7 Statute 156 - Treaty of 1817
Providing the PROOF, one document at a time.
Preamble.
WHEREAS in the autumn of the year one thousand eight hundred and eight, a deputation from the Upper and Lower Cherokee towns, duly authorized by their nation, went on to the city of Washington, the first named to declare to the President of the United States their anxious desire to engage in the pursuits of agriculture and civilized life in the country they then occupied, and to make known to the President of the United States the impracticability of inducing the nation at large to do this, and to request the establishment of a division line between the upper and lower towns, so as to include all the waters of the Hiwassee river to the upper town, that, by thus contracting their society within narrow limits, they proposed to begin the establishment of fixed laws and a regular government: The deputies from the lower towns to make known their desire to continue the hunter life, and also the scarcity of game where they then lived, and, under those circumstances, their wish to remove across the Mississippi river, on some vacant lands of the United States. And whereas the President of the United States, after maturely considering the petitions of both parties, on the ninth day of January, A. D. one thousand eight hundred and nine, including other subjects, answered those petitions as follows: "The United States, my children, are the friends of both parties, and, as far as can be reasonably asked, they are willing to satisfy the wishes of both. Those who remain may be assured of our patronage, our aid and good neighborhood. Those who wish to remove, are permitted to send an exploring party to reconnoitre the country on the waters of the Arkansas and White rivers, and the higher up the better, as they will be the longer unapproached by our settlements, which will begin at the mouths of those rivers. The regular districts of the government of St. Louis are already laid off to the St. Francis.
(EDITORIAL: in the Preamble of the 1817 Treaty, the letter from Thomas Jefferson to the Lower Town Chiefs, Warriors, and Headmen in 1809 is quoted from for the purposes of identifying the two separate groups of people for the current Treaty: The Chickamauga or Lower Towns and the cherokee or Upper Towns. There is no mistaking that the two are not the same people and that the Treaty specifically states that they are two separate parties of people.
The second to last sentence of this paragraph is the word “reconnoitre” or for those of us today, the word “recon” or “scouting mission” would be better understood. This “reconnoitre” in the minds of the Chickamauga meant to go find land you like and it is yours. There were numerous chiefs who went north of the Arkansas from the St. Francis to the Modern Day, Van Buren, Arkansas and as for north as Branson, Missouri including Tahlontoski at Dardanelle Rock just north of the Arkansas River at Dardanelle and Russellville, Arkansas. In typically Chickamauga fashion though, many Chiefs went south of the Arkansas River from modern day Little Rock down the modern day I30 corridor to the Red River near Texarkana, Arkansas. Therefore, you have a group which went north of the Arkansas and group which went south of the Arkansas taking the Ozark Mountain ranges north of the Arkansas and the Ouachita Mountain ranges south of the Arkansas.
That is further noted in this opening paragraph is the last sentence vital in understanding the what the Chickamauga understood and believed Thomas Jefferson had already given them as their own since Duwali Boles already lived on the St. Francis and had amassed territory from the Bootheel of Missouri on the St. Francis down to the Mouth of the St. Francis on the Mississippi River. They would have understood this opening paragraph as them having 1.) lands on the Arkansas River from the mouth at the Mississippi River to its headwaters in modern day Leadville, Colorado, 2.) the St. Francis from its mouth to just north of the bootheel near Glennonville, Missouri, and 3.) the White River from its mouth to its headwaters near Branson, Missouri.)
"When this party shall have found a tract of country suiting the emigrants, and not claimed by other Indians, we will arrange with them and you the exchange of that for a just portion of the country they leave, and to a part of which, proportioned to their numbers, they have a right. Every aid towards their removal, and what will be necessary for them there, will then be freely administered to them; and when established in their new settlements, we shall still consider them as our children, give them the benefit of exchanging their peltries for what they will want at our factories, and always hold them firmly by the hand."
