USA > Georgia > Georgia's landmarks, memorials and legends, Volume I > Part 13
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February 7, 1825, the head men of the nation were called to meet with commissioners from the United States gov- ernment. These were Duncan G. Campbell and James Meriwether, both Georgians. In response to the call there assembled a large gathering of warriors, to whom the commissioners explained the object of the meeting.
Judge Lumpkin thus narrates what followed: "O- poth-le-yoholo, as speaker of the nation, on behalf of Big Warrior, head chief, made an impassioned speech in reply to the commissioners, declaring that no treaty could be made for a cession of the lands, and inviting them to meet at Broken Arrow (the seat of the general council) three months later. He and his followers then went home. On February 12th a treaty was signed by the McIntosh party, dealing, however, only with the lands in Georgia. The government agent for Indian affairs witnessed the treaty and attested it, but the very next day wrote to the Secretary of War a letter severely criticising it. Charges were freely made that he was actuated by per- sonal and political hostility to Governor Troup. Never- theless, the treaty was ratified. It provided for an ex- change of the remaining Creek lands in Georgia for a like quantity of land of equal quality west of the Miss- issippi river, and that the time of the removal of the Indians should not 'extend beyond the first of September of the next year.' Great excitement arose among the Indians opposed to the treaty, and it was declared by them to be void, on the ground that McIntosh and his followers had no authority to make it. Charges and counter-charges were made. McIntosh and his party, were threatened with death.
"As soon as the treaty was ratified, Governor Troup wrote a letter to McIntosh, as head chief of the Cowetas, asking permission to survey the ceded territory. McIn- tosh summoned his chiefs, and permission was given to make the survey. The Indians who opposed the sale were greatly enraged. A general council condemned Mc- Intosh to death. A body of men undertook to carry out
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the sentence. They went to his house, in what is now Carroll county, and about three o'clock in the morning of April 30 (or some say May 1) 1825, set fire to it. They shot him and another Indian (though he defended him- self as best he could), and dragged him and his comrade out and scalped them. The scalp of McIntosh was sus- pended on a pole in a public square of Ocfuskee. They also killed his son-in-law Hawkins.
"Feeling ran high. The legislature ordered the survey of the ceded territory to proceed. John Quincy Adams, who had become President, directed Governor Troup to stop the survey, because of the hostile attitude of the Indians. Governor Troup refused, declaring that 'Geor- gia owned the soil, and had the right to survey it.' " The President threatened to have the surveyors arrested, but the Governor ordered them to proceed, indicating a pur- pose to protect them from interference. Finally the President proposed to refer the treaty to Congress, and the survey was suspended, not as admitting any right of the President or Congress to stop it, but as a matter of comity, as Governor Troup said.
"In 1826 the Federal Government, desiring to pacify the Indians, entered into a treaty with thirteen chiefs of the Creek nation, declaring the treaty of 1825 canceled, and making a new treaty, the result of which was to leave in possession of the Indians a large tract of the land (amounting to about 300,000 acres) which had been ceded under the treaty of 1825, postponing the giving up of possession of the lands ceded, and allowing twenty-four months for the removal of the Indians. The representa- tives in Congress from Georgia entered a protest, and Governor Troup refused to recognize the new treaty, and ordered the surveyors to proceed. He declared that the vested rights of Georgia could not be thus taken from her. The Indians complained. Correspondence followed, and finally the Secretary of War informed the Governor that
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the surveyors must be kept off the lands, and threatened that, if the Governor refused to stop them, military force would be used. This brought from the doughty Governor a vigorous answer, in which he said: 'From the first decisive act of hostility, you will be considered as a public enemy, and with less repugnance, because you, to whom we might constitutionally have appealed for protection against invasion are yourselves the invaders, and, what is more, the unblushing allies of savages whose cause you have adopted.' Strong words from a Governor to a Secretary of War. But that was not all. The Governor promptly ordered the Generals of the Sixth and Seventh Divisions of the Georgia militia to hold these commands in readiness to repel any invasion of the State. Matters were reaching an acute stage when Congress was guided by conservative counsels and recommended the acquire- ment of all the lands held by the Creeks in Georgia. The chiefs and the head men agreed. Whereupon the Creeks were paid about $28,000 in money and given a lot of blankets; and it was agreed that certain sums should be expended for schools. Thus was the danger of an armed clash between Georgia and the United States averted."
