Foot-loose and fancy-free By Angie Debo


Indian Removal Policy Extract from President Andrew Jackson's Fifth Annual Message to Congress



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Indian Removal Policy
Extract from President Andrew Jackson's
Fifth Annual Message to Congress


December 8, 1829
. . . The condition and ulterior destiny of the Indian Tribes within the limits of some of our States, have become objects of much interest and importance. It has long been the policy of Government to introduce among them the arts of civilization, in the hope of gradually reclaiming them from a wandering life. This policy has, however, been coupled with another, wholly incompatible with its success. Professing a desire to civilize and settle them, we have, at the same time, lost no opportunity to purchase their lands, and thrust them further into the wilderness. By this means they have not only been kept in a wandering state, but been led to look upon us a unjust and indifferent to their fate. Thus, though lavish in its expenditures upon the subject, Government has consistently defeated its own policy; and the Indians, in general, receding further and further to the West, have restrained their savage habits. A portion, however, of the Southern tribes, having mingled much with the whites, and made some progress in the arts of civilized life, have lately attempted to erect an independent government, within the limits of Georgia and Alabama. These States, claiming to be the only Sovereigns within their territories, extended their laws over the Indians; which induced the latter to call upon the United States for protection.

Under these circumstances, the question presented was, whether the General Government had a right to sustain those people in their pretensions? The Constitution declares, that “no new State shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of any other State,” without the consent of its legislature. If the General Government is not permitted to tolerate the erection of a confederate State within the territory of one of the members of this Union, against her consent; much less could it allow a foreign and independent government to establish itself there. Georgia became a member of the Confederacy which eventuated in our Federal Union, as a sovereign State, always asserting her claim to certain limits; which having been originally defined in her colonial charter, and subsequently recognized in the treaty of peace, she has ever since continued to enjoy, except as they have been circumscribed by her own voluntary transfer of a portion of her territory to the United States, in the articles cession of 1802. Alabama was admitted into the Union on the same footing with the original States, with boundaries which were prescribed by Congress. There is no constitutional, conventional, or legal provision, which allows them less power over the Indians within their borders, than is possessed by Maine or New York. Would the People of Maine permit the Penobscot tribe to erect an Independent Government within their State? and unless they did, would it not be the duty of the General Government to support them in resisting such a measure? Would the People of New York permit each remnant of the Six Nations within her borders, to declare itself an independent people under the protection of the United States? Could the Indians establish a separate republic on each of their reservations in Ohio? and if they were so disposed, would it be the duty of this Government to protect them in the attempt? If the principle involved in the obvious answer to these questions be abandoned, it will follow that the objects of this Government are reversed; and that it has become a part of its duty to aid in destroying the States which it was established to protect.

Actuated by this view of the subject, I informed the Indians inhabiting parts of Georgia and Alabama, that their attempt to establish an independent government would not be countenanced by the Executive of the United States; and advised them to emigrate beyond the Mississippi, or submit to the laws of those States.

Our conduct towards these people is deeply interesting to our national character. Their present condition, contrasted with what they once were, makes a most powerful appeal to our sympathies. Our ancestors found them the uncontrolled possessors of these vast regions. By persuasion and force, they have been made to retire from river to river, and from mountain to mountain; until some of the tribes have become extinct, and others have left but remnants, to preserve, for a while, their once terrible names. Surrounded by whites, with their arts of civilization, which, by destroying the resources of the savage, doom him to weakness and decay; the fate of the Mohegan, the Narragansett, and the Delaware, is fast overtaking the Choctaw, the Cherokee, and the Creek. That this fate surely awaits them, if they remain within the limits of the States, does not admit of a doubt. Humanity and national honor demand that every effort should be made to avert so great a calamity. It is too late to inquire whether it was just in the United States to include them and their territory within the bounds of new States whose limits they could control. That step cannot be retraced. A State cannot be dismembered by Congress, or restricted in the exercise of her constitutional power. But the people of those States, and of every State, actuated by feelings of justice and a regard for our national honor, submit to you the interesting question, whether something cannot be done, consistently with the rights of the States, to preserve this much injured race?

