MOONEY] REOKGANIZATION IN THK WEST 1840 14:7 



nation jriiidi^d henceforth by shrewd niixed-hlood ))oliticians. hearing 

 whitt^ ineifs names and spealving the white uiaii"s hmouage. and fre- 

 (jiiently witli liardly enough Indian l)lood to show itself in the features. 

 The change was not instantaneous, nor is it even yet eoaiplete, for 

 although the tendency is constantly awa}' from the old things, and 

 although fre(]uent intermarriages are rapidly bleaching out the brown 

 of the Indian skin, there are still several thousand full-l)k)od Chero- 

 kee — enough to constitute a large tribe if set oti' by thems(>lves — who 

 speak only their native language and in secret bow down to the nature- 

 gods of their fathers. Here, as in other lands, the conservsitive 

 clement has taken refuge in the mountain districts, while the mixed- 

 })lo()ds and the adopted whites ai'c chiefly on the richer low grounds 

 an<l in tlic railroad towns. 



On the i-eorganization of the united Nation the council ground at 

 Tahlequah was designated as the seat of governnu'iit, and the prcsi>nt 

 town was soon afterward laid out upon the spot, taking its name from 

 the old Cherokee town of Talikwa', or Tellico. in Tennessee. The 

 missions were reestablished, the Adriicnh' was revived, and the work 

 of civilization was again taken up, though under great ditticulties. as 

 continued removals and persecutions, with the awful suil'eriug and 

 mortality of the last great emigration, had impoverished and more 

 than decimated the Nation and worn out the courage even of the 

 bravest. The bitterness engendered by the New Echota treaty led 

 to a .series of murders and assassinations and other acts of outlawry, 

 amounting almost to civil war between the Ross and Ridge factions, 

 until the Government was at last obliged to interfere. The Old Set- 

 tlers also had their grievances and complaints against the newcomers, 

 so that the history of the Cherokee Nation for the next twenty years 

 is largely a chronicle of factional quarrels, through which civilization 

 and everv good work actuallv retrograded l)ehind the condition of a 

 generation earlier. 



Sequo3^a, who had occu]iiiMl a prominent position in the atfaii's of 

 the Old Settlers and assisted nuich in the reorganization of the Nation, 

 had become seized with a desire to make linguistic investigations among 

 the remote tribes, very probably with a view of devising a universal 

 Indian alphaljct. His mind dwelt also on the old tradition of a lost 

 band of Cherokee living somewhere toward the western mountains. 

 In lfS41 and 18-1:2. with a few Cherokee companions and with his pro- 

 visions and papers loaded in an ox cart, he made several journeys into 

 the ^\'est, received everywhere with kindness by even the wildest tribes. 

 Disappointed in his })hilologic results, he started out in 184-3 in (juest 

 of the lost Cherokee, who were t)elieved to be somewher(> in northern 

 Mexico, but. being now an old man and worn out by hardship, he sank 

 under the effort and died — alone and unattended, it is .said — near the 