To the foregoing summary of facts by Judge Lump- kin, it may be added that two officers of the United States government were dispatched to Georgia by the Federal authorities in Washington: Major T. P. Andrews, to inquire into the charges made against Crowell; and General Edmund P. Gaines, to represent the military arm of the administration. Both came with precon- ceived opinions and proceeded to work hand in glove with the Indian agent. But Governor Troup was not intimidated. It was in the controversy which ensued that Georgia's rock-ribbed chief-magistrate sounded the famous note of defiance: "The argument is exhausted. We must stand by our arms!" The final treaty to which
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Judge Lumpkin refers was concluded at the old Agency on the Flint, where, on November 15, 1827, the disaffec- ted Upper Creeks, for the sum of $27,491, agreed to relinquish the remaining Creek lands within the State limits. Eighty-four chiefs and head men were parties to this surrender. John Cromwell and Thomas L. Mckinney signed the compact on behalf of the United States govern- ment; and one of the most dramatic chapters in the history of Georgia was brought to an end. Out of the land acquired by the State, under the treaty of Indian Springs, which in the last analysis proved final, the Legislature of Georgia created five great counties, viz., Carroll, Coweta, Lee, Muscogee and Troup from each of. which others were subsequently formed.
Hop-o-eth-le-yo-ho-lo, as the representative of Big Warrior, the Chief of the Upper Creeks, attended the council meeting at Indian Springs. He was the silver- tongued orator of the tribe, and, on this occasion, was aroused to the highest pitch of enthusiasm, in opposition to the proposed relinquishment of the Creek lands. Sev- eral speeches were made by him in the course of the proceedings; and, when the treaty was finally signed, he leaped upon the large rock to the south of the Varner House, and gave vent to his indignation in the following fiery outburst. Said he :
"Brothers-The Great Spirit has met here with his painted children of the woods and with our pale-faced brethren. I see his golden locks in the sunbeams. He fans the warrior's brow with his wings and whispers sweet music in the winds. The beetle joins his hymn and the mocking-bird his song. You are charmed. Brothers, you have been deceived. A snake has been coiled in the shade, and you are running into his mouth, deceived by the double-tongue of the pale-face chief McIntosh and drunk with the fire of the pale-face. Brothers, the hunt- ing grounds of our fathers have been stolen by our chief
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and sold to the pale-face, whose gold is in his pouch. Brothers, our grounds are gone, and the plow of the pale-face will soon upturn the bones of our fathers. Bro- thers, are you tame? Will you submit? Hop-o-eth-le-yo- ho-lo says no!" Then turning to McIntosh who was stand- ing with the commissioners at a window, some few feet distant, he exclaimed : "As for you, double-tongued snake, whom I see through the window of the pale-face, before many moons have waned, your own blood shall wash out the memory of this hated treaty. Brothers, I have spoken."
CHAPTER XXXVI
New Echota: The Last Capital of the Southern Cherokees
D RIVEN toward the south by the advancing tide of civilization in Tennessee, the center of population among the Cherokees shifted by slow degrees to- ward the mountains of North-western Georgia. There were scattered bands in the adjoining States, especially in Alabama; but they were no longer numerous in either of the Carolinas. From time immemorial the citadel of power among the Cherokees was located in Ten- nessee; but during the last pathetic years, New Echota, in Gordon County, Ga., became the seat of government for the nation. This famous old Indian town was situated at the point of confluence between the Connesauga and the Coosawattee Rivers, some twelve miles to the east of the present town of Calhoun. It contained a population, at the time of removal, not in excess of 300 inhabitants, but the town had then commenced to lose prestige. The locality is still marked by an occasional remnant to be found here and there; but nothing survives at this late day which bears any sort of testimony to the high degree of civilization attained by the Cherokees.
