USA > Georgia > A standard history of Georgia and Georgians > Part 71
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CHAPTER XV
GOVERNOR GILMER'S ADMINISTRATION WITNESSES A DRAMATIC SPECTACLE ON THE CHEROKEE BORDER-THE DISCOVERY OF GOLD CAUSES A RUSH OF POPULATION INTO THIS REGION-LAWLESSNESS PREVAILS-THE CHEROKEES-PREHISTORIC MOUNTAINEERS OF THE SOUTHERN APPA- LACHIANS-RAPID GROWTH OF THE NATION-SEQUOYA'S ALPHABET -THE CHEROKEE CONSTITUTION-BUT THE EXTENSION OF JURISDIC- TION OVER THE TERRITORY BLIGHTS THE SPLENDID FUTURE OF THESE INDIANS-THE CHEROKEES APPEAL TO WASHINGTON-PRESIDENT JACKSON, HOWEVER, IS A FRONTIERSMAN-HE FAVORS A REMOVAL OF THE RED MEN TO THE WEST-COMPLIES WITH THE DEMANDS OF GOV- ERNOR GILMER FOR A WITHDRAWAL OF FEDERAL TROOPS FROM THE CHEROKEE BORDER-THE EXECUTION OF GEORGE TASSEL-GOVERNOR GILMER DEFIES THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT-MISSIONARIES ARRESTED IN CHEROKEE GEORGIA-FOUND IN THE TERRITORY WITH- OUT LICENSE-SOME OF THEM FOMENTERS OF STRIFE-WORCESTER AND BUTLER DEFY THE AUTHORITY OF THE STATE AND SUFFER IMPRIS- ONMENT-SEEK REDRESS FROM THE FEDERAL AUTHORITIES-THE OTHER PRISONERS AVAIL THEMSELVES OF THE EXECUTIVE CLEMENCY OFFERED BY GOVERNOR GILMER-WHILE THE CASE IS PENDING, IM- PORTANT EVENTS OCCUR-UNDER THE CENSUS OF 1830 GEORGIA GAINS A NEW CONGRESSMAN-NINE CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICTS-MEMBERS OF CONGRESS DURING THIS PERIOD-TWO NEW COUNTIES CREATED- RANDOLPH AND SUMTER-THE GEORGIA MEDICAL COLLEGE AT AUGUSTA Is CHARTERED.
Governor Gilmer's administration witnessed a dramatic spectacle on the Cherokee border. The law enacted on December 20, 1828, was not to go into effect for eighteen months. Its validity even then might be questioned, since the Cherokees held these lands by an ancient title if not by a divine right; and there was hardly an acre of ground among these mountains which was not consecrated to them by the bones of dead ancestors. Certainly these lands were sacred to the Cherokees for eighteen months. But men whose veins are fired by the gold fever are seldom disturbed by ethical considerations. The spirit of adven- ture, the promise of untold wealth, the golden spur of fortune, these render them indifferent even to legal barriers; and under the sway of such a maddening impulse men will risk life, defy danger, commit crime, all for the promised gold of an elusive El Dorado.
But let us trace briefly the circumstances leading up to this climax.
The Cherokees were the prehistoric mountaineers of the Southern Appalachians. According to standard authorities, the name is derived from "Chera," a word signifying "fire." The prophets of the nation
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were ealled "men of fire," in recognition of the divine unetion received by them from the Great Spirit. These Indians at the beginning of the Revolution occupied an area of country embracing 40,000 square miles. It constituted a great forest empire, extending from the Blue Ridge on the east to the Cumberland range on the west, and from the Ohio on the north to the Georgia and Alabama midlands on the south. Most of the Cherokee towns, however, at this early time were in the rich valley lands of what is now East Tennessee.
Both the Creeks and the Cherokees sided with the British in the struggle for American independence. Consequently, as a result of this struggle, each was forced to relinquish an extended area to the whites. This drove a large number of Cherokees back into the Tennessee val- leys; but some of the more warlike members of the tribe established a group of villages, five in number, under the protecting shadow of Look- ont Mountain, just south of the Georgia line; and these became known in after years as the Chickamauga Towns. Gen. Elijah Clarke led an expedition against these towns soon afterwards, and as a ruse for getting rid of him they promised great eoneessions. The wily fron- tiersman obtained from them a signed agreement which he called a treaty, but its informal character was such that he could not legally enforee its provisions, having failed to have it validated by the proper authorities.