As a means of effecting this end, I suggest, for your consideration, the propriety of setting apart an ample district West of the Mississippi, and without the limits of any State or Territory, now formed, to be guarantied to the Indian tribes, as long as they shall occupy it: each tribe having a distinct control over the portion designated for its use. There they may be secured in the enjoyment of governments of their own choice, subject to no other control from the United States than such as may be necessary to preserve peace on the frontier, and between the several tribes. There the benevolent may endeavor to teach them the arts of civilization; and, by promoting union and harmony among them, to raise up an interesting commonwealth, destined to perpetuate the race, and to arrest the humanity and justice of this Government.

This emigration should be voluntary: for it would be as cruel as unjust to compel the aborigines to abandon the graves of their fathers, and seek a home in a distant land. But they should be distinctly informed that, if they remain within the limits of the States, they must be subject to their laws. In return for their obedience, as individuals, they will, without doubt, be protected in the enjoyment of those possessions which they have improved by their industry. But it seems to me visionary to suppose, that, in this state of things, claims can be allowed on tracts of country on which they have neither dwelt nor made improvements, merely because they have seen them from the mountain, or passed them in the chase. Submitting to the laws of the States, and receiving, like other citizens, protection in their persons and property, they will, ere long, become merged in the mass of our population.



The Indian Removal Act

May 28, 1830
An Act to Provide for an Exchange of Lands with the Indians Residing in any States or Territories, and for their Removal West of the River Mississippi.

Be it enacted by . . . Congress . . . That it shall and may be lawful for the President . . . to cause so much of any territory belonging to the United States, west of the river Mississippi, not included in any state or organized territory, and to which Indian title has been extinguished, as he may judge necessary, to be divided into a suitable number of districts, for the reception of such tribes or nations of Indians as may choose to exchange the lands where they now reside, and remove there; and to cause each of said districts to be so described by natural or artificial marks, as to be easily distinguished from every other.

SEC. 2. And be it further enacted, That it shall and may be lawful for the President to exchange any or all of such districts . . . with any tribe or nation of Indians now residing within the limits of any of the states or territories, and with which the United States have existing treaties, for the whole or any part or portion of the territory claimed and occupied by such tribe or nation, within the bounds of any one or more of the states or territories, where the land claimed and occupied by the Indians, is owned by the United States, or the United States are bound to the state within which it lies to extinguish the Indian claim thereto.

SEC. 3. And be it further enacted, That in the making of any such exchange . . . it shall and may be lawful for the President solemnly to assure the tribe or nation with which the exchange is made, that the United States will forever secure and guarantee to them, and their heirs or successors, the country so exchanged with them . . . Provided always, That such lands shall revert to the United States, if the Indians become extinct, or abandon the same.

SEC. 4. And be it further enacted, That if, upon any of the lands now occupied by the Indians, and to be exchanged for, there should be such improvements as add value to the land claimed by any individual or individuals of such tribes or nations, it shall and may be lawful for the President to cause such value to be ascertained . . . and . . . to be paid to the person or persons rightfully claiming such improvements. And upon the payment of such valuation, the improvements . . . shall pass to the United States.

SEC. 5. And be it further enacted, That upon the making of any such exchange . . . it shall and may be lawful for the President to cause such aid and assistance to be furnished to the emigrants as may be necessary and proper to enable them to remove to, and settle in, the country for which they may have exchanged; and also, to give them such aid and assistance as may be necessary for their support and subsistence for the first year after their removal.

SEC. 6. And be it further enacted, That is shall and may be lawful for the President to cause such tribe or nation to be protected, at their new residence, against all interruption or disturbance from any other tribe or nation of Indians, or from any other person or persons whatever.

SEC. 7. And be it further enacted, That it shall be and may be lawful for the President to have the same superintendence and care over any tribe or nation in the country to which they may remove . . . that he is now authorized to have over them at their present places of residence: Provided, That nothing . . . be construed as authorizing . . . the violation of any existing treaty between the United States and any of the Indian tribes.




An Unconquered Indian: Osceola
By Alan Lockwood and David Harris20
Soon after gaining their independence from England many Americans moved westward beyond the narrow coastal plain of the Atlantic. These pioneers braved the wilderness in search of land for farms and plantations. In the Southeast, white settlers steadily encroached on the lands of the Creek Indians.

It was in 1813 that war broke out between the Creeks of Georgia and the United States. The war ended the following year after General Jackson attacked a large Creek force, killing a thousand warriors. Fighting during the war forced migration of the Creeks from Georgia into Florida. There they joined the Seminoles who had migrated to Florida during the previous century. Among the migrating Creeks was a boy, later called Osceola, who was to become one of the most famous figures in Florida history.