It was during the days when New Echota was the capital of the nation that Sequoya, the famous half-breed, invented his great alphabet, an achievement which has been the wonder of scholars in both hemispheres. As a result of this mental stimulus, there followed an immedi- ate awakening. It bore fruit not only in a written lan-
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guage but in a formal code of laws; and the Cherokees furthermore organized themselves into a nation modelled upon the government of the United States. They pos- sessed a Constitution. They adopted wise and prudent measures. They organized courts. They built schools. They encouraged domestic arts and manufactures. They embraced the Christian religion. There was not a race of Indians on the North American continent which could approach the Cherokees in refinement. But the intel- lectual life of the nation flowered too late. The decrees of fate were already sealed.
In 1802, there was a compact made between the State of Georgia and the government of the United States, whereby the remaining lands of the State were to be cleared of Indian titles. The consideration involved was the transfer to the United States of the territory now embraced within the States of Alabama and Mississippi. In 1819, pursuant to this agreement, the Federal authori- ties secured quite a strip of land in North Georgia and induced a number of Cherokees voluntarily to remove to the West, giving them acre for acre, by way of fair ex- change of land. Thereafter for several years nothing was done. In the meantime, the Cherokees began to make rapid strides. They expected no further molestation. But just as they were entering upon an epoch of civil government, gold was discovered in the neighborhood of Dahlonega. This sounded the deathknell of the Chero- kees. Coincident with the startling news in regard to the yellow metal, there emerged still another factor which was full of menace to the poor Indians. It was the elec- tion of General Andrew Jackson to the Presidency of the United States. He was a frontiersman who possessed little patience with the savages.
At first, the Cherokees were compactly united in oppo- sition to any further surrender of Georgia lands. But the momentous events above mentioned, produced a di-
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vision of sentiment. Foreseeing the ultimate outcome, a party was formed in the interest of removal. It was headed by Major Ridge, his son, John Ridge, and an educated half-breed, Elias Boudinot, who edited the Cherokee Phoenix. The national faction was headed by John Ross, the principal chief of the nation. There was war to the knife between the two rival camps. Both sent delegations to Washington. Both gave vent to impas- sioned outbursts of oratory; but in the end the advocates of removal triumphed. It was largely by strategem that this result was accomplished. Jolin Ross toward the last was willing to treat with the government on the basis of $20,000,000 indemnity for the Cherokees ; but these figures only excited derision. Worn by the protracted warfare, the savages grew impatient. Numbers of them came over to the Ridge side. Widespread demoralization prevailed. To escape persecution at home, John Ross transferred his residence to Tennessee ; but one day he was put under arrest and brought back to Georgia. His papers were also seized. John Howard Payne, the famous author of "Home Sweet Home," then an obscure investigator who was gathering scientific data among the Cherokees, was at this time the guest of the fugitive chief ; but the hostile Indians were no respecters of persons. He was given the hospitalities of the block house, in company with his host, and detained for several days until his innocence could be established.
The presence of white men in the Cherokee nation was a constant source of annoyance, especially to the State authorities. As early as 1830, Georgia extended her jurisdiction over the Cherokee territory, and there fol- lowed quite a chapter of incidents. It was necessary to put even missionaries under arrest; for there were not a few malicious characters who assumed the guise of re- ligion in order to poison the minds of the savages and to sow broadcast the seeds of discord. More than one con- flict of authority between State and Federal governments occurred at this crisis.
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But it was the Indians themselves who, in this in- stance, detained John Howard Payne on the charge of suspicion. Besides making these dramatic arrests, the Ridge adherents also silenced the national press; and while the advocates of removal were thus dominant in the Cherokee nation by virtue of highway tactics, the treaty of New Echota was formerly signed and executed. It was on December 29, 1835, that the final act of relinquish- ment occurred. General William Carroll and John F. Schermerhorn were the commissioners on the part of the United States government. It is sometimes called the Schermerhorn treaty because it was negotiated in the main by the latter. Though the national leaders did not attend the council meeting at New Echota, the treaty was subsequently ratified by the Federal authorities.
