104 MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE [eth.ann.19 



end of 181!> the number of emij^Tants was said to have inereased to six 

 thousand. The chiefs of the nation, however, tdaimed that the esti- 

 mate was greatly in excess of the truth.' 



■"There can be no question that a very large portion, and jjrobably 

 a majority, of the Cherokee nation residing east of the Mississippi had 

 bei'n and still continued bitterly opposed to the terms of the treaty of 

 1817. They viewed with jealous and aching hearts all attempts to 

 drive them from the homes of their ancestors, for they could not but 

 consider the constant and urgent importunities of the federal authori- 

 ties in the light of an imperative demand for the cession of more 

 territorJ^ They felt that they were, as a nation, being slowly but 

 surely compressed within the contracting coils of the giant anaconda 

 of civilization; yet they held to the vain hope that a spirit of justice 

 and mercy would be born of their helpless condition which would 

 finally prevail in their favor. Their traditions furnished them no 

 guide by which to judge of the results certain to follow such a contlict 

 as that in which they were engaged. This ditference of sentiment in 

 the nation upon a subject- so vital to their welfare was productive of 

 nmch bitterness and violent animosities. Those who had favored the 

 emigration scheme and had been induced, either thi'ough personal 

 preference or liy the subsidizing influences of the government agents, 

 to favor the conclusion of the treaty, l)ecame the object of scorn and 

 hatred to the remainder of the nation. They were made the subjects 

 of a persecution so relentless, while they remained in the eastern 

 countrj', that it was never forgotten, and when, in the natural course 

 of events, the remainder of the nation was forced to remove to the 

 Arkansas country and join the earlier emigrants, the old hatreds and 

 dissensions broke out afresh, and to this day they find k)dgment in 

 some degree in the breasts of their descendants.''" 



Two months after the signing of the treaty of July 8, 1817, and 

 three months before its ratihcation, a council of the nation sent a dele- 

 gation to Washington to recount in detail the improper methods and 

 influences which had been used to consummate it, and to ask that it be 

 set aside and another agreement substituted. The mission was without 

 result.' 



In 1817 the American Board of Conunissioners for Foreign Missions 

 established its first station among the Cherokee at Brainerd. in Ten- 

 nessee, on the west side of Chickamauga creek, two miles from the 

 Georgia line. The mission took its name from a distinguished pioneer 

 worker among the northern tribes (37). The government aided in the 

 erection of the buildings, which included a schoolhouse, gristmill, 

 and workshops, in which, besides the ordinary branches, the boys were 

 taught simple mechanic arts while the girls learned the use of the 



1 Royee, Cherokee Nation, Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, 217-218, 1888. 

 = Ibid., pp. 218-219. a Ibid., p. 219. 



