RoYcE.] TREATY OF FEBRUARY 27, 1819. 223 
a climax as a consequence of the treaty of 1817, had been rather stimu- 
lated than otherwise by the frequent departure of parties for their new 
western home, and the constant importunities of the United States 
and State officials (frequently bearing the semblance of threats) hav- 
ing in view the removal of the entire tribe. The many and open acts 
of violence practiced by the “home” as against the “emigration” party 
at length called forth! a vigorous letter of denunciation from the See- 
retary of War to Governor McMinn, the emigration superintendent. 
After detailing at much length the many advantages that would accrue 
to the Cherokee Nation by a removal beyond the contaminating influences 
always attendant upon the contact of a rude and barbarous people 
witha higher type of civilization, the unselfish and fatherly interest 
the Government of the United States had always manifested and still 
feltin the comfort and progress of the Cherokee people, and the great 
degree of liberality that had characterized its action in securing for the 
Cherokees in their new homes an indefinite outlet to the bountiful 
hunting grounds of the West, the Secretary concluded by an expression 
of the determination on the part of the United States to protect at all 
hazards from insult and injury to person or property cvery Cherokee 
who should express an opinion or take action favorable to the scheme 
of emigration. He also instructed Governor McMinn to lose no opportu- 
nity of impressing upon the minds of the Cherokees that the practical 
effect of a complete execution of the treaty of 1817 would be, as had been 
the intention of the Government when it was negotiated, to compel them 
either to remove to the Arkansas or to accept individual reservations 
and become citizens of the States within whose limits they respectively 
resided. 
PUBLIC SENTIMENT IN TENNESSEE AND GEORGIA CONCERNING CHEROKEE REMOVAL. 
Governor McMinn, being the executive of the State of Tennessee, 
could hardly be supposed to present the views of the Secretary of War 
to the Cherokees on the subject of their removal in milder terms or man- 
ner than they had been communicated to him. The public officer in that 
State who should have neglected such an opportunity of compelling the 
Cherokees to appreciate the benefits of a wholesale emigration to the 
West would have fared but ill at the polls in a contest for re-election. 
The people of both Tennessee and Georgia were unalterably deter- 
mined that the Indians should be removed from their States, and no com- 
promise or temporary expedient of delay would satisfy their demands. 
Millions of acres of valuable lands, rich in all the elements that com- 
bine to satisfy the necessities and the desires of the husbandman— 
mountain, valley, and plain— comprising every variety of soil, fertilized 
by innumerable running streams and clothed with heavy forests of the 
finest timber, were yet in the possession of the native tribes of this re- 

‘July 29,1818. 
