116 MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE [eth,anx.19 



dollars, of which by far the greater part had gone to Georgia or her 

 citizens. In regard to the other criticism the report states that the 

 civilizing policy was as old as the government itself, and that in per- 

 forming the high duties of humanity to the Indians, it had never Ijeen 

 conceived that the stipulation of the convention was contravened. In 

 huiuling in the report the President again called attention to the con- 

 ditional nature of the ag-reement and declared it as his opinion that the 

 title of the Indians was not in the slightest degree affected by it and 

 that there was no obligation on the United States to i-emove them by 

 force.' 



Further efforts, even to the employment of secret methods, were 

 made in 1827 and 1828 to induce a cession or emigration, but without 

 avail. On July 2(i, 1827, as already noted, the Cherokee adopted a 

 constitution as a distinct and sovereign Nation. Upon this the Georgia 

 legislature passed resolutions affirming that that state ''had the power 

 and the right to possess herself, by any means she might choose, of 

 the lands in dispute, and to extend over them her authority and laws," 

 and reconmiending that this l)e done by the next legislature, if the 

 lands were not already acquired bj' successful negotiation of the gen- 

 eral government in the meantime. The government was warned that 

 the lands belonged to Georgia, and she must and would have them. It 

 was suggested, however, that the United States might l)e permitted to 

 make a certain number of reservations to individual Indians.'' 



Passing over for the present some important negotiations Avith the 

 western Cherokee, we come to the events leading to the final act in the 

 drama. Up to this time the pressure had been for land only, but now 

 a stronger motive was added. About the year 1815 a little Cherokee 

 boy pla3'ing along Chestatee river, in upper Georgia, had brought in 

 to his mother a shining yellow pebble hardly larger than the end of his 

 thumb. On 1)(>ing washed it proved to lie a nugget of gold, and on 

 her next trip to the settlements the woman carried it with her and sold 

 it to a white man. The news spread, and although she probably con- 

 cealed the knowledge of the exact spot of its origin, it was soon known 

 that the golden dreams of DeSoto had been realized in the Cherokee 

 country of Georgia. Within four j'ears the whole territory east of 

 the Chestatee had passed from the possession of the Cherokee. They 

 still held the western bank, but the prospector was abroad in the 

 mountains and it could not ])e for long.'* About 1828 gold was found 

 on Ward's creek, a western branch of Chestatee, near the present 

 Dahlonega,* and the doom of the nation was sealed (41). 



1 Monroe, message to the Senate, with Calhoun's report, March 30, 1824. American State Papers: 

 Indian Affairs, ll. pp. 460, 462, 1834. 



= Royce, Cheroliee Nation, Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnolog.v, pp. 241 , 242, l.SSS. 



^Personal information from J. D. Wafford. 



■•Nitze, H. B. C. in Twentieth Annual Report United States Geological Surve.v, part (Mineral 

 Resources), p. 112,1899. 



