[209] See letter of Secretary of War to Barnett, Hawkins, and Gaines, April 16, 1816.
[210] April 16, 1816. These boundary commissioners were William Barnett, Col. Benjamin Hawkins, and Maj. E. P. Gaines.
[211] Letter of General Jackson to Secretary of War, June 10, 1816; also from Commissioner Barnett, June 7, 1816.
[212] Old map on file in General Land Office.
[213] June 7, 1816.
[214] From a letter of Agent Meigs bearing date December 26, 1804, it seems that he was just in receipt of a communication from the Chickasaw chiefs relative to their claim to lands on the north side of Tennessee River. The chiefs assert that part of their people formerly lived at a place called Chickasaw Old Fields, on the Tennessee, about 20 miles above the mouth of Elk River; that while living there they had a war with the Cherokees, when, finding themselves too much separated from their principal settlements, they removed back thereto. Afterwards, on making peace with the Cherokees, their boundaries were agreed on as they are defined in the instrument given them by President Washington in 1794.
They further state that they had a war with the Shawnees and drove them from all the waters of the Tennessee and Duck Rivers, as well as conflicts with the Cherokees, Choctaws, and Creeks, in which they defeated all attempts of their enemies to dispossess them of their country.
Agent Meigs remarks that he is convinced the claim of the Chickasaws is the best founded; that until recently the Cherokees had always alluded to the country in controversy as the hunting ground of the four nations, and that their few settlements within this region were of recent date.
[215] May 25.
[216] April 7.