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OUR TREATMENT OF THE CHEROKEES.

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, FEBRUARY 14, 1835.

[The fiat for the Removal of the Cherokees from their territory within the United States having gone forth, Mr. CLAY presented to the Senate the memorial of those Indians, and accompanied it by the following Speech.

I HOLD in my hands, and beg leave to present to the Senate certain resolutions and a memorial to the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States, of a Council met at Running Waters, con-, sisting of a portion of the Cherokee Indians. The Cherokees have a country—if, indeed, it can be any longer called their country-which is comprised within the limits of Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, and South Carolina. They have a population which is variously estimated, but which, according to the best information which I possess, amounts to about fifteen thousand souls. Of this population, a portion, believed to be much the greater part, amounting, as is estimated to between nine and ten thousand souls, reside within the limits of the State of Georgia. The Senate is well aware, that for several years past it had been the policy of the general government to transfer the Indians to the west of the Mississippi river, and that a portion of the Cherokees have already availed themselves of this policy of the government, and emigrated beyond the Mississippi. Of those who remain, a portion-a respectable, but also an inconsiderable portion are desirous to emigrate to the west, and a much larger portion desire to remain on their lands, and lay their bones where rest those of their ancestors. The papers which I now present emanate from the minor portion of the Cherokees; from those who are in favor of emigration. They present a case which appeals strongly to the sympathies of Congress. They say that it is impossible for them to continue to live under laws which they do not understand, passed by authority in which they have no share, promulgated in language of which nothing is known to the greater portion of them, and establishing rules for their government entirely unadapted to their nature,

education and habits. They say that destruction is hanging over them if they remain; that, their right of self-government being destroyed, though they are sensible of all the privations, and hardships, and sufferings of banishment from their native homes, they prefer exile with liberty, to residence in their homes with slavery. They implore, therefore, the intervention of the general government to provide for their removal west of the Mississippi, and to establish guaranties never hereafter to be violated, of the possession of the lands to be acquired by them west of the Mississippi, and of the perpetual right of self-government. This is the object of the resolutions and petition which I am about to offer to the Senate.

But I have thought that this occasion was one which called upon me to express the opinions and sentiments which I hold in relation to this entire subject, as respects not only the emigrating Indians, but those also who are desirous to remain at home; in short, to express in concise terms, my views of the relations between the Indian tribes and the people of the United States, the rights of both parties, and the duties of this government in regard to them.

The rights of the Indians are to be ascertained, in the first place, by the solemn stipulations of numerous treaties made with them by the United States. It is not my purpose to call the attention of the Senate to all the treaties which have been made with Indian tribes bearing on this particular topic: but I feel constrained to ask the attention of the Senate to some portions of those treaties which have been made with the Cherokees, and to the memorable treaty of Greenville, which has terminated the war that previously thereto, for many years, raged between the United States and the northwestern Indian tribes. I find, upon consulting the collection of Indian treaties in my hand, that within the last half century, fourteen different treaties have been concluded with the Cherokees, the first of which bore date in the year 1775, and some one or more of which have been concluded under every administration of the general government, from the beginning of it to the present time, except the present administration, and that which immediately preceded it. The treaty of Hopewell, the first in the series was concluded in 1775; in the third article of which "the said Indians for themselves, and their respective tribes and towns, do acknowledge all the Cherokees to be under the protection of the United States of America, and of no other

sovereign whatsoever." The fifth article of the same treaty provides that,

"If any citizen of the United States, or other person, not being an Indian, shall attempt to settle on any of the lands westw ard or southward of the said boundary, which are hereby allotted to the Indians for their hunting grounds, or, having already settled, and will not remove from the same within six months after the ratification of this treaty such person shall forfeit the protection of the United States, and the Indians may punish him or not, as they please: provided nevertheless, that this article shall not extend to the people settled between the fork of French, Broad, and Holston rivers," &c.

The next treaty in the series, which was concluded after the establishment of the government of the United States, under the auspices of the father of his country, was in the year 1791, on the banks of the Holston, and contains the following provision :

"Art. 7. The United States solemnly guarantee to the Cherokee nation all their lands not hereby ceded."

This is not an ordinary assurance of protection, &c., but a solemn guaranty of the rights of the Cherokees to the lands in question. The next treaty to which I will call the attention of the Senate, was concluded in 1794, also, under the auspices of General Washington, and declares as follows:

"The undersigned Henry Knox, Secretary for fhe department of war, being authorized thereto by the President of the United States, in behalf of the said United States, and the undersigned chiefs and warriors, in their own names, and in behalf of the whole Cherokee nation, are desirous of re-establishing peace and friendship between the said parties in a permanent manner, do hereby declare that the said treaty of Holston is, to all intents and purposes, in full force and binding upon the said parties, as well in respect to boundaries therein mentioned, as in all other respects whatever."