Briefly stated, the Cherokees ceded the whole remain- ing territory of the nation, east of the Mississippi river, in consideration of the sum of $5,000,000, together with a joint interest in the territory already occupied by some of the tribe, west of the Mississippi River.
Only 2,000 having removed by May 26, 1838, General Winfield Scott, at the head of a force of United States soldiers, was ordered to New Echota, where the grim process of dispossessing at the point of the bayonet a race of people who constituted the original occupants of the soil, was commenced.
Most of these enforced exiles could both read and write, and not a few of them professed the Christian religion !
However necessary it may have been to the welfare of an Anglo-Saxon civilization to dispossess the Indians -to drive them out under the lash from the graves of ancestors whom they worshipped and from the door- steps of homes which they loved-it has left an ineffaca- ble stigma behind.
On arrival in the Indian Territory, the victorious leaders were destined to enjoy for a brief season only the fruits of triumph. Even-handed justice was not slow
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in commending the poisoned chalice to each of the promi- nent actors in the drama. Major Ridge was waylaid and shot close to the Arkansas line; his son, John Ridge, was taken from bed and cut to pieces with hatchets; while Elias Boudinot was treacherously killed at his home. These three men suffered death on the same day, June 22, 1839, showing the deliberate care with which the triple homicide was planned. Factional quarrels not only be- tween the two political parties but also between the new and the old settlers continued to menace the peace of the tribe and years elapsed before anything like national unity was restored.
Sequoya's wonderful invention produced an imme- diate effect upon Cherokee development. In the fall of 1824, John Arch, a young convert, made a manuscript translation of a part of St. John's gospel, which was the first Bible literature in which the characters of the new alphabet were used. Hundreds of copies were made, and the work was widely disseminated. Later David Brown completed a translation of the entire New Testament. Some two years after the new alphabet was completed, the Cherokee council, having decided to establish a news- paper, type was cast in Boston, under the superintend- ence of the noted missionary, Worcester, who, during the winter of 1827, contributed to the Missionary Herald, five verses of Genesis in the new syllabary, this being the first appearance in print. Early in 1828, the newspaper outfit arrived at New Echota, and the first number of the Cherokee Phoenix appeared on February 21, 1828. Elias Boudinot, an educated Cherokee, was the editor. The first printers were two white men, Isaac N. Harris and John F. Wheeler.
It was in a log house that this pioneer newspaper of North Georgia was edited and published. The outfit was shipped from Boston to Augusta and transported two hundred miles by wagon. Such was the beginning of
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journalism in the Cherokee nation. After a precarious existence of some six years, the Phoenix was suspended, owing to the hostile action of the Georgia authorities; but its successor the Advocate arose in 1844 at Tahle- quah, under William P. Ross. Bibles, hymn-books, school books, theological works, etc., were also printed in large numbers. Besides being the first newspaper published in North Georgia and the first newspaper in which the characters of the new alphabet were used, it was also the first newspaper owned and edited by the Indians of North America. Simultaneously with the decree estab- lishing the national press at New Echota, the Cherokee national council, on July 26, 1827, adopted a constitution. John Ross was president of the convention. The choice of principal chief fell upon Charles R. Hicks, a Moravian convert of mixed blood, but he was soon succeeded by John Ross, who became the great leader of the national party, in opposition to the policy of removal, and, first and last, amid the turbulent times in Georgia and through- out the long period of unrest in Indian Territory, he remained steadily at the helm, a devoted servant of his people for nearly forty years.
CHAPTER XXXVII
Under the Lash: Pathetic Incidents of the Removal
T NO an eminent investigator, Professor Mooney, of the Bureau of Ethnology, in Washington, D. C., who has devoted his life to Indian researches, we are indebted for the following graphic account of the removal of the Cherokee Indians from Georgia. He makes no effort to soften the colors. The story is most pathetic; and even at this late day some of the incidents cannot fail to melt the reader to tears. Says Professor Mooney : "The history of this Cherokee removal of 1838, as gleaned by the author from the lips of actors in the tragedy, may well exceed in weight of grief and pathos, any other pass- age in American annals. Even the much-sung exile of the Acadians falls far behind it in the sum of death and suffering. Under the orders of General Winfield Scott, troops were stationed at various points throughout the Cherokee country where stockade forts were erected for the purpose of corralling the Indians preparatory to re- moval. From these forts, squads of troops were sent out to search with rifle and bayonet every small cabin hidden away in the coves of the mountains and to make prisoners of all the occupants, however or wherever they might be found.
