royce. | TREATY OF SEPTEMBER 11, 1807. 195 
Mountain, in which the waters of Elk River have their source; then 
along the margin of said mountain, until it shall intersect the lands 
heretofore ceded to the United States at the said Tennessee ridge.” 
In consideration of this concession, the United States agree to pay 
to the Cherokees $2,000 and to permit the latter to hunt upon the tract 
ceded until the increase of settlements renders it improper. 
HISTORICAL DATA. 
CONTROVERSY CONCERNING BOUNDARIES, 
Shortly after the conclusion of the treaties of October 25 and 27, 1805, 
a delegation of Cherokee chiefs and headmen visited Washington. 
Messrs. Return J. Meigs and Daniel Smith, the commissioners who had 
negotiated those treaties, accompanied them. 
The Secretary of War, Hon. Henry Dearborn, was specially depu- 
tized by the President to conduct negotiations with them for the pur- 
chase of such portions of their country as they might feel willing to sell, 
but more especially to extinguish their claim to the region of territory 
lying to the north and east of Tennessee River and west of the head 
waters of Duck River. 
The negotiations were concluded and the treaty was signed on the 7th 
of January, 1806,! and the President transmitted the same to the Senate 
on the 24th of the same month ; but that body did not consent to its 
ratification for more than a year afterwards.” 
At the time of the conclusion of this treaty, it was supposed by all 
the parties thereto that the eastern limit of the cession therein defined 
would include all of the waters of Elk River, the impression being that 
the headwaters of Duck River had their source farther to the east than 
those of the Elk.® 
The region of country in question had for many years been claimed 
by both the Cherokees and the Chickasaws, and the Government of the 
United States, not desiring to incur the animosity of either of these 
Indian nations, had preferred rather to extinguish by purchase the daim 
of each. With this end in view, a treaty had already been concluded 
with the Chickasaws, under date of July 23, 1805,‘ resulting in their re- 
linguishment of all claim to the land north of Duck River lying east of 
the Tennessee and to a tract lying between Duck and Tennessee Rivers,, 
on the north and south, and east of the Columbian Highway, so as to. 
include all the waters of Elk River. It had been the intention that the 
eastern boundary of the cession made by both these nations should be 


1 United States Statutes at Large, Vol. VII, p. 101. 
2 May, 1807. - 
® Message of President Jefferson to U. 8. Senate, March 29, 1808, and letter of R. J. 
Meigs, September 28, 1807. American State Papers, Indian Affairs, Vol. I, p. 753. 
‘United States Statntes at Large, Vol. VII. 
