McioNEV] PCRCnASE OF QI'ALLA RKSKBVATION 1842 159 



oiicli head of a family thus rciiiaiiiiiiii' to Ik' coiitirnuHl in a ijrcciiiptioii 

 rit;ht to ItiU acres. In eonseiiuenee of the settled purpose of President 

 Jaekson to deport every Indian, this i)erraission was canceled and sup- 

 plementary articles substituted hy which some additional comijensation 

 was allowed in lieu of the promised preemptions and all indi\i(hial 

 reservations o;ranted under previous treaties.' E\'ery Clierokee was 

 thus made a landh^ss alien in his original country. 



The last party of emigrant Chei'okee had started foi- the West in 

 December, 1838. Nine months afterwards the refugees still scattered 

 about in the uiountains of North Carolina and Tennessee were re))oi-ted 

 to number l,U4t).'~ I3y persistent etiort at Washington from iSHt! to 

 1842, including one continuous stay of three years at the capital city, 

 Thomas tinally obtained go\ernmental permission for these to remain, 

 and their share of the moneys due for improvements and reservations 

 confiscated was placed at his disposal, as their agent and trustee, for the 

 purpose of buying lands upon which they could T)e permanently settled. 

 Under this authority he bought for them, at various times up to the 

 j^ear 1861, a number of contiguous tracts of land upon Oconaluftee 

 river and Soco creek, within th(> present Swain and dackson counties 

 of North Carolina, together with several detached tracts in the more 

 western counties of the same state. The main body, upon the waters 

 of Oconaluftee. which was chiefly within the limits of the cession of 

 1819, came afterward to be known as the Qualla boundary, or C^ualla 

 reservation, taking the name from Thomas' principal trading store 

 and agency headquarters. The detached western tracts were within 

 the final cession of 1835, but all alike were bought by Thomas from 

 white owners. As North Carolina refu.sed to recognize Indians as land- 

 owners within the state, and persisted in this refusal until Isdt!,-' 

 Thomas, as their authorized agent under the Government, held the 

 deeds in his own name. Before it was legally possible under the state 

 laws to transfer the title to the Indians, his own atiViirs had b(>com(> 

 involved and his health impaired by age and the hardships of military 

 service so that his mind gave way, thus leaving the whole cpu^stion of 

 the Indian title a subject of litigation until its adjudication l)y the 

 United States in 187.5, supplemented by further decisions in 1S!»4. 



To Colonel William Holland Thomas the East Ciierokee of lo-day 

 owe their existence as a people, and for half a century he was as inti- 

 mately connected with their histoi-y as was John Ross witii thai of the 

 main Cherokee Nation. Singulai'ly enough, their coiineclion with 

 Cherokee affairs extended over nearly the same period, l)ut while 

 Ross participated in their national matters Thomas gave his efi'ort to 



'See New Echota treaty. December '."9, 1835, and supplementary articles, llarch I. 18Hr>. in Indian 

 Treaties, pp, 633-6-18, 1837; also full discussion of same treaty ni Itoyce. Cliemkce Nation. Fifth .\nn. 

 Rep. Bureau of Ethnology. 18S8. 



'Royee,op.eit..p.292. 'lbid.,p,:iM. 



