270 CHEROKEE NATION OF INDIANS. 
This action of the surveyor having produced a feeling of great excite- 
ment and hostility within the Cherokee Nation, rendering the danger 
of collision and bloodshed imminent, the United States authorities took 
the matter in hand, and, by direction of the President, General John 
Coffee was appointed and instructed! to proceed to the Cherokee Na- 
tion, and from the most reliable information and testimony attainable 
to report what, in his judgment, should in justice and fairness to all 
parties concerned be declared to be the true line of limits between 
Georgia, as the successor of the Creeks, and the Cherokee Nation. 
General Coftee proceeded, to the performance of the duty thus as- 
signed him. <A large mass of testimony and tradition on the subject 
was evoked, in summing up which General Coffee reported? to the Sece- 
retary of War that the line of demarkation between the two nations 
should begin at the lower Shallow Ford of the Chattahoochee, which 
was about 15 miles below the Suwanee Old Town. From thence the 
line should run westwardly in a direction to strike the ridge dividing 
the waters running into Little River (a branch of the Hightower or 
Etowah) from those running into Sweet Water Creek (a branch of the 
Chattahoochee emptying about 2 miles below Buzzard’s Roost). From 
this point such ridge should be followed westwardly, leaving all the 
waters falling into Hightower and Coosa Rivers to the right and all 
the waters that run southwardly into Chattahoochee and Tallapoosa 
tivers to the left, until such ridge should intersect the line (which had 
been previously as per agreement of 1821 between the Creeks and Cher- 
okees themselves) run and marked from Buzzard Roost to Wills Creek, 
and thence with this line to the Coosa River opposite the mouth of 
Wills Creek. j 
Two weeks later* General Coffee, in a communication to the Secre- 
tary of War, alludes to the dissatisfaction of Georgia with the line as 
determined by him, and her claim to an additional tract of territory by 
remarking that “I have thought it right to give this statement for your 
own and the eye of the President only, that you may the better appre- 
ciate the character of the active agents and partisans of the Georgia 
claim, for really I cannot see any reasonable or plausible evidence on 
which she rests her claim.” 
The President, after a careful examination of the testimony and much 
solicitnde upon the subject, decided to approve General Coffee’s recom- 
mendation. The Cherokee agent was therefore directed‘ to notify all 
white settlers living north of Coffee’s line to remove at once. The gov- 
ernor of Georgia was also notified of the President’s decision, and, 
though strongly and persistently protesting against it, the President 

1 October 10, 1829. 
2 December 30, 1829. 
8 January 15, 1830, 
4 March 14, 1830. 
