though so often and so eloquently stated, I will recapitulate it in brief; disputes between the General Govern- ment and Georgia were a long time ago compromised by an arrangement for certain advantages for Georgia, in re- turn for advantages given by her to the General Government; and as a part of the compensation from the Govern- ment, Georgia was to receive the Cherokee lands, as soon as the Indian title could be peaceably extinguished, and upon reasonable terms. But the Cherokees are proverbial, and have been so for ages, for a peculiar devot- edness to their native soil.
"The Cherokees, in their disposition and manners, are grave and steady; dignified and circumspect in their de-
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portment; rather slow and reserved in their conversation, yet frank, cheerful and humane; "tenacious of the liber- ties and natural rights of man; secret, deliberate and determined in their councils; honest, just and liberal, and ready always to sacrifice every pleas- ure and gratification, even their blood and life itself, to defend their terri- tory and maintain their rights."-Bar- ham's* Travels, 1791, London Edi- tion, Page 483.
"It may be remarked that the Cher- okees differ in some respects from other Indian nations that have wan- dered from place to place and fixed their habitations in separate districts. From time immemorial they have had possession of the same territory, which at present they occupy. They affirm that their forefathers sprung from that ground, or descended from the clouds upon those hills. These lands of their ancestors they value above all things in the world; they venerate the places where their bones lie interred, and esteem it disgraceful in the high- est degree to relinquish these sacred repositories. The man who would re- fuse to take the field in defense of these hereditary possessions is regard- ed by them as a coward and treated as an outeast from their nation."- Historical account of the rise and progress of South Carolina and Geor- gia, Vol. II, 201, London, 1777.
This was known to the Georgians. This has been felt by the General Gov- ernment in the extreme difficulty which it has experienced in the at- tempt to persuade the Cherokees to part with their lands. Millions after millions of acres were reluctantly wrung from them, until at length they came to a pause: "We have not lands enough," exclaimed they, "for ourselves; we part with no more land!" A Creek chief endeavored to tamper with their councils and offered a bribe from the United States of many thousand dollars to their principal men, if they would countenance the sale of the country to our Government; but their principal men repelled the bribe, and drove the Creek from their terri- tory with seorn.
Threats and gold and persecution and sufferings unprecedented have been equally incapable of overpower- ing their sacred love for the wild wood of their birth and the resting place of their ancestors. Other Indians have been lured away, but the Chero- kee remains inflexible. And when the Georgian asks, "Shall savages infest
our borders thus?" the Cherokee an- swers him, "Do we not read; have we not schools, churches, manufactures; have we not laws, letters, a constitu- tion; and do you call us savages?"
The Georgian can only reply by pointing to a troop of border cavalry whose appearance reminds one of ban- ditti more than of soldiers, and ex- claiming "dare prate to us and these men's muskets shall be our spokes- men !"
And true enough it is that they are not savages. Never has a tribe of the aborigines made such advances in civ- ilization. They have even produced among themselves an alphabet and let- ters of a fashion entirely original, and they have books among them printed with their own letters in their own language, and with this alphabet they daily communicate from one end of the nation to the other; they clothe themselves in stuffs of their own man- ufacture; they have made roads, bridges, established a seat of Govern- ment. But Georgia has hated them the more because of their civilization; she has made it treason for them to keep up their courts and councils and laws; she has broken down their turn- pikes and bridges, and denies them the right of appearing to testify in her courts against any insult or injury they may receive. They have conse- quently removed their seat of internal government beyond her borders to the corner of another State, ** and the de- crees issued thence are obeyed with rev- erence even by the offender, who knows if he were to resist, he would be upheld by the stronger power, to which he never will appeal, because he re- gards it as the irreconcilable foe of his country.
This state of things has convinced all parties of the necessity for a set- tlement of the question, by the re- moval of the Cherokees from the neigh- borhood of those whose interests will not let them understand the Cherokee rights. The Cherokees themselves at length acknowledge that it is better for them to remove. "But let us not remove," say they, "till we can be assured of a kindlier dwelling place. The Government of America has given us no reason to confide in its power to protect us against Georgia, and therefore, we must remove, for if we do not, we must perish. If we do re-
*Bartram's.
** Reference is to Tennessee, but the capital after New Echota was wherever John Ross happened to be.
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AFTERMATH OF THE PAYNE-ROSS AFFAIR
move, then let us remove not only from the country where we are wronged, but from the Government where we can not get our rights."
The United States, on the other hand, wish the Cherokees to go to a country of their selection; they wish the Cherokees to sell their own coun- try (in which the United States are solemnly pledged to protect them, un- til they choose to select) upon such terms as the United States think fit to offer.
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