(EDITORIAL: The Chickamauga Chiefs who went both north and south of the Arkansas River did so under the first sentence of this paragraph. They went where there were no other Indians and if there were Indians there, those Indians were quickly encouraged to leave the vicinity by they Chickamauga. It is more than evident that the Chickamauga were following the directions of Thomas Jefferson and stretching the meaning to its limits, but they were not excluded form going both north and south by Jefferson’s letter, they only felt that Jefferson encouraged them to “reconnoitre” where there were no Indians and that land was theirs. The lands ceded to the United States east of the Mississippi River easily accounted for the entirety of the lands taken west of the Mississippi River.
This paragraph also deals with the annuities agreed upon since the 1785 Hopewell Treaty. The Lower Town Chickamauga were entitled to the funds. The United States even agrees to take care of the Chickamauga once they go west of the Mississippi as “our children” and guiding and directing them as they “hold them firmly by the hand.”)
And whereas the Cherokees, relying on the promises of the President of the United States, as above recited, did explore the country on the west side of the Mississippi, and made choice of the country on the Arkansas and White rivers, and settled themselves down upon United States lands, to which no other tribe of Indians have any just claim and have duly notified the President of the United States thereof, and of their anxious desire for the full and complete ratification of his promise, and, to that end, as notified by the President of the United States, have sent on their agents, with full powers to execute a treaty, relinquishing to the United States all the right, title, and interest, to all lands of right to them belonging, as part of the Cherokee nation, which they have left, and which they are about to leave, proportioned to their numbers, including, with those now on the Arkansas, those who are about to remove thither, and to a portion of which they have an equal right agreeably to their numbers.
Now, know ye that the contracting parties, to carry into full effect the before recited promises with good faith, and to promote a continuation of friendship with their brothers on the Arkansas river, and for that purpose to make an equal distribution of the annuities secured to be paid by the United States to the whole Cherokee nation, have agreed and concluded on the following articles, viz:
(EDITORIAL: The Arkansas Chiefs informed the United States of their lands both north and south of the Arkansas River that they had taken. Which is even documented by the US Geological Society in maps of the lands of the “Arkansas Cherokee” which were published in the Arkansas Gazette in 1820. But the United States chose to put all of the Chickamauga on the “Arkansas Cherokee Reservation” which was north of the Arkansas River and limited to the White River, taking away the St. Francis River areas as well as the lands to the south of the Arkansas River.
The lands south of the Arkansas were stolen with a promise of giving the Chickamauga a western outlet, an outlet they were entitled to by their original land trade in 1809 going out to Colorado on the Arkansas River. Another promise made by the United States and another promise which was a lie and was never intended to be honored by the United States. Thank God the United States stopped making treaties with the Indians. At least this way, they only have to lie and break the word of the country for the ones they made in the past not new ones they would make today.
Today, there is still a large population of Chickamauga in the Southwest part of the state of Arkansas who stayed and refused to leave and go north of the Arkansas when this treaty was signed. Another large group, Chief Duwali Boles group, decided to leave and go further south and west and for a while lived at Pecan Point before traveling further south under Spanish protection to modern day Nacogdoches, Texas. Pecan Point was the area on the Red River where Arkansas, Texas and Oklahoma came together.
Finally, the Chickamauga who left, agreed to sign away their rights east of the Mississippi. The reality of the situation, they had already lost all of their land rights east of the Mississippi because the Untied States refused to honor its treaties with the Chickamauga and allowed illegal, immigrant, squatter, settlers to take the lands of the Chickamauga. They ultimately had nothing left of their historical homelands to keep them on the east side of the Mississippi. Their traditional lifestyle made it easy to move to their new homelands because the Ozarks and Ouachitas looked like and felt like their home in the Appalachians since it was near the historical mound of their culture and religion. Whether they went north or south of the Arkansas, they were near the mounds of their traditional culture and religion.
What is the ultimate irony of the 1809 treaty land trade by the president of the United States with the Chickamauga is that what took 35 years to happen to the Chickamauga in the east after signing the 1785 treaty only took 18 years to happen to them in the west. This treaty was the breaking of a land trade treaty promise to the Chickamauga in 1809 by the president of the United States. The word of the United States’ president, and the treaties this country made with the Indians were never worth the paper they were printed on since all of the treaties with the Chickamauga were broken before the ink was dried and ratified by the Senate.)
