196 CHEROKEE NATION OF INDIANS. 
coincident from the head of Chickasaw Island northward, but when 
the country came to be examined with a view to running the line, it was 
found that a strict adherence to the text of the Cherokee cession would 
leave about two hundred families of settlers on the headwaters of Blk 
River still within the Indian country.' In the mean time the Chicka- 
saws, having learned that the United States had purchased of the 
Cherokees their suppesed claim to the territory as far west as the 
Tennessee River, including a large region of country to the westward 
of the limits of the cession of 1805 by the former, construed that fact as 
a recognition of the sole and absolute title of the Cherokees thereto, 
and became in consequence very much excited and angered. They 
were only pacified by an official letter of assurance from the Secretary 
of War, addressed to Maj. George Colbert, their principal chief,’ wherein 
he stated that in purchasing the Cherokee right to the tract in ques- 
tion the United States did not intend to destroy or impair the right of 
the Chickasaw Nation to the same; but that, being persuaded no actual 
boundary had ever been agreed on between the Chickasaws and Chero- 
kees and that the Cherokees had some claim to a portion of the lands, 
it was thought advisable to purchase that claim, so that whenever the 
Chickasaws should be disposed to convey their title there should be no 
dispute with the Cherokees about it. 
The Cherokees by this treaty also relinquished all claim they might 
have to the Long Island or Great Island, as it was sometimes cadled, of 
Holston River. This island was in reality outside the limits of the 
country assigned the Cherokees by the first treaty between them and 
the United States, at Hopewell, in 1785, but they had always since 
maintained that no cession had ever been made of it by them, and it was 
deemed wise to insert a specific clause in the treaty under consideration 
to that effect.? 
Boundaries to be surveyed.—Early in 1807‘ the Secretary of War noti- 
fied Agent Meigs that Mr. Thomas Freeman had been appointed to sur- 
vey and mark the boundary line conformably to both the treaty of 1805 
with the Chickasaws and of 1806 with the Cherokees, as well as to sur- 
vey the land ceded between the south line of Tennessee and the Ten- 
nessee River, lying west of the line from about the Chickasaw Old 
Fields to the most eastern source of Duck River. He was also advised 
that General Robertson and himself had been designated to attend and 
superintend the running of such boundary lines. Furthermore, that it 
‘President Jefferson to U. S. Senate, March 29, 1808. American State Papers, 
Indian Affairs, Vol. I, p. 753. 
‘Vebruary 21, 1806. Indian Office records. 
>On the return home of the Cherokee delegation that visited Washington in 1801, 
‘«The Glass, ” a noted Cherokee chief, represented to his people that the Secretary of 
War had said, ‘‘One Joseph Martin has a claim on the Long Island of Holston River.” 
This the Secretary of War denied, in a letter dated November 20, 1801, to Col. R. J. 
Meigs. 
‘April 1. Indian Office records, 
