MoosEY] THK TioWL EMIGRATION 1794 101 



^Vliile the niissioiiiirv may he pardoned for iiiakinir the best show- 

 iug possible for his friends, his statement contains several evident 

 errors, and it is probable that Haywood's account is more correct in 

 the main. As the Cherokee annuity at that time amounted to but 

 fifteen hundred dollars for the whole tribe, or somewhat less than ten 

 cents per head, they could hardly have had enough money from that 

 source to pay such extruvao-aiit prices as sixteen dollars apiece for 

 pocket mirrors, which it is alleged the boatmen obtained. Moreover, 

 as the Chickamauga warriors had refused to sign any treaties and were 

 notoriously hostile, they were not as yet entitled to receive paynicMits. 

 Haywood's statement that the emigrant part}' was first attacked while 

 passing the Chickamauga towns and then pursued to the Muscle shoals 

 and there massaci'ed is probably near the truth, although it is quite 

 possible that the whites may have provoked the attack in some such 

 way as is indicated by the missionary. As Washburn got his account 

 from one of the women of the party, living long afterward in New 

 Orleans, it is certain that some at least were spared by the Indians, 

 and it is probable that, as he states, only the men were killed. 



The Bowl emigration may not have been the first, or even the most 

 important removal to the western country, as the period was one of 

 Indian uni-est. Small bands were constantly crossing the Mississippi 

 into Spanish territorv to avoid the advancing Americans, only to find 

 themselves again under American jurisdiction when the whole western 

 country was ceded to the United States in 1803. The persistent land- 

 hvuiger of the settler could not be restrained or satisfied, and early in 

 the .same year President -leflerson suggested to Congress the desira- 

 bility of removing all the tribes to the west of the Mississippi. In 

 the next 3'ear, 1804. an ap])ropriation was made for taking prelimi- 

 nary steps toward such a result.' There were probably but few Chero- 

 kee on the Arkansas at this time, as they are not mentioned in Sibley's 

 list of tribes south of that river in 180.5. 



In the summer of 1808, a Cherokee delegation being about to visit 

 Washington, their agent, Colonel Meigs, was instructed by the Secre- 

 tary of War to use every efl'ort to obtain their consent to an exchange 

 of their lands for a tract beyond the Mississippi. By this time the 

 government's civilizing policy, as carried out in the annual distribution 

 of farming tools, spinning wheels, and looms, had wrought a consider- 

 able difierence of habit and sentiment between the northern and 

 southern Cherokee. Tho.se on Little Tennessee and Hiwassee were 

 generally farmers and stock rai.sers, producing also a limited (juantity 

 of cotton, which the women wove into cloth. Those farther down in 

 Georgia and Alabama, the old hostile element, still preferred the 

 hunting life and rejected all efl'ort at innovation, although the game 

 had now become so scarce that it was evident a change nmst soon 



> Royce, Cherokee Nation, FUth Aim. Rep. B\ireau of Ethnology, pp. 202,203, 1888. 