In 1785, under the Treaty of Hopewell, the Cherokees agreed to recognize certain boundary lines, but there was no cession of land within the borders of Georgia. On Holston River in 1791 and at Philadelphia in 1793 the Treaty of Hopewell was confirmed. The Chickamauga Towns continued to give some trouble, but after 1795 few of the Cherokees were seriously inclined to war. Those who pre- ferred a savage life in the wilderness moved further to the West, but the bulk of the tribe chose rather to emulate the whites. For twenty years there was no disturbance of the Cherokees. This was due largely to the fact that the rich lands of the Creeks in Middle Georgia were better adapted to agrienlture and were less remote from the white settlements. Consequently, these Creek lands were the first eoveted.
At one time most of Cherokee Georgia was occupied by Creek Indians, a faet memorialized in a host of names which are manifestly of Creek origin; but, to quote an old tradition, the Creeks, having wagered a large strip of land on the issue of a game of ball, lost this strip as a result of the contest. Just when the boundary line between the two tribes was altered is not a matter of authentic record, but the strip in question is supposed to have ineluded the present areas of Cobb, Panlding and Polk counties.
When Jefferson was President he suggested an Indian removal, and in 1809 a delegation of Cherokees visited the western lands, at the instance of the Federal Indian agent, Return J. Meigs. There was quite a strong sentiment in favor of migration at this time, but for some reason action was postponed. On July 8, 1817, the Federal anthorities secured a traet of land within the limits of Georgia and induced a number of the Cherokees voluntarily to remove, giving them acre for aere in exchange of lands. Subsequently, in 1819, an additional strip was acquired; but most of the soil vacated by the Cherokees lay in
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East Tennessee. Under the treaties both of 1817 and of 1819, the head of any Cherokee family living in the ceded territory might, at his option, remain in possession of his home, together with 640 acres of land, to descend in fee simple to his heirs. But Georgia objected most strenuously to these provisions and gradually within the next few years all of the Cherokee family holdings in these ceded districts were purchased.
Negotiations dragged until 1823 when George M. Troup came to the governorship. At this time an effort was made by President Monroe to negotiate a cession of land. Messrs. Duncan G. Campbell and James Meriwether were appointed commissioners to visit the Cherokee nation with this purpose in view, but the Indians stubbornly refused to cede an acre of ground. Later, as we have seen, a delegation of Cherokees was sent to Washington to register a solemn protest against any move- ment seeking to dispossess the nation. President Monroe received this delegation with a diplomatic courtesy, the like of which was paid only to sovereign powers.
At this time the eyes of the world were opened for the first time to the wonderful progress achieved by the Cherokee Indians of Georgia in the arts of civilization. Composing this delegation, there were four Indian half-breeds: John Ross, Major Ridge, George Lowrey and Elijah Hicks. These men were the very flower of the Cherokee nation, eloquent of speech, bold in action, self-possessed in manner, unawed even in the presence of the nation's supreme ruler. So impressed was President Monroe with this visit that in a message to Congress he refused to acknowledge any binding obligation resting upon the Fed- eral Government to remove the Cherokee Indians.
Thus encouraged, the deputation returned home. The capital of the Southern Cherokees was at this time located at New Echota, in what is now Gordon County, at the confluence of the Connesauga and Coosawattee rivers. According to a census taken in 1825 the nation's population was shown to be 13,563 Indians, 1,277 negro slaves, and 220 whites. Some time in the '20s, a Cherokee half-breed, Sequoya, having invented an alphabet, there was set up at New Echota a printing press from which a newspaper was published. In a subsequent chapter this wonderful Cherokee alphabet will be discussed at some length. Such was the stimulating effect of Sequoya's invention that steps were taken to formulate a written constitution. The spirit of national self-con- sciousness and of national independence was also aroused to an un- wonted degree. On July 26, 1827, the Cherokees in convention assem- bled, formally adopted a constitution. This instrument provided for a representative form of government, similar in character to that of the United States. It also asserted that the Cherokee nation constituted one of the sovereign and independent nations of the earth. To the high-sounding phraseology of this contention, Governor Forsyth entered an emphatic demurrer. He could not conceive of such a nation existing within the borders of Georgia-itself a sovereign and independent com- monwealth of the American Union. Governor Gilmer, advancing a step further, urged the passage of a law extending the state's jurisdiction over all the Indian lands within its territorial borders. The Legisla- ture passed this act on December 20, 1828, though its provisions were
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not to go into effect until June 1, 1830. But, in the meantime, gold had been discovered on Duke's Creek and in the neighborhood of Dahlonega. Then followed a rush of adventurous argonants into the forbidden land of the Cherokees. It is estimated that by the summer of 1830 there were at least 3,000 whites from various states digging gold at the sources of the Chattahoochee. To quote Mr. Phillips: * "The intrusion of these miners into the Cherokee territory was unlawful under the enact- ments of three several governments, each claiming jurisdiction over the region. The United States laws forbade any one settling or trading on Indian territory without a special license from the proper United States official; the State of Georgia had extended its laws over the Cherokee lands, applying them after June 1, 1830, to Indians as well as white men; and the Cherokee nation had passed a law that no one should settle or trade on their lands without a permit from their officials."
