ROYCE. | TREATY OF MARCH 22, 1816. 199 
HISTORICAL DATA. 
Subsequent to the ratification of the treaty of September 11, 1807, 
with the Cherokees, no other treaty receiving the final sanction of the 
Senate and President was concluded with them until March 22, 1816;! 
but in the interval sundry negotiations and matters of official impor- 
tance were conducted with them, which it will be proper to summarize. 
COLONEL EARLE’S NEGOTIATIONS FOR THE PURCHASE OF IRON-ORE TRACT. 
In the early part of the year 1807, Col. Elias Earle, of South Carolina, 
proposed to the Secretary of War the establishment of iron works, with 
suitable shops, in the Cherokee Nation, on substantially the following 
conditions, viz: That a suitable place should be looked out and selected 
where sufficient quantities of good iron ore could be found, in the vi- 
cinity of proper water privileges, for such an establishment ;. that the 
Indians should be induced to make a cession of a tract of land, not less 
than 6 miles square, which should embrace the ore bed and water priv- 
ilege; thatso much of the land so ceded as the President of the United 
States should deem proper should be conveyed to him (Earle), includ- 
ing the ore and water facilities, whereon he should be authorized to 
erect iron works, smith shops, and so forth. Earle, on his part, engaged 
to erect such iron works and shops as to enable him to furnish such 
quantities of iron and implements of husbandry as should be sufficient 
for the use of the various Indian tribes in that part of the country, in- 
cluding those on the west side of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers; also 
to deliver annually to the order of the Government of the United States 
such quantities of iron and implements as should be needed for the 
Indian service, and on such reasonable terms as should be mutually 
agreed upon. 
The Secretary of War referred the propositions of Colonel Earle to 
the President of the United States, who gave them his sanction, and 
accordingly Agent Meigs, of the Cherokees, was instructed? to endeavor 
to procure from the Cherokees such a cession as was proposed, so soon 
as Colonel Earle should have explored the country and selected a suit- 
able place for the proposed establishment. Colonel Earle made the 
necessary explorations, and found a place at the mouth of Chickamauga 
Creek which seemed to meet the requirements of the case. 
Thereupon Agent Meigs convened the Indians in council at High- 
wassee, Tennessee, at which Colonel Earle was present, and concluded a 
treaty’ with them. By its terms, in consideration of the sum of $5,000 
and 1,000 bushels of corn, the Cherokees ceded a tract of country 6 

1 United States Statutes at Large, Vol. VII, pp. 138 and 139, 
2 February 28, 1807. 
®’December 2, 1807. See American State Papers, Indian Affairs, Vol. I, p. 753. 
