310 CHEROKEE NATION OF INDIANS. 
this was not so mnch a consideration for the lands and possessions of 
the Indians as an indemnity to cover the necessary sacrifices and losses 
in the surrender of one country and their removal to another. 
On the other hand, among the circumstances establishing the pro- 
priety of a contrary construction may be mentioned the language of the 
eighth article of the treaty, that “the United States also agree and 
stipulate to remove the Cherokees to their new homes and to subsist 
them one year after their arrival there.” This language imports pecu- 
niary responsibility rather than a simple disbursement of a trust fund. 
In the “talk” also which was sent! by President Jackson to the In- 
dians to explain the advantages of the proposed treaty, he mentioned 
that the stipulations offered ‘‘ provide for the removal at the expense 
of the United States of your whole people, and for their subsistence a 
year after their arrival in their new country.” 
It was also the common practice of the United States in removing 
the Indian tribes from one locality to another to defray the expense of 
such removal, and this was done in the cases of their neighbors, the 
Chickasaws, Choctaws, Creeks, and Seminoles. It is a matter of but 
little surprise, therefore, that a conflicting interpretation of this treaty 
through a series of years should have produced grave embarrassmeuts. 
Independent, however, of the literal provisions of the treaty of 1835, 
there existed other grounds upon which to base a judgment favorable 
to the claims of the Cherokees. The treaty with the supplementary 
article was finally ratified on the 23d of May, 1836, and by its provisions 
the Cherokees were required to remove within two years. It had been 
concluded (in the face of a protest from a large majority) with a small 
minority of the nation. Within the two years those who had favored 
the treaty had mostly emigrated to the West under its provisions.? 
The large majority of the nation, adopting the counsels of John Ross 
had obstinately withstood all the efforts of the Government to induce 
them to adopt the treaty or emigrate. They had repudiated its obliga- 
tion and denounced it as a fraud upon the nation. In the mean time 
the United States had appointed its agents under the treaty and col- 
lected a large military foree to compel its execution. The State of 
Georgia had adopted a system of hostile legislation intended to drive 
them from the country. She had surveyed their territory and disposed 
of their homes and firesides by lottery. She had dispossessed them of 
a portion of their lands, subjected them to her laws, and at the same 
time disqualified them from the enjoyment of any political or civil 
rights. In this posture of affairs, the Cherokees who had never aban- 
doned the vain hope of remaining in the country of their birth or of 
obtaining better terms from the United States made new proposals 
to the United States through John Ross and others for the sale of 
their country and emigration to the West. Still pursuing the idea that 
‘March 16, 1835. 
2Letter of John Mason, jr. to Secretary of War, September 25, 1837. 