Such was the impetuosity of this mad rush to the gold mines that all of these governments combined did not possess police power requi- site to deal with the situation. However, Governor Gilmer was bent upon maintaining Georgia's sovereignty upon her own soil. Accord- ingly, when the new law went into effect, he addressed a letter to President Jackson, telling him that Georgia had extended her jurisdic- tion over the Cherokee lands and asking him to withdraw the Federal troops from this quarter.
General Jackson had been an Indian fighter. Consequently, his point of view was entirely different from his predecessor's and he did not hesitate to reverse the policy of President Adams. Without a mo- ment's delay, therefore, he complied with Governor Gilmer's request. It was at the instance of Judge Augustin S. Clayton that Governor Gilmer wrote this letter to President Jackson asking for a withdrawal of the Federal troops. Judge Clayton's circuit-the western-included a large part of the Cherokee domain. Nine citizens of Hall County had been brought before him by United States officers for trespassing on the Cherokee lands; and he did not feel like branding as criminals men whose only offense was that they had gone upon Georgia's soil. He, therefore, addressed a communication to Governor Gilmer, on June 20, 1830, urging that he ask for a withdrawal of the troops. Hence the governor's letter to President Jackson.
At a special session of the Legislature called in October, 1830, addi- tional laws were passed for regulating the gold region. To prevent disorder at the mines a guard of sixty men was provided under an act of December 22, 1830. At the same time it was made unlawful for any Cherokee council or legislature to meet, except for the sole purpose of ceding land; and if any Cherokee official undertook to hold court, he was to be punished by imprisonment for four years. Moreover, any white person found in the Cherokee nation, after March 31, 1831, with- out a license from the proper authorities, was to be deemed guilty of a high misdemeanor, and imprisonment in the penitentiary for four years was the penalty attached to such a violation of the Georgia laws. To procure a license it was necessary to take an oath of allegiance to the State of Georgia.
* "Georgia and State Rights," U. B. Phillips, pp. 72-73.
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But we are moving too rapidly forward. Crimes were of frequent occurrence on the Indian lands and to check these lawless deeds an act was passed by the Legislature in 1829 in which power was given to the courts of adjacent counties to try all persons charged with com- mitting crimes in the territory of the nation. This explains Judge Clayton's letter to Governor Gilmer. The Cherokees strongly objected to such an assumption of authority, asserting themselves to be an inde- pendent power; and they even went so far as to retain one of the most distinguished lawyers of his day to represent them as counsel: Wil- liam Wirt, of Maryland. Mr. Wirt, in a letter to Governor Gilmer, of June 4, 1830, suggested that the Supreme Court of the United States be asked to arbitrate the matter; but Governor Gilmer declined to entertain this proposal, which he characterized as disrespectful to the commonwealth. Nevertheless, Mr. Wirt applied to the Supreme Court for an injunction to prevent the execution of the obnoxious Georgia laws.
Meanwhile, the Cherokee country became the center of dramatic scenes. To execute the laws forbidding trespass on the Indian lands, there was need for an effectnal application of force by the state gov- ernment. The miners had defied the officers of the law and the gold-digging had continued. Thereupon Major Wagner, an officer of the United States army, marched into the Cherokee Nation with a com- pany of soldiers from Charleston and Augusta and destroyed the camps, provisions and tools of the gold-diggers. Not a few of the trespassers themselves were arrested, but in lien of imprisonment were taken to the nearest ferry and put across the Chattahoochee River. The Indians likewise were forbidden to mine for gold .*
But an opportunity for testing the new law soon arose. To quote Mr. Phillips: t "Before the motion for injunetion was argued, a case arose which the Cherokees thonght might test the matter. George Tassel, a Cherokee Indian, had been convicted of murder in the Hall County Superior Court, and lay in jail under sentence of death. When a writ of error was carried to the United States Supreme Court, the State of Georgia was cited through its governor, December 12, 1830, to appear and show canse why the writ should not be decided against the state. Governor Gilmer, in a message of December 22, submitted the citation to the Legislature, stating in his own behalf: 'So far as concerns the exceutive department, orders received from the Supreme Court in any manner interfering with the decisions of the courts of this state in the constitutional exercise of their jurisdiction will be dis- regarded, and any attempt to enforce such orders will be resisted with whatever force the laws have placed at my command.' The response of the General Assembly was a resolution requiring the governor to use all his legal power to repel every invasion upon the administration of the criminal laws of the state from whatever quarter. Said this resolution : "The State of Georgia will never so far compromit her sovereignty as an independent state as to become a party to the case songht to be made before the Supreme Court of the United States by
* "History of Georgia," Lawton B. Evans, p. 220.
t "Georgia and State Rights," pp. 75-77.
