98 MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE [kth.ann.19 



for damages sustained ])y the Cherokee from tht- depredations of the 

 troops passing through their country dui'ing the Creek war.' 



At the hist treaty the Cheroke(> had resisted every effoi-t to induce 

 them tci c('(h' more hmd on either side of tlic 'i'cnncssce, tiie (rovern- 

 mciit being especially desirous to extinguish their claim north of that 

 ri\-er within the limits of the state of Tennessee. Failing in this, 

 pressure was at once begun to bring about a cession in Alabama, with 

 the r(>sult that on Septeml)er 14 of the same year a treaty was con- 

 cluded at the Chickasaw council-house, and afterward ratified in gen- 

 eral council at Turkeytown on the Coosa, b\- which the Cherokee 

 ceded all their claims in that state south of Tennessee river and west 

 of an irregular line running from Chickasaw island in that sti-eam, 

 below the entrance of Flint river, to the junction of Wills creek w itli 

 the Coosa, at the present Gadsden. For this cession, em1)racing an 

 area of nearh' three thousand live hundred square miles, they were to 

 receive sixty thousand dollars in ten annual payments, together with 

 five thousand dollars for the improvements abandoned." 



We turn aside now for a time from the direct narrative to note the 

 development of events wliich culminated in the forced expatriation of 

 the Cherokee from their ancestral homes and their removal to the far 

 western wilderness. 



^\'ith a few notable exceptions the relations between the Fi-ench 

 and Spanish colonists and the native tribes, after the first occupation 

 of the country, had been friendly and agreeable. Under the rule of 

 France or Spain there was never any Intlian boundary. Pionet'r ;ind 

 Indian liuilt their cabins and tilled their fields side by side, ranged 

 the woods together, knelt before the same altar and frequently inter- 

 married on terms of e([uality, so far as race was concerned. The 

 result is seen to-day in the mixed-blood communities of Canada, and 

 in ^Mexico, where a nation has been built upon an Indian foundation. 

 Within the area of English colonization it was otherwise. From the 

 first settlement to the recent inauguration of the allotment system it 

 never occurred to the man of Teutonic blood that he could have for a 

 neighbor anyone not of his own stock and color. While the English 

 colonists recognized the native proprietorship so far as to make trea- 

 ties with the Indians, it was chiefly for the purpose of ti.xing limits 

 beyond which the Indian should never come after he had once parted 

 with his title for a consideration of goods and trinkets. In an early 

 Virginia treaty it was even stij)ulated that friendl\' Indians crossing 

 the line should suffer death. The Indian was regarded as an incum- 

 brance to be cleared off, like the trees and the wolves, before white 

 men could live in the country. Intermarriages were practically 



1 Indian Treaties, pp. 185-187, 1837; Royoe, Cherokee Nation, Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, 



pp. 197-209, 1S8S. 

 -Indian Treaties, pp. I'.i9, 'JOO, 18S7; Royce, op. tit., pp. ■J()9-'-'ll. 



