ROYCE. } TREATY OF AUGUST 6, 1846. 307 
available to the Cherokees by Congressional appropriation of September 
30, 1850.! 
Settlement of claims of “ Old Settler” party.—By the fourth and fifth 
articles of the treaty of 1846,’ provision is made and a basis fixed for 
the settlement with that part of the Cherokee Nation known as “ Old 
Settlers ” or “ Western Cherokees,” or, in other words, those who had 
emigrated under the treaties of 1817,° 1819,4 and 1828,° and who were, 
at the date of the treaty of 1855,° an organized and separate nation of 
Indians, whom the United States had recognized as such by the treaties 
of 1828 and 18537 made with them. In making the treaty of 1835 with 
the Cherokees east, which provided for their final and complete transfer 
to the country west, then occupied by the ‘* Western Cherokees,” and 
guaranteed in perpetuity by two treaties, upon considerations alone 
connected with them, the rights of the latter seem to have been forgot- 
ten. The consequences of the influx of the Eastern Cherokees were such 
that upon their arrival the “ Old Settlers” were thrown into a hope- 
less minority; their government was subverted, and a new one, imported 
with the emigrants coerced under the treaty of 1835, substituted in its 
place. 
To allay the discontent thus caused in the minds of the “Old Settlers,” 
and to provide compensation to them for the undivided interest which 
the United States regarded them as owning in the country east of the 
Mississippi, under the equitable operation of the treaty of 1828, was 
one of the avowed objects of the treaty of 1846. To ascertain their in- 
terest it was assumed that they constituted one-third of the entire 
nation, and should therefore be entitled to an amount equal to one- 
third of the treaty fund of 1835, after all just charges were deducted. 
This residuum of the treaty fund, contemplated by the fourth article of 
the treaty of 1846, amounted, as first calculated, to $1,571,346.55, which 
would make the proportionate share of the “ Old Settlers” amount to 
the sum of $523,782.18. The act of September 30, 1850,* made provis- 
ion for the payment to the “ Old Settlers,” in full of all demands under 
the provisions and according to the principles established in the fourth 
article of the treaty of 1846, of the sum of $552,896.96 with interest at 
5 per cent. per annum. This was coupled with the proviso that the 
Indians who should receive the money should first respectively sign a 
receipt or release acknowledging the same to be in full of all demands 
under the terms of such article. 

1 United States Statutes at Large, Vol. IX, p. 556. 
2 Tbid., p. 871. 
3 United States Statutes at Large, Vol. VII, p. 156. 
4Ibid., p. 195. 
5Tbid., p. 311. 
®Ibid., p. 478. 
7Tbid., p. 414. 
®United States Statutes at Large, Vol. IX, p. 556. 