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the writ in question.' The governor was authorized to send an express to Hall County to have the sheriff execute the laws without fail in the case of Tassel." *
"On the day appointed for the hearing, counsel for the complainant filed a supplementary bill, citing as further grievance of the Cherokees that, in accordance with a resolution of the Georgia Legislature and in defiance of a writ of error allowed by the Chief Justice of the United States, the man called Corn Tassel, or George Tassel, had actually been hanged by the Georgia sheriff; that the Georgia Legislature had passed additional laws of an obnoxious character, providing for a sur- vey preparatory to the disposition of the Cherokee lands, forbidding the exercise of powers under the authority of the Cherokee Indians and their laws, and authorizing the Governor to take possession of all gold mines in the territory; and that the Governor of Georgia had stationed an armed force of Georgians at the mines to enforce Georgia laws. No counsel appeared for the State of Georgia. The opinion of the court, as rendered by Chief Justice Marshall, granted that the counsel for the plaintiffs had established that the Cherokee Nation was a State and had been treated as a State since the settlement of the colonies; but a majority of the court decided that au Indian tribe or nation in the United States was not a foreign State in the sense of the Constitu- tion and could not maintain an action in the courts of the United States. The motion for injunction was therefore denied."
But this decision did not make an end to trouble in the Cherokee Nation. There were a number of missionaries laboring among the In- dians at this time who boldly defied the sovereignty of the state, not only by remaining in the Cherokee Nation without a license, but by making themselves perniciously active in political affairs. These mis- sionaries fomented discontent and dissension among the Indians, and were largely instrumental in creating a sentiment hostile to removal. We will let Mr. Phillips, who has specialized in this particular field of research, give us the particulars. Says Mr. Phillips : t
"There were at this time resident among the Cherokees twelve or more Christian missionaries and assistants, some of them maintained by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. These men were already suspected of interfering in political matters and would probably have been made to feel the weight of the law without inviting attention to themselves, but they did not passively await its action. They held a meeting at New Echota, December 29, 1830, in which they passed resolutions protesting against the extension of the laws of Georgia over the Indians and asserting that they considered the removal of the Cherokees an event most earnestly to be deprecated. # After sufficient time had elapsed for the intruders to have taken their departure, if so disposed, the Georgia guard for the Cherokee territory arrested such white men as were found unlawfully residing therein. Among the number arrested were two missionaries, Messrs. Worcester and Thompson. On writ of habeas corpus, they were taken before the
* "Nile's Register," Vol. 39, pp. 333-339.
+ "Georgia and State Rights, " U. B. Phillips, 79-81.
+ "Georgians," Gilmer, p. 381; "White's Historical Collections," p. 139; the Athenian, January 25, 1831.
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Superior Court of Gwinnett County, where their writ was passed upon by Judge Clayton. Counsel pleaded for their release on the ground of the unconstitutionality of the law of Georgia. The Judge granted their release, but did so on the ground that they were agents of the United States, since they were expending the United States fund for civilizing the Indians. Governor Gilmer then sent inquiries to Washington to learn whether the missionaries were recognized as agents of the Gov- ernment. The reply was received that as missionaries they were not governmental agents, but that Mr. Worcester was United States post- master at New Echota. President Jackson, upon request from Georgia, removed Mr. Worcester from that office, in order to render him amen- able to the laws of the state. The Cherokee Phoenix, the newspaper and organ of the nation, expressed outraged feelings on the part of the Indians at the combination of State and Federal Executives against them.
