MOONEY] PRESSURE FOR REMOVAL 182:i-24 115 



state. Every oflort iiiet with :i lii'iii rofusul, tlif Indians dccUiring' 

 that having already made ecssion after cession from a territory- once 

 extensive, their remaining lands were no more than were needed for 

 themselves and their children, more especially as experienc-e had 

 shown that each concession would be followed by a further d(!mand. 

 They conclude: "It is the fixed and unalterable determination of this 

 nation never again to cede one foot more of land." Soon aftei'ward 

 they addressed to the President a memorial of similar tenor, to which 

 Calhoun, as Secretary of War, returned answer that as Georgia 

 objected to their presenci^ cither as a tribe or as individual owners or 

 citizens, they must prepare their minds for removal beyond the Mis- 

 sissippi.' 



In reply, the Cherokee. 1\v their delegates — John Ross, George 

 Lowrey, Major Ridge, and Elijah Hicks — sent a strong letter calling 

 attention to the fact that by the very wording of the 1802 agreement 

 the compact was a conditional one which could not be carried out 

 without their own voluntary consent, and suggesting that Georgia 

 might be satisfied from the adjoining government lands in Florida. 

 Continuing, they remind the Secretary that the Cherokee are not 

 foreigners, but original inhabitants of America, inhal)iting and stand- 

 ing now upon the soil of their own territory, with limits defined ))y 

 treaties with the United States, and that, confiding in the good faith 

 of the government to respect its treaty stipulations, they do not hesitate 

 to say that their true interest,, prosperity, and happiness demand their 

 permanency where they are and the retention of their lands. ' 



A copy of this letter was sent by the Secretary to Governor Troup 

 of Georgia, who returned a reply in which he l)lamed the missionaries 

 for the refusal of the Indians, declared that the state would not permit 

 them to become citizens, and that the Secretary must either assist the 

 state in taking possession of the Cherokee lands, or, in resisting that 

 occupancy, make war upon and shed the blood of lirothers and friends. 

 The Georgia delegation in Congress addressed a similar letter to Presi- 

 dent Monroe, in which the government was censured for having 

 instructed the Indians in the arts of civilized life and ha\'ing tli('rel>y 

 imbued them with a desire to acquire property.^ 



For answer the President submitted a report liy Secretary Caiiioun 

 showing that since the agreement had been made with Georgia in 1.S02 

 the government had, at its own expense, extinguished the Indian claim 

 to 24,r)()0 square miles within the limits of that state, or more than 

 thiee-fifths of the whole Indian claim, and had paid on that and other 

 accounts connected with the agreement nearlv seven and a half million 



'Cherokee correspondence, 1823 and 1824, American Stntc Papers: Indian Affairs, ii, pp. 4IW-173, 

 1834; Royce. Clieroliec Nation, Fiftli Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, pp. 236-237, 1888. 



= Cherokce memorial, February U, 1824, in American State Papers: nidian Affairs, it. pp. 473. 494, 

 1834: Royce. op. eit.. p. 2:!7. 



■'Letters of Governor Troup of Georgia. February 28, 1824, and of Georgia delCKates, March 10,1824, 

 American State Papers: Indian Affairs, ii, pp. 47.5, 477, 1834; Royce. op. cit., pp. 2;)", 238. 