Osceola was born in 1804 in Georgia. His mother was a Creek Indian and his father a white trader. Like other Creeks of mixed blood with a Creek mother, Osceola considered himself an Indian. He learned to kill squirrels with a bow and arrow and joined other boys for moonlight hunts after opossums and raccoons. He developed stealth in the woods that served him well in the future as a warrior.

The Creek War came close to young Osceola. He and his mother fled with other refugees from one hiding place to another. By the war’s end they had drifted to Florida and settled among the Seminoles. Osceola grew into manhood as a Seminole living north of present-day Tampa.

Soon after the Creek War ended, the First Seminole War began. A major cause of the war was conflict over black slaves. Many had escaped from plantations to take refuge among the Seminoles in Florida. Southern slaveholders were furious and insisted that the army capture runaway slaves and return them to their owners.

Major Andrew Jackson was dispatched to the scene in March 1818. His troops fought several engagements with the Seminoles in Spanish-owned Florida. The Seminoles were finally driven south to the area around Tampa Bay. Jackson withdrew, ending the war.

After the First Seminole War it became clear to the Spanish that they had little control over Florida. It was turned over to the United States in 1819. Article 6 of the treaty with Spain stated that the inhabitants of Florida were to be “admitted to the enjoyment of all privileges, rights, and immunities of the citizens of the United States.”

United States policy toward the Seminoles was to keep them, at least temporarily, in Florida. Pressure increased on the government to move the Indians westward. White southerners claimed that unless the Indians were driven out of Florida, slaves would continue to join them. This pressure led in 1823 to the Treaty of Camp Moultrie. Under threat of renewed warfare, the leading chiefs, representing a majority of the Seminoles, signed the treaty. It had four major provisions.

1. The Seminoles gave up claim to the whole territory of Florida except for a 4-million-acre reservation.

2. The U.S. government provided a cash payment of $5,000 a year for 20 years, plus livestock and farm implements.

3. The Indians were to prevent runaway slaves from entering the reservation.

4. Whites would not be permitted to hunt, settle, or intrude on the reservation.

The reservation boundaries were cut off from the Florida coasts, so fishing was no longer possible for the Indians. Furthermore, the reservation land was poor for agriculture. A few inches of topsoil covered a base of white sand. If plowed for any length of time the sand became dominant. About a year after the Treaty of Camp Moultrie was signed most Seminoles experienced severe hunger. Some died of starvation.

By this time Osceola had risen to the position of Seminole war chief. He was an outstanding athlete, deeply admired for his physical skills by other Indians. Despite harsh conditions on the Seminole reservation, Osceola was determined to enforce the terms of the Camp Moultrie Treaty. He did not want his people to be forced to move westward. Conditions west of the Mississippi, where traditional enemies of the Seminole lived, would be even worse for his people. With a small band of followers, he began police actions to prevent young Seminoles from harming whites or stealing white people’s property. This he believed necessary if the Seminoles were to avoid being forced out of Florida. Many Seminoles, nearly starving, raided white men’s cattle. Several murders were also committed. Osceola helped bring some of the offenders to justice.

Conflict over land, slaves, and cattle persisted between the Seminoles and the whites. The hatchet descended with Andrew Jackson became President. In May 1830, the Removal Act was passed by congress and signed by the President. The new law provided that the government could trade land in the West for Indian land in the East. Under the law the government could do whatever was necessary to remove the Indians to the new land. The Removal Act was designed to expand white settlement by moving the Indians out of the southeastern states.

In accordance with the Removal Act, a conference was called in 1832 between white officials and Seminoles chiefs. They met at a place called Payne’s Landing, near Fort King, the army post near the Seminole reservation. At the conference a treaty was signed. The Treaty of Payne’s Landing provided that a party of Seminole chiefs would be sent to examine the country west of the Mississippi River. If the chiefs thought the country suitable, they would agree to move their people there to live. Several leading Seminole chiefs did not sign the Payne’s Landing Treaty. It was, however, ratified by the U.S. Senate and proclaimed by President Jackson.

The following year a party of Seminole chiefs examined the proposed reservation beyond the Mississippi and found it to their liking. Upon returning, without consulting the other chiefs, they signed an agreement on behalf of their nation. The agreement stated that they would begin removal to their new homeland as soon as the federal government made arrangements.

