THE GEORGE CATLIN INDIAN GALLERY. 525 



KEOKUK. 



It was proposed by Ke-o-kuk in his speech (and it is a fact worthy of being known, 

 for such has been the proposition in every Indian treaty ihat I ever attended), that 

 thp first preparatory stipulation on the part of Government should be to pay the re- 

 quisite sum of money to satisfy all their creditors, who were then present, and whose ac- 

 counts were handed in, acknowledged, and admitted. As an evidence of the immediate 

 value of the tract of land to Government, and as a striking instance of the over- 

 whelming torrent of emigration to the " Far West, " I will relate the following occur- 

 rence which took place at the close of the treaty : After the treaty was signed and wit- 

 nessed. Governor Dodge addressed a few very judicious and admonitory sentences to the 

 chiefs and braves, which he finished by requesting them to move their families and 

 all their property from this tract (just purchased) within one month, and which time 

 he would allow them, to make room for the whites. 



Considerable excitement was created among the chiefs and braves by this sugges- 

 tion, and a hearty laugh ensued, the cause of which was soon after explained by one 

 of them in the following manner : 



SPEECH OF A SAC CHIEF. 



" My father, we have to laugh, we require no time to move; we have all left the 

 lands already, and sold our wigwams to Chemokemons (white men), some for one 

 hundred and some for two hundred dollars, before we came to this treaty. There are 

 already four hundred Chemokemons on the land, and several hundred more on their 

 way, moving in, and three days before we came away one Chemokemon sold his 

 wigwam to another Chemokemon for two thousand dollars, to build a great town," 



In this wise is this fair land filling up, one hundred miles or more west of the 

 Mississippi, not with barbarians, but with people from the East, enlightened and intel- 

 ligent, with industry and perseverance that will soon rear from the soil all the luxu- 

 ries and add to the surface all the taste and comforts of Eastern refinement. — Pages 

 215-217, vol. 2, Catlin's Eight Years. 



Mr. Catlin went East from Eock Island in the fall of 1836, and win- 

 tered with friends there. 



ITINERARY 1837, 1838. 



In 1837 I went to the coast of Florida to see the Seminoles and Euchees, and in 

 1837 and 1838 made a voyage from New York to Charleeton to paint Osceola and the 

 other Seminole chiefs, then prisoners of war. 



The portraits painted during the journeys above noted are, of the 

 Seminoles, Nos. 300-308 j of the Euchees, Nos. 309-310. Descriptive 

 text will be found with these numbers. 



The itinerary of these journeys will be found at the end of the chap- 

 ter on the Seminoles (ISTos. 300-308). Tribal history and data are given 

 with it, so as to make its separation difficult. 



REVIEW OF ITINERAEY FOR 1829-38. 

 [The pictarea painted withia the period from 1830 to 1838 form the original Catlin Gallery.] 



The letters descriptive of the tribes and the country during this 

 time, and the pictures, furnished the illustrations and text for Mr. Cat- 

 lin's work, "Illustrations of the Manners^ Customs, and Condition of 

 the North American Indians," in two volumes, published in England, 



