200 CHEROKEE NATION OF INDIANS. 
miles square at the mouth of Chickamauga Creek, on the south side of 
Tennessee River, to be laid off in square form so as to include the 
creek to the best advantage for such site. The treaty also contained 
a proviso that in case the ore supply should fail at this point, the 
United States should have full liberty to procure it within the Chero- 
kee territory at the most suitable and convenient place. Twenty-five 
hundred dollars of the consideration was at once paid in cash to the 
Indians and 1,000 bushels of corn agreed to be delivered to them the 
following spring. Colonel Earle carried the treaty to Washington at 
the next session of Congress for ratification.! 
President Jefferson transmitted it to the Senate with a favorable 
message,” but before any action was taken by that body it was ascer- 
tained that the tract selected and ceded was within the limits of the 
State of Tennessee. 
The matter of ratification was therefore postponed, with the hope that 
the State of Tennessee would consent to relinquish her claim to the 
land. In this the President was disappointed. No further action was 
taken for several years, until, it having become evident that no conces- 
sion would be made in the matter by the legislature of Tennessee, the 
United States Senate? unanimously rejected the treaty. In conse- 
quence of this action, Colonel Earle made claim‘ against the Govern- 
ment either for the value of his time and expenses incurred in explor- 
ing the Cherokee country, selecting the site, and procuring the conclu- 
sion of the treaty, or, as an alternative, that the consent of the Chero- 
kees should be secured to the cession of another tract of similar area 
and character. 
The latter proposition was accepted, and Agent Meigs was advised* 
that Mr. Earle had been granted permission to select some other site 
suitable for his iron works, and instructed that in case he did so, nego- 
tiations should again be opened with the Cherokees for an exchange of 
the tract covered by the cession of 1807 for the one newly selected. 
Success, however, does not seem to have attended this second attempt, 
and Agent Meigs was advised ® by the Secretary of War that $985 had 
been paid Colonel Earle for damages sustained by him in the Cherokee 
country while detained there by the Indians, which amount must be de- 
ducted from the Cherokee annuity. 
A third attempt of a similar character was made in 1815, when? Col- 
onel Earle was appointed to negotiate, in conjunction with the Indian 
agent, a treaty with the Cherokees or Chickasaws for the purchase of a 

' Letter of Return J. Meigs to Secretary ef War, December 3. 1807. 
2>March 10, 1808. See American State Papers, Indian Affairs, Vol. I, p. 752. 
‘January 10, 1812. 
4In March, 1812. 
5 May 14, 1812. 
®March 24, 1814. 
7February 3, 1815. 