When they heard what the delegation of chiefs had agreed to, many Seminole leaders, including Osceola, were outraged. They insisted that the chiefs who agreed to removal had no authority to speak for all Seminoles. The prestige of Osceola increased as resistance to emigration grew. At a private council of Seminole chiefs, he said:

If we must fight, we will fight. . . . I hope we don’t have to fight the white man, but if it happens, every one of our warriors will be ready . . . they white people got some of our chiefs to sign a paper to give our lands to them; but our chiefs did not do as we told them to do.

They did wrong; we must do right.

Osceola had now assumed leadership of the Seminole nation. The chiefs, except those favoring removal, were united behind him.

Because resistance to the Payne’s Landing Treaty grew, the military commander of all troops in Florida called a meeting in 1835. The purpose of the meeting was to gain acceptance for peaceful removal. A large number of Seminole chiefs assembled for the meeting. Most were bitter and defiant. They protested the Payne’s Landing Treaty, claiming it did not represent the desires of the Seminole nation.

After listening to the protests of several chiefs, the U.S. Indian Agent for the Florida Territory, General Wiley Thompson, addressed the chiefs. He picked up a document from the conference table and read it aloud, pausing for the translator. The document asserted that the Payne’s Landing Treaty was valid.

Thompson insisted that the Seminoles had agreed to go West. He demanded that the chiefs confirm the Payne’s Landing Treaty by signing the new document. Eight of the thirteen chiefs around the table signed. Five of the leading chiefs refused. Thompson, red with anger, picked up another paper. It was a list of Seminole chiefs. Seizing the pen, he made five slashes on the roll. He then faced the Indians and said, “I have removed five names from the roll of the chiefs. These men no longer represent the Seminole Nation.” Thompson’s actions made one point clear to the Indians: removal would be enforced with or without their consent.

Thompson’s action of deposing the chiefs was a deadly insult. When his words had been translated, a roar of anger arose from the deposed chiefs. There were wild shrieks from warriors around the meeting tent. Finally, calm was restored by the eight chiefs who had signed.

General Thompson now wanted the subchiefs who were present to sign the document. Some of them came forward and made their marks on the paper. Osceola stood silently with his arms folded. Thompson read his name, signaling that he should step forward to sign. In his graceful catlike manner, he approached the table, gazing sternly into Thompson’s eyes. With a sweeping motion he suddenly drew his hunting knife and stabbed savagely through the paper on the table. With this defiant gesture he cried out, “This is the only way I sign!” Amidst the shock of white officials, Osceola yanked out his knife and calmly walked away. The flash of his knife was a hint of what was to come.

Osceola, more than any other Seminole leader, inspired his people to fight rather than move West. He became a symbol of Indian resistance to white domination. That resistance led to the Second Seminole War, the costliest ever fought against the American Indian. It resulted in fifteen hundred deaths among white soldiers and cost the United States almost 40 million dollars, an enormous sum for the times.

In June 1835, before hostilities broke out, Osceola paid a final visit to Wiley Thompson in his office at Fort King. Osceola had come to complain about the general’s recent ban on the sale of arms and powder to the Indians. Thompson was still angry about Osceola’s refusal to sign the document approving the Payne’s Landing Treaty. An argument broke out. Osceola flew into a flurry and stormed out of the agent’s office. Thompson ordered four soldiers to overtake him. As they dragged Osceola back to the fort he shouted, “I shall remember this hour! The agent has his day, I will have mine!”





Osceola: Seminole Leader

Osceola was placed in irons and confined to the guardhouse. By nightfall his fury abated, and he was able to think clearly. Thompson, he though, must be killed for this terrible insult. Meanwhile he needed a means of being released. He decided to lie. He apologized to Thompson, agreed to sign the paper confirming Payne’s Landing Treaty, and promised to urge other Seminoles to move West. The irons were struck and Osceola left the guardhouse in silence, revenge on his mind.

Matters moved toward disaster. A council of Seminole chiefs met and decided to resist removable forcibly. The chiefs appointed Osceola head war chief. They also decided that those chiefs who favored removal be treated like enemies and killed.

One chief who believed in emigration was Charley Emathla. Osceola led four hundred warriors to Charley Emathla’s village where they surrounded the chief’s lodge. They demanded that the chief pledge himself and his people to resist removal. The chief protested, saying that the only hope of being saved from total destruction was to go West. Osceola and 12 companions ambushed the chief the next day and shot him to death.