"The Governor wrote Mr. Worcester, May 16, advising his removal from the State to avoid arrest. May 28, Colonel J. W. A. Sanford, commander of the Georgia Guard, wrote each of the missionaries that at the end of ten days he would arrest them if found upon Cherokee territory in Georgia. Notwithstanding their address to the Governor in justification of their conduct, they were arrested by the guard, the Rev. Samuel A. Worcester, the Rev. Elizur Butler, and the Rev. James Trott, missionaries, and eight other white men, for illegal residence in the territory. Tried at the September term of the Superior Court cf Gwinnett County, they were found guilty and, on September 15, were each sentenced to four years confinement at hard labor in the State penitentiary. But a pardon and freedom were offered to each by the Governor on condition of taking the oath of allegiance or of promising to leave the Cherokee territory. Nine of the prisoners availed them- selves of executive clemency, but Worcester and Butler chose rather to go to the penitentiary, intending to test their case before the Supreme Court .*
"On the occasion of their second arrest the missionaries had been taken into custody by a section of the Georgia Guard, commanded by a subordinate officer, Colonel Nelson. During the journey from the scene of the arrest to the place of temporary confinement the treatment of the prisoners was needlessly rough, extending in the case of Messrs. Worcester and McLeod to positive harshness and violence. These two clergymen complained to the head of their missionary board of having been put in shackles, and other indignities. The State government condemned the severity of the guard, and ordered an inquiry into Nelson's conduct. That officer explained that his course of action had been rendered necessary by the unruly character of the prisoners. The controversy was practically closed by the retort of the Rev. Mr. McLeod that Colonel Nelson's statements were false and his conduct villainous."
More than a year elapsed before the case was finally adjudicated before the Supreme Court of the United States. We must, therefore,
* "White's Collections," p. 140; Georgia Journal, September 29, 1831; "Nile's Register," Vol. 40, p. 296, Vol. 41, p. 176.
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leave for a subsequent chapter the continuation of this account, while we revert in the meantime to other matters. As disclosed by the census of 1830, Georgia's population was over half a million. On this basis Georgia was entitled to nine representatives in Congress, but it was not until 1833 that the new apportionment went into effect. Mean- while, Georgia sent to the Twenty-first Congress (1829-1831), the fol- lowing strong delegation: Thomas F. Foster, Charles E. Haynes, Henry G. Lamar, Wilson Lumpkin, Wiley Thompson, James M. Wayne, and Richard Henry Wilde. Georgia's representatives in the Twenty- second Congress (1831-1833) were as follows: Augustin S. Clayton, Thomas F. Foster, Henry G. Lamar, Daniel Newnan, Wiley Thomp- son, James M. Wayne, and Richard Henry Wilde.
The Legislature of 1831, out of lands taken from Randolph, created a new county to be known as Stewart, in honor of Gen. Daniel Stew- art, of the Revolution, a native of Georgia. At the same time Sumter was detached from Lee and named for Gen. Thomas Sumter of South Carolina.
Georgia's exports of cotton, in 1830, through the port of Savannah, aggregated 250,000 bales. The total value of the state's entire exports, for the same period, was $4,000,000, while her imported articles cost her only $400,000. The Georgia Medical College at Augusta-the state's oldest school of medicine-was incorporated under an act ap- proved December 20, 1828, designating it as the Medical Academy of Georgia. The following names are mentioned in the act as the incorpo- rators of this pioneer institution: William R. Waring, John Carter, Lewis D. Ford, Ignatius P. Garvin, Benjamin A. White, Samuel Boy- kin, William P. MeConnel, Walter H. Weems, William P. Graham, Thomas P. Gorman, Alexander Jones, Milton Anthony, John J. Boswell, Thomas Hoxey, James P. Seriven, William C. Daniel, Richard Banks, Henry Hull, John Dent, Thomas Hamilton, Tomlinson Fort, Nathan Crawford, O. C. Fort, and John Walker .* The founder of this insti- tution was Dr. Milton Anthony, who lies buried within the college en- closure, amid the scenes of his former activities.
* Acts, 1828; pp. 111-112.
CHAPTER XVI
DAHLONEGA-THE CENTER OF GOLD-MINING ACTIVITIES-UNTIL THE DIS- COVERY OF THE YELLOW METAL IN CALIFORNIA, THE RICHEST GOLD MINES OF THE WORLD WERE IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD OF DAHLONEGA- THE NAME OF INDIAN DERIVATION-WHEN THE CHEROKEES ARE RE- MOVED A MINT IS ESTABLISHED AT DAHLONEGA-JOHN C. CALHOUN, OF SOUTH CAROLINA, AN OWNER OF GOLD-MINING PROPERTY IN GEOR- GIA-HOW GOLD WAS FIRST DISCOVERED IN THE NORTH GEORGIA HILLS-THE STORY TOLD BY BENJAMIN PARKS-ACCORDING TO PROFESSOR YEATES, AN EXPRESSION IMMORTALIZED BY MARK TWAIN WAS FIRST USED AT DAHLONEGA-"THERE'S MILLIONS IN IT!"-AN INCIDENT OF GOLD-MINING DAYS IN GEORGIA.
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