FATE OF THE CHEROKEE INDIANS

Waikato Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 2704, 9 November 1889, Page 6 (Supplement)

FATE OF THE CHEROKEE INDIANS

The process of " crowding out" the red men has been going on with increased rapidity ever since the two races—the white and the red—first met. A brief sketch of the history of the Cherokees brings this before the mind with peculiar vividness. We hear little about this once powerful and populous tribe until 1738, when Oglethorpe landed in their country with a colony of paupers from England. They met with no opposition from the Cherokees, but found them anxious to learn what civilisation could teach them, and desirous to be instructed in Christianity. They presented, in fact, an excellent soil for the seeds of an organised system of policy, as their steady progress has since proved. The Indians gave the colonists material against their French and Spanish foes. The colony, however, wiis abandoned, and the Royal Govern ment was extended over the Territory. Throughout the revolutionary wars, the Cherokees remained loyal to the British. In 1785, the Government of the United States paid a sum of money to the Indians for the lands from which they had been ousted by the encroachmonts of enterprising but unscrupulous squatters, for the "boomer," as he has since been named, came into existence in the earliest days of the United States' history. At the same time a treaty was made to preserve to the tribe the wide and fertile lands that were still left them. These treaties, however, as will be seen, were kept only so long as it suited the convenience of the whites. Tho present one was of short duration. In a report submitted by the Secretary of War to the President in 1789, the former official writes : —" The treaty has been entirely disregarded by the white people." It is clear at this time that while the Government fully recognised their obligations to tho Indians, the people considered they had every right to exploit them, and to dispossess them of their lands. The executive was too weak, too indifferent, or too lethargic too see that theae covenants were respected. A treaty that may be broken with impunity is worse than no treaty at all. Owing t» the energy and freedom from scruples of tho contemporary "boomer," a new adjustment of the boundary line became necessary in 1791, and another treaty was drawn up witb the Cherokees, solemnly guaranteeing to their use all the lands it contained. But the forces at work were too strong and the encroachments wont on all the same, and the agreement was disregarded as usual. In 1794, another treaty was found necessary, which continued till 1801, when it was discovered to be ill-suited'to the requirements of an increasing white population. In that year the Government of the United States sent a Commission to the Cherokees, the object of whieh was to induce them to accept a new and still narrower boundary line. They refused at first, but the pressure was too strong for them, and further concessions were made. In 1816 this legalised form of despoliation was again repeated, and in the following year they were deprived of all possessions in South Carolina. By this time, no doubt, the Cherokees must have discovered that their treaties with tho Government were little else than brief resting-places on the road leading to their final ruin and expulsion from their conntry. And such they proved to be. In 1829 a series of intolerable persecutions was commenced, intended to drive them from the lands they still held. The State of Georgia passed several iniquitous laws against the Indians, one of which practically deprived them of what civil rights they possessed, and indnced the Federal Government to annul whatever titles to land were held by Indians in that State. Tbe result of this organised system of persecution ended in their ceding to the Government, in 1835, all lands cast of the Mississippi. A report made to the War Department in 1825 showed that these were of great value, consisting of immense pastures, covered with prosperous native villages and fertile farms, with numberless flocks and herds. It showed the Indians wero in a prosperous condition, with schools and a national form of government, and that every family used a spinning-wheel. They cluug to their beautiful country until an army was sent to remove them. Their exodus must have resembled that of the children of Israel out of Egypt in numbers and extent, but there was no promised land in store for the poor exiles. Every man, woman, and child, of the Cherokee people in North Carolina, Georgia, Tenessee, and Alabama was escorted half across the continent to the lands in the west then left vacant. The journey is a dismal episode in a mournful story. If they were permitted to dwell in peace in their new homes they might have forgotten the many wrongs of their race ; but the opening- of Oklahama in April, and tho disgraceful scenes which accompanied it, show to plainly what they have to expect. There are signs already of fresh injustice preparing for them. A committee of the United States Senate is about to open negotiations with the Cherokees in order to induce them to part with their new territory. The past has taught what this means for the Indians.—Nottingham Express.