Hostilities between Seminoles and soldiers began in December 1835. During the early days of the war, Osceola’s enemy General Wily Thompson, still believed the Indians could be coerced into removal. Midday on December 28, 1935, he walked from his office at Fort King to the officer’s mess for lunch. After a leisurely meal Thompson took a stroll outside the fort. When he did not return, a party was sent out to search for him. His body was found stabbed, scalped, and riddled with fourteen bullets. Osceola had taken his revenge against the Indian agent.

Full-scale warfare was now in progress. Osceola’s grasp of tactics was excellent. Hit-and-run attacks by the Seminoles were successful. The white soldiers were trained for open combat on battlefields. They were unprepared for repeated ambushes by Seminole warriors concealed in the swamps and forests of Florida. In addition to attacks on soldiers, Seminole bands plundered the civilian settlements along the east coast of the peninsula. Plantations were attacked and burned as far south as Miami.

Characteristic of combat early in the war was an incident now known as Dade’s Massacre. On a cold December morning in 1835, 108 men under the command of Major Francis Dade were marching along the Little Withlacoochee River toward Fort King. The soldiers gnawed at cold field rations. They plowed through the mud, often waist-deep in swamp water. Mosquitoes and flies bit their necks. Alligators lay on the surface of adjacent sands. It was a struggle for the soldiers to keep their cartridge boxes and weapons dry. They were also frightened that Seminole warriors might be hiding in the woods, waiting to ambush them.

Suddenly the morning silence was shattered as a single shot rang out in the midst. Major Dade slumped in his saddle. An ear-splitting assault by Seminole warriors followed. The soldiers barely had a chance to return the fire. By the end of the assault 107 soldiers were killed and only 3 Seminoles.

Osceola was winning his war. U.S. generals had been unable to subdue the Seminoles. This gave Osceola little satisfaction, however. He knew that in the long run the superior forces of the whites could overcome his people. His goal was now to secure an honorable peace before the Seminole will to resist disintegrated.

As the war became a stalemate, Osceola decided to discuss a possible peace with General Thomas Jessup, commander of U.S. forces. Jessup had only one goal in mind: stop the war by stopping Osceola. Other Seminole leaders were important, but they were mere shadows when compared to Osceola. Recently Jessup had received a note from Osceola claiming he could holdout against the total forces of the United States for five years.

In October 1837, Osceola arrived near St. Augustine with about one hundred warriors to engage Jessup in peace talks. A white flag of truce flew above the Seminole camp. While they spoke, soldiers encircled the Indian camp and closed it in. No shots were fired. The Seminoles were armed but it was too late to resist. Osceola was captured and placed in a cell at Fort Marion, an old Spanish prison.

Soon after his capture, Osceola had an opportunity to escape with his companions. The Indian prisoners were confined in a small dungeon of the prison lighted only by a small opening in the wall. There were two metal bars across the opening. On the night of October 21, 1837, one of the bars, which was either rusted or loose, was removed by one of the Indians. With one bar removed, the prisoners managed to squeeze with great difficulty through the opening. The sharp stones scraped skin off their bodies. Earlier they had cut up the bags given to them to sleep on. The shredded bags furnished the material for rope which they used to reach the ground below. Twenty Seminoles escaped from their Fort Marion cell that night and made their way safely back to a Seminole encampment. Osceola refused to join his cellmates in their escape. When asked why he had not joined those who escaped, he proudly replied, “I have done nothing to be ashamed of; it is for those to feel shame who entrapped me.”

On January 30, 1838, Osceola died of malaria in prison. Though a few chiefs continued to fight, Seminole resistance began to crumble. By 1842, the war had sputtered to an end. A small number of Seminoles retreated to the Everglades. Most were removed west to Oklahoma.

Cherokees Debate Removal
By Michael P. Johnson21
President Jackson proudly announced to Congress in 1830 that the “benevolent policy of the government . . . in relation to the removal of the Indians beyond the white settlements is approaching to a conclusion.” To the Indians being removed, the policy did not appear benevolent. In 1836, Congress ratified the Treaty of New Echota, which provided that the Cherokees would relinquish all claims to land east of the Mississippi in return for land west of the Mississippi, a large cash payment, and help moving to their new homes. The treaty bitterly divided the Cherokees. The largest group, led by the principal chief, John Ross, opposed the treaty and insisted that the Cherokees not give up their lands. A minority group, led by Elias Boudinot, signed the treaty and urged other Cherokees to accept its terms. The following selections from the letters of Ross and Boudinot reveal the clashing assessments among Cherokees about the threats they confronted and how best to respond to them.
John Ross, 1836

