n6 The Winning of the West 



Of course, such a treaty excited the bitter anger 

 of the frontiersmen, and they scornfully refused to 

 obey its provisions. They hated the Indians, and, 

 as a rule, were brutally indifferent to their rights, 

 while they looked down on the Federal Government 

 as impotent. Nor was the ill-will to the treaty 

 confined to the rough borderers. Many men of 

 means found that land grants which they had ob 

 tained in good faith and for good money were 

 declared void. Not only did they denounce the 

 treaty, and decline to abide by it, but they de 

 nounced the motives of the Commissioners, declar 

 ing, seemingly without justification, that they had 

 ingratiated themselves with the Indians to further 

 land speculations of their own. 3 



As the settlers declined to pay any heed to the 

 treaty the Indians naturally became as discontented 

 with it as the whites. In the following summer 

 the Cherokee chiefs made solemn complaint that, 

 instead of retiring from the disputed ground, the 

 settlers had encroached yet further upon it, and had 

 come to within five miles of the beloved town of 

 Chota. The chiefs added that they had now made 

 several such treaties, each of which established 

 boundaries that were immediately broken, and that 

 indeed it had been their experience that after a 

 treaty the whites settled even faster on their lands 

 than before. 4 Just before this complaint was sent 



8 Clay MSS. Jesse Benton to Thos. Hart, April 3, 1786. 

 4 State Department MSS. , No. 56. Address of Corn Tassel 

 and Hanging Maw, Sept. 5, 1786. 



