18(> MYTHS (IF THE CHEROKEE [eth.ann.W 



the history of the earlier emigrants, the Arkansas or Old Settler 

 Cherokee. 



The events leadiny to the tirst westward iiiig-ration and the subse- 

 quent negotiations which resulted in tiie assignment oi' a territory in 

 Arkansas to the western Cherokee, by the treaty of 1817. have been 

 already noted. The great majority of those thus voluntarily remov- 

 ing Ix'longi'd to the conservative hunter element, who desired to rees- 

 tablish in the western wilderness the old Indian life from which, 

 through tiie influence of schools arid intelligent leadcrsliip, the body 

 of th(> Cherokee was rapidh' drifting away. As the lands upon which 

 the emigrants had settled belonged to the Osage, whose claim iiad not 

 A'et been extinguished l)y the United States, the latter objected to 

 their presence, and the Cherokee were compelled to tight to maintain 

 tiieir own position, so that for the first twenty years oi' more the his- 

 tory of the western band is a mere petty chronicle of Osage raids and 

 Cherokee retaliations, emphasized from time to time b}- a massacre on 

 a lai'ger scale. By the treaty of ISIT the western Cherokee ac({uired 

 title to a definite territory and official standing under Government pro- 

 tection and supervision, the lands assigned them ha\'ing been ac(]uired 

 by treaty from the Osage. The great body of the Cherokee in the 

 East were strongly opposed to any recognition of the western band, 

 seeing in such action oidy the beginning of an eti'ort looking toward 

 the ultimate removal of the whole tri})e. The Government lent sup- 

 port to the scheme, however, and a steady emigration set in until, in 

 ISlit, the emigrants w'ere said to number several thousands. Unsuc- 

 cessful endeavors were made to increase the mnnber by inducing the 

 Shawano and Delawares of ^Missouri and the Oneida of New York to 

 join them.' 



In 1818 Tollunteeskee (Ata'lunti'ski), princii)ai cliief of the Arkan- 

 sas Cherokee, while on a visit to old friends in the P>ast, iiad become 

 ac(|uainted with one of the officers of the American Board of Commis- 

 sioners for Foreign Missions, and had a.sked for the establishment of 

 amission among his people in the West. In response to the invitation 

 the Reverend Cephas Washl)urn and his assistant. Reverend .Vlfred 

 Finney, with their families, set out the next year fi-oni the old Nation, 

 and after a long and exhausting journey reached the Arkansas country, 

 where, in the spring of 1820, they esta))lished Dwight mission, adjoin- 

 ing the agency at the mouth of Illinois creek, on the northern bank 

 of the Arkansas, in what is now Pope county. Arkansas. The name 

 was bestowed in rememl)rance of Timothy Dwight, a Yale president 

 and pioneer organizer of the American Board. Tollunteeskee having 

 died in the meantime was succeeded as principal chief by his brother, 

 John Jolly," the friend and adopted father of Sanmel Houston. Jolly 



1 See ante, pp. 105-106; Nuttall, who was on the ground, gives them only 1,500. 

 • Washburn. Cephas, Reminiscences of the Indians, pp. 81, 103; Richmond, 1869. 



