ROYCE. ] TREATY OF DECEMBER 29, 135 297 
therefor, whose duty it should be to examine into and make a report to 
that body upon the character, validity, and equity of all claims of what- 
soever kind presented by Cherokees against the United States, and also 
to afford the Cherokees pecuniary aid in the purchase of a printing press 
and type as well as in the erection of a national council-house. This 
treaty, however, was never consummated. 
President Jackson's method for compelling Cherokee removal.—In con- 
nection with this subject of an investigation into the affairs of the Cher- 
okees, a confidential letter is to be found on file in the office of the Com- 
missioner of Indian Affairs, from Hon. P. M. Butler, of South Carolina, 
who had a few months previous to its date! been appointed United 
States agent for the Cherokees, interesting as throwing light on the 
negotiation and conclusion of the treaty of 1835. Mr. Butler says it is 
alleged, and claimed to be susceptible of proof, that Mr. Merriweather, 
of Georgia, in an interview with President Jackson, a considerable time 
before the treaty was negotiated, said to the President, ‘‘ We want the 
Cherokee lands in Georgia, but the Cherokees will not consent to cede 
them,” to which the President emphatically replied, “You must get 
clear of them [the Cherokees] by legislation. Take judicial jurisdiction 
over their country; build fires around them, and do indirectly what you 
cannot effect directly.” 
PER CAPITA PAYMENTS UNDER THE TREATY. 
In the same letter Mr. Butler, in alluding to the existing difficulties 
in the Cherokee Nation, observes that prior to the preceding October 
the Ross party had been largely in the ascendency in the nation, but 
that at their last preceding election the question hinged upon whether 
the ‘per capita” money due them under the treaty of 1835 should be 
immediately paid over to the people. The result was in favor of the 
tidge party, who assumed the aflirmative of the question, the opposi- 
tion of Ross and his party being predicated on the theory that an ac- 
ceptance of this money would be an acknowledgment of the validity of 
the treaty of 1835. This, it was feared, would have an unfavorable ef- 
fect on their efforts to secure the conclusion of a new treaty on more 
satisfactory terms. On the settlement of this per capita tax, Mr. Butler 
remarks, will depend the peace and safety of the Cherokee Nation, 
adding that should the rumors afloat prove true, to the effect that the, 
per-capita money was nearly exhausted, neither the national funds in 
the hands of the treasurer nor the life of Mr. Ross would be safe for 
an hour from the infuriated members of the tribe. 
POLITICAL MURDERS IN CHEROKEE NATION. 
In the spring of 1542 an event occurred which again threw the whole 
nation into a state of the wildest excitement. The friends of the mur- 

‘March 4, 1842. 
