ROYCE. ] TREATY OF MAY 6, 1828. 245 
contained in the report of Agent Duval would meet the views of the 
Government.! 
The Indians were brought to no definite agreement to either of these 
propositions. In the meantime their provisional western boundary was 
established and run, in January and February, 1825.2. The line began 
at the upper end of Table Rock Bluff, on the Arkansas River, and ran 
north 1 mile and 70 chains, crossing Skin Bayou at a distance of 66 
chains from the beginning; thence it ran north 53° east 132 miles and 
31 chains, to White River, which it struck at a point opposite the mouth 
of Little North Fork. 
As a matter of fact, so strong was the prejudice of the Cherokees 
against any concession of territory that their council passed® what 
they denominated a “perpetual law” denouncing the death penalty 
against any of their nation who should propose the sale or exchange of 
their lands. 
Lovely’s purchase.—In the mean time the legislature of Arkansas, 
through Acting Governor Crittenden, had forwarded to the President 
in the summer of 1824, a memorial urging that the tract of country 
known as ‘* Lovely’s purchase” be thrown open to white settlement by 
a revocation of the prohibitory order of December 15, 1818. This the 
President declined to do until a final adjustment should be made of the 
west boundary-of the Cherokees and the east boundary of the Choe- 
taws. <A history of * Lovely’s purchase” is to be found in a letter dated 
January 30, 1818, from Major Long, of the Topographical Engineers, to 
General Thomas A. Smith. From this it seems that by a treaty then 
recently made (but without any authority) with the Osages, “by Mr. 
Lovely, late Indian agent,”* that tribe had ceded to the United States 
the country between the Arkansas and Red Rivers, and also a tract on 
the north of the Arkansas situated between the Verdigris River and 
the boundary established by the Osage treaty of 1808. It appears, 
however, that it was not the intention of the Osages to cede to the 
United States so large a tract on the north of the Arkansas, but, as 

' Secretary of War to Governor Izard, of Arkansas, April 16, 1825. 
*See map on file in Indian Office. 
5May, 1825. 
‘In a letter from Agent Meigs to the Secretary of War, dated June 2, 1817, Major 
Lovely is spoken of as having been agent residing with the Cherokees on the Arkan- 
sas. He had heen an officer of the Virginia line throughout the Revolution and par- 
ticipated in the capture of Burgoyne. He had lived some time in the family of 
President Madison’s father, and went to Tennessee at an early day, whence (after 
living many years among the Cherokees) he removed with the emigrant party to the 
Arkansas. In a letter to the Hon. John Cocke from the Secretary of War, December 
15, 1826, it is, however, stated that Major Lovely was a factor or trader in the Arkan- 
sas country, who took an active part in the preliminary negotiations that led finally 
to the conclusion of the treaty with the Osages of September 25, 1818. It also ap- 
pears from the same letter that the estimated area of Lovely’s purchase was 7,392,000 
acres, and that when the west boundary line of the Cherokees was run, in 1825, it was 
found that 200 square miles of Lovely’s purchase were included within its limits. 