This treaty, it is seen, renews the solemn guarantee contained in the preceeding treaty, and declares it to be binding and obligatory upon the parties in all respects whatever.

Again in another treaty, concluded in 1798, under the second Chief Magistrate of the United States, we find the following stipulations: "

"Art. 2. The treaties subsisting between the present contracting parties are acknowledged to be of full and operating force; together with the construction and usage under their respective articles, and so to continue."

"Art. 3. The limits and boundaries of the Cherokee nation, as stipulated and marked by the existing treaties between the parties shall be and remain the same, where not altered by the present treaty."

There were other provisions, in other treaties, to which, if I did

not intend to take up as little time as possible of the Senate, I might advantageously call their attention. I will, however, pass on to one of the last treaties with the Cherokees, which was concluded in the year 1817. That treaty recognized the difference existing between the two portions of the Cherokees, one of which was desirous to remain at home and prosecute the good work of civilization, in which they had made some progress, and the other portion was desirous to go beyond the Mississippi. In that treaty, the fifth article, after several other stipulations, concludes as follows:

"And it is further stipulated, that the treaties heretofore between the Cherokee nation and the United States are to continue in full force with both parts of the nation, and both parts thereof entitled to all the privileges and immunities which the old nation enjoyed under the aforesaid treaties; the United States reserving the right of establishing factories, a military post, and roads within the boundaries above defined."

And to this treaty, thus emphatically renewing the recognition of the rights of the Indians, is signed the name as one of the Commissioners of the United States who negotiated it, of the present Chief Magistrate of the United States.

These were the stipulations in treaties with the Cherokee nation, to which I thought proper to call the attention of the Senate. I will now turn to the treaty of Greenville, concluded about forty years ago, recognizing some general principles applicable to this subject. The fifth article of that treaty reads as follows:

"To prevent any misunderstanding about the Indian lands relinquished by the United States in the fourth article, it is now explicitly declared, that the meaning of that relinquishment is this: the Indian tribes who have a right to those lands are quietly to enjoy them, hunting, planting, and dwelling thereon so long as they please, without any molestation from the United States; but when these tribes, or any of them, shall be disposed to sell their lands, or any part of them, they are to be sold only to the United States; and, until such sale, the United States will protect all the said Indian tribes in the quiet enjoyment of their lands against all citizens of the United States, and against all other white persons who intrude upon the same. And the said Indian tribes again acknowledge themselves to be under the protection of the said United States, and no other power whatever."

And what are those

Such, sir, are the rights of the Indian tribes. rights? They are, that the Indians shall live under their own customs and laws; that they shall live upon their own lands, hunting, planting and dwelling thereon so long as they please, without interruption or molestation of any sort from the white people of the United States, acknowledging themselves under the protection of the United States, and of no other power whatever; that when they no longer

wish to keep the lands, they shall sell them only to the United States, whose government thus secures to itself the pre-emptive right of purchase in them. These rights, so secured by successive treaties and guaranties, have also been recognized, on several occasions, by the highest judicial tribunals.

[Mr. CLAY here quoted from an opinion of the Supreme Court a passage declaring that the Indians are acknowledged to have an unquestionable and heretofore unquestioned right to their land, until it shall be extinguished by voluntary cession to this government.]

But it is not at home alone that the rights of the Indians within the limits of the United States have been recognized. Not only has the Executive, the Congress of the United States, and the Supreme Court, recognized these rights, but in one of the most important epochs of this government, and on one of the most solemn occasions in our intercourse with foreign powers, these rights of the Indian tribes have been acknowledged. You, sir, will understand me at once to refer to the negotiation between the government of Great Britain and that of the United States, which had for its object the termination of the late war between the two countries. Sir, it must be within your recollection, and that of every member of the Senate, that the hinge upon which that negotiation turned-the ground upon which it was for a long time apprehended that the conference be tween the commissioners would terminate in a rupture of the negotiation between the two countries—was, the claim brought forward on that memorable occasion by Great Britain in behalf of the Indians within the limits of the United States. It will be recollected that she advanced, as a principle from which she would not recede, as a sina qua non, again and again, during the progress of the negotiation, that the Indians as her allies, should be included in the treaty of peace which the negotiators were about forming; that they should have a permanent boundary assigned them, and that neither Great Britain nor the United States should be at liberty to purchase their lands.

Such were the pretensions urged on that occasion, which the commissioners of the United States felt it to be their imperative duty to resist. To establish, as the boundary, the line of the treaty of Greenville, as proposed, which would have excluded from the benefit of American laws and privileges a population of not less than a hundred thousand of the inhabitants of Ohio, American citizens, en

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