After nearly a year of zealous work in the cause, Agent Montgomery was only able to report the emigration of four hundred and thirty-one Indians and seventy-nine slaves, comparatively few of whom were from Georgia.[350] Nine months later three hundred and forty-six persons had emigrated from within the limits of that State.[351] The hostility manifested by the larger proportion of the Cherokees toward those who gave favorable consideration to the plan of removal was so great as to require the establishment of a garrison of United States troops within the nation for their protection.[350]
President Jackson's advice to the Cherokees.—Early in 1829,[352] a delegation from the nation proceeded to Washington to lay their grievances before President Jackson, but they found the Executive entertaining opinions about their rights very different from those which had been held by his predecessors. They were advised[353] that the answer to their claim of being an independent nation was to be found in the fact that during the Revolutionary war the Cherokees were the allies of Great Britain, a power claiming entire sovereignty of the thirteen colonies, which sovereignty, by virtue of the Declaration of Independence and the subsequent treaty of 1783, became vested respectively in the thirteen original States, including North Carolina, and Georgia. If they had since been permitted to abide on their lands, it was by permission, a circumstance giving no right to deny the sovereignty of those States. Under the treaty of 1785 the United States "give peace to all the Cherokees and receive them into favor and protection." Subsequently they had made war on the United States, and peace was not concluded until 1791. No guarantee, however, was given by the United States adverse to the sovereignty of Georgia, and none could be given. Their course in establishing an independent government within the limits of Georgia, adverse to her will, had been the cause of inducing her to depart from the forbearance she had so long practiced, and to provoke the passage of the recent[354] act of her legislature, extending her laws and jurisdiction over their country. The arms of the United States, the President remarked, would never be employed to stay any State of the Union from the exercise of the legitimate powers belonging to her in her sovereign capacity. No remedy for them, could be perceived except removal west of the Mississippi River, where alone peace and protection could be afforded them. To continue where they were could promise nothing but interruption and disquietude. Beyond the Mississippi the United States, possessing the sole sovereignty, could say to them that the land should be theirs while trees grow and water runs.
The delegation were much cast down by these expressions of the President, but they abated nothing of their demand for protection in what they considered to be the just rights of their people. They returned to their country more embittered than before against the Georgians, and lost no opportunity, by appeals to the patriotism as well as to the baser passions of their countrymen, to excite them to a determination to protect their country at all hazards against Georgian encroachment and occupation.[355]
GENERAL CARROLL'S REPORT ON THE CONDITION OF THE CHEROKEES.
About this time[356] General William Carroll was designated by the President to make a tour through the Cherokee and Creek Nations, with both of which he was supposed to possess much influence. His mission was to urge upon them, and especially upon the former, the expediency of their removal west of the Mississippi under the inducements held out by the treaty of 1828. A month later[357] Col. E. F. Tatnall and on the 8th of July General John Coffee were appointed to co-operate with General Carroll in the accomplishment of his mission. The results of this tour were communicated[358] to the War Department by General Carroll in a report in which he remarked that nothing could be done with the Cherokees by secret methods; they were too intelligent and too well posted on the current news of the day to be long kept in ignorance of the methods and motives of those who came among them. He had met their leading men at Newtown and had submitted a proposal for their removal which was peremptorily rejected. The advancement the Cherokees had made in religion, morality, general information, and agriculture had astonished him beyond measure. They had regular preachers in their churches, the use of spirituous liquors was in great degree prohibited, their farms were worked much after the manner of white people, and were generally in good order. Many families possessed all the comforts and some of the luxuries of life. Cattle, sheep, hogs, and fowl of every kind were found in great abundance. The Cherokees had been induced by Eastern papers to believe the President was not sustained by the people in his views of their proposed removal. Eastern members of Congress had given their delegation to understand while in Washington the preceding spring that the memorial left by them protesting against the extension of the laws of Georgia and Alabama over Cherokee territory would be sustained by Congress, and that until that memorial had been definitely acted on by that body all propositions to them looking toward removal would be worse than useless.
Cherokees refuse to cede lands in North Carolina.—In the early summer of 1829[359] a commission had also been appointed, consisting of Humphrey Posey and a Mr. Saunders, having in view the purchase from the Cherokees of that portion of their country within the limits of North Carolina, but it, too, failed wholly of accomplishing its purpose.
Coercive measures of the United States and Georgia.—Sundry expedients were resorted to, both by the General Government and by the authorities of Georgia, to compel the acquiescence of the Indians in the demands for their emigration.
The act of the Georgia legislature of December 20, 1828, already alluded to, was an act "to add the territory within this State and occupied by the Cherokee Indians to the counties of De Kalb et al., and to extend the laws of this State over the same." This was followed[360] by the passage of an act reasserting the territorial jurisdiction of Georgia and annulling all laws made by the Cherokee Indians. It further declared that in any controversy arising between white persons and Indians the latter should be disqualified as witnesses. Supplementary legislation of a similar character followed in quick succession, and the proclamation of the governor of the State was issued on the 3d of June, 1830, declaring the arrival of the date fixed by the aforesaid acts and the consequent subjection of the Cherokee territory to the State laws and jurisdiction.[361]
The President of the United States about the same time gave directions[362] to suspend the enrollment and removal of Cherokees to the west in small parties, accompanied by the remark that if they (the Cherokees) thought it for their interest to remain, they must take the consequences, but that the Executive of the United States had no power to interfere with the exercise of the sovereignty of any State over and upon all within its limits. The President also directed[363] that the previous practice of paying their annuities to the treasurer of the Cherokee Nation should be discontinued, and that they be thereafter distributed among the individual members of the tribe. Orders were shortly after[364] given to the commandant of troops in the Cherokee country to prevent all persons, including members of the tribe, from opening up or working any mineral deposits within their limits. All these additional annoyances and restrictions placed upon the free exercise of their supposed rights, so far from securing compliance with the wishes of the Government, had a tendency to harden the Cherokee heart.