"Families at dinner were startled by the sudden gleam of bayonets in the doorway and rose up to be driven with blows and oaths along the weary miles of travel leading to the stockade. Men were seized in the fields or along the roads. Women were taken from their
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wheels and children from their play. In many cases, on turning for one last look as they crossed the ridge, they saw their homes in flames, fired by the lawless rabble who followed on the heels of the soldiers to loot and to pillage. So keen were these outlaws on the scent that in some instances they were driving off the cattle and other stock of the Indians almost before the soldiers had started their owners in the other direction. Systematic hunts were made by the same men for Indian graves to rob them of the silver pendants and other valuables deposited with the dead. One of the Georgia Volunteers, afterwards a Colonel in the Confederate service, said: 'I fought through the Civil War. It has been my experience to see men shot to pieces and slaughtered by thousands. But the Cherokee removal was the cruelest work I ever saw.'
"To prevent escape, the soldiers were ordered to sur- round each house, as far as possible, so as to come upon the occupants without warning. One old patriarch, when thus surprised, calmly called his children and grand- children around him, and, kneeling down, bade them pray with him in their own language, while the astonished soldiers looked on in silence. Then rising he led the way into exile. In another instance, a woman, on finding the house surrounded, went to the door and called up the chickens to be fed for the last time, after which, taking her infant on her back and her two older children by the hand, she followed her husband with the soldiers.
"All were not thus submissive. One old man named Charles was seized with his wife, his brother, and his three sons, together with the families of the latter. Ex- asperated by the brutality accorded his wife who, being unable to travel fast, was prodded with bayonets to hasten her steps, he urged the other men to join with him in a dash for liberty. As he spoke in Cherokee, the soldiers understood nothing until each warrior sprang upon the one nearest and endeavored to wrench his gun from him. The attack was so sudden and unexpected that one soldier was killed, while the Indians escaped to the mountains.
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Hundreds of others, some of them from the stockades, also managed to escape from time to time and subsisted on roots and wild berries until the hunt was over. Find- ing it impossible to secure these fugitives, General Scott finally tendered them a proposition, through Colonel W. H. Thomas, their trusted friend, to the effect that if they would surrender Charles for punishment the rest would be allowed to remain until the matter could be adjusted by the government. On hearing of the proposition Charles voluntarily came in with his sons, offering him- self a sacrifice for his people. By command of General Scott, Charles, his brother, and his sons were shot near the mouth of the Tuckasegee, a detachment of Cherokee prisoners being forced to do the shooting in order to impress upon the Indians the fact that they were help- less. From these fugitives, who were thus permitted to remain, originated the eastern band of Cherokees.
."When nearly 17,000 Indians had thus been gathered into the stockades, the work of removal began. Early in June several parties aggregating about 5,000 persons, were brought down by the troops to the old agency on the Hiawassee at Calhoun, Tenn., to Ross's Landing, now Chattanooga, Tenn., and to Gunter's Landing, now Gun- tersville, Ala., where they were put upon steamers and transported down the Tennessee and Ohio to the further side of the Mississippi, where the journey was continued by land to Indian Territory. The romoval, in the hottest part of the year, was attended by such sickness and mortality that, by resolution of the Cherokee national council, Ross and other chiefs submitted to General Scott a proposition that the Cherokees be allowed to move themselves in the fall, after the sickly season was ended. This was granted on condition that all should start by October 20th, except the sick and the aged. Accordingly. officers were appointed by the Cherokee council to take charge of the emigration; the Indians being organized
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into detachments averaging 1,000 each, with the leaders in charge of each detachment and a sufficient number of wagons and horses for the purpose. In this way, the remainder, enrolled at about 13,000, including negro slaves, started on the long march overland in the fall.
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