216 CHEROKEE NATION OF INDIANS. 
Cherokee Nation should be disposed to enter into an arrangement for 
an exchange of the lands occupied by them for lands on the west side 
of the Mississippi River and should appoint delegates clothed with 
full authority to negotiate a treaty for such exchange they would be 
received by the President and treated with on the most liberal terms. 
This state of feeling among the Cherokees had been considerably in- 
creased by the fact that those of their people who had already settled 
upon the Arkansas and White Rivers had become involved in territorial 
disputes of a most serious character with the Osages and Quapaws. 
The latter tribes claimed ownership of the lands upon which the former 
were settled Upon the Arkansas Cherokees laying their complaints 
before the United States authorities, they were informed that nothing 
could be done for their relief until the main body of the nation should 
take some definite action, in accordance with previous understanding, 
toward relinquishing a portion of their territory equal in area to the 
tract upon which the emigrant party had located.! 

FURTHER CESSION OF TERRITORY BY THE CHEROKEES. 
With a view to reaching a full understanding on this subject, the 
Secretary of War notified? General Andrew Jackson, Governor MeMinn- 
of Tennessee, and General David Merriwether that they had been ap- 
pointed commissioners for the purpose of holding a treaty with the 
Cherokees on or about the 20th of June, 1817.2. In pursuance of these 
instructions a conference was called and held at the Cherokee Agency, 
which resulted in the treaty of July 8,1817.4 By this treaty the Chero- 
kees ceded two large tracts of country in exchange for one of equal 
area on the Arkansas and White Rivers adjoining the territory of the 

1Tn a letter to Return J. Meigs, under date of September 18, 1816, the Secretary of War 
says that ‘the difficulties which have arisen between the Cherokees aud the Osages, 
on the north of the Arkansas, and with the Quapaws, on the south, cannot be finally 
settled until the line of the cession shall be run and the rights of the Quapaws shall 
be ascertained. Commissioners appointed by the President are now sitting at Saint 
Louis for the adjustment of those differences; but should the line of the Osage treaty 
prove that they are settled upon the Osage lands, nothing can be done for the Chero- 
kees. It is known to you and to that nation that the condition upon which the emi- 
gration was permitted by the President was that a cession of Cherokee lands should 
be made equal to the proportion which the emigrants should bear to the whole nation. 
This condition has neyer been complied with on the part of the nation, and of course 
all obligation on the part of the United States to secure the emigrants in their new 
possessions has ceased. When the subject was mentioned to the Cherokee deputation 
last winter, so far were they from acknowledging its force, that they declared the 
emigrants should be compelled to return.” 
2May 14, 1817. 
%On the 17th of May, 1817, these commissioners were advised that the lands pro- 
posed to be given the Cherokees on the west of the Mississippi River, in exchange for 
those then occupied by them, were the lands on the Arkansas and immediately ad- 
joining the Osage boundary line. 
4United States Statutes at Large, Vol. VII, p. 156. 
5 These tracts are designated on the accompanying map as Nos. 23 and 24, 