Answer to Inquires from a Friend
I wish I could acquiesce in your impression, that a Treaty has been made, by which every difficulty between the Cherokees and the United States has been set at rest; but I must candidly say, that I know of no such Treaty. I do no mean to prophesy any similar troubles to those which have, in other cases, followed the failure to adjust disputed points with Indians; the Cherokees act on a principle preventing apprehensions of that nature—their principle is, “endure and forbear”; but I must distinctly declare to you that I believe, the document [the Treaty of New Echota] signed by unauthorized individuals at Washington, will never be regarded by the Cherokee nation as a Treaty. The delegation appointed by the people to make a Treaty, have protested against that instrument “as deceptive to the world and a fraud upon the Cherokee people.” . . .

With your impressions concerning the advantages secured by teh subtle instrument in question, you will, no doubt, wonder at this opposition. But it possesses not the advantages you and others imagine; and that is the reason why it has encountered, and ever will encounter opposition. You suppose we are to be removed through it from a home, by circumstances rendered disagreeable and even untenable, to be secured in a better home, where nothing can disturb or dispossess us. Here is the great mystification. We are not secured in the new home promised to us. We are exposed to precisely the same miseries, from which, if this measure is enforced, the Untied States’ power professes to relieve us, but does so entirely by the exercise of that power, against our will.

If we really had the security you and others suppose we have, we would not thus complain.

One impression concerning us, is, that though we object to removal, as we are equally averse to becoming citizens of the United States, we ought to be forced to remove; to be tied hand and foot and conveyed to the extreme western frontier, and then turned loose among the wild beasts of the wilderness. Now, the fact is, we never have objected to become citizens of the United States and to conform to her laws; but in the event of conforming to her laws, we have required the protection and privileges of her laws to accompany that conformity on our part. We have asked this repeatedly and repeatedly has it been denied. . . .



In conclusion I would observe, that I still strongly hope we shall find ultimate justice from the good sense of the administration and of the people of the United States. I will not even yet believe that either the one of the other would wrong us with their eyes open. I am persuaded they have erred only in ignorance, and an ignorance forced upon them by the misrepresentation and artifices of the interested. . . . The Cherokees, under any circumstances, have no weapon to use but argument. If that should fail, they must submit, when their time shall come, in silence, but honest argument they cannot think will be forever used in vain. The Cherokee people will always hold themselves ready to respect a real treaty and bound to sustain any treaty which they can feel that they are bound to respect. But they are certain not to consider the attempt of a very few persons to sell the country for themselves, as obligatory upon them, and I and all my associates in the regular delegation, still look confidently to the effect of a sense of justice upon the American community, in producing a real settlement of this question, upon equitable terms and with competent authorities. But, on one point, you may be perfectly at rest. Deeply as our people feel, I cannot suppose they will ever be goaded by those feelings to any acts of violence. No, sir. They have been too long inured to suffering without resistance, and they still look to the sympathies and not to the fears, of those who have them in their power. In certain recent discussions in the representative hall at Washington, our enemies made it an objection against me and against others, that we were not Indians, but had the principles of white men, and were consequently unworthy of a hearing in the Indian cause. I will own that it has been my pride, as Principal Chief of the Cherokees, to implant in the bosoms of the people, and to cherish in my own, the principles of white men! It is to this fact that our white neighbors must ascribe their safety under the smart of the wrongs we have suffered from them. It is in this they may confide for our continued patience. But when I speak of the principles of white men, I speak not of such principles as actuate those who talk thus to us, but of those mighty principles to which the United States owes her greatness and her liberty. To principles like these even yet we turn with confidence for redemption from our miseries. When Congress shall be less overwhelmed with business, no doubt, in some way, the matter may be brought to a reconsideration, and when the representatives of the American people have leisure to see how little it will cost them to be just, we are confident they will be true to themselves, in acting with good faith towards us. Be certain that while the Cherokees are endeavoring to obtain a more friendly consideration from the United States, they will not forget to show by their circumspection how well they merit it; and though no doubt there are many who will represent them otherwise, for injurious purposes, I can assure you that the white people have nothing to apprehend, even from our sense of contumely [humiliating insults] and unfairness, unless it be through the perverse and the treacherous maneuvers of such agents as they themselves may keep among us.



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