322 CHEROKEE NATION OF INDIANS. 
antislavery teachings of the Northern missionaries and emissaries of the 
various free soil organizations throughout the North. Three years later 
the agent reported that the amicable relations which existed between 
the Cherokees and the General Government certainly merited the lat- 
ter’s fostering care and protection, for already they were evincing much 
interest in all questions that concerned its welfare; that the majority 
of them were strongly national or democratic in political sympathy, 
though it was with regret he was obliged to report the existence of a 
few black republicans, who were the particular foundlings of the aboli- 
tion missionaries. This same agent the following year (1859), after 
commending their enterprise and thrift, remarks: ‘‘I am clearly of 
the opinion that the rapid advancement of the Cherokees is owing in 
part to the fact of their being slaveholders, which has operated as an 
incentive to all industrial pursuits, and I believe if every family of the 
wild roving tribes of Indians were to own a negro man and woman, who 
would teach them to cultivate the soil and to properly prepare and cook 
their food, and could have a schoolmaster appointed for every district, 
it would tend more to civilize them than any plan that could be adopted.” 
The latter part of this proposition perhaps no one would be willing to 
dispute, but in the light of twenty-five years of eventful history made 
since its promulgation, the author himself, if still living, would scarcely 
be so ‘“‘clearly of opinion” concerning the soundness of his first as- 
sumption. 
REMOVAL OF WHITE SETTLERS ON CHEROKEE LAND. 
The year 1856 was characterized by no event in the official history of 
the Cherokees of special importance, except, perhaps, the expulsion of 
white settlers who had intruded upon the “neutral lands,” in which the 
aid of the military forces of the United States was invoked. 
FORT GIBSON ABANDONED BY THE UNITED STATES. 
The long and urgent demands of the Cherokees for the withdrawal 
of the garrison of United States troops at Fort Gibson was at length 
complied with in the year 1857,' and under the terms of the third arti- 
cle of the treaty of 1835 the fort and the military reserve surrounding it 
reverted to and became a part of the Cherokee national domain. In 
his annual message of that year to the Cherokee council John Ross, 
their principa! chief, recommended the passage of a law which should 
authorize the site of the post to be laid off into town lots and sold to 
citizens for the benefit of the nation, reserving such lots and buildings 
as seemed desirable for future disposition, and providing for the suit- 
able preservation of the burying-grounds in which, among others, re- 
posed the remains of several officers of the United States Army. This 
recommendation was favorably acted upon by the council, and town 


‘Annual report of Agent Butler for 1857. 
