Examination of the Treaty of 1785 to determine if it is a granting of rights to the United States including Plenary, Land, Timber, and Mineral.
* Denotes Editorial Comments
7 Stat. 18 - The Treaty of 1785, the Hopewell Treaty
Articles concluded at Hopewell, on the Keowee, between Benjamin Hawkins, Andrew Pickens, Joseph Martin, and Lachlan M'Intosh, Commissioners Plenipotentiary of the United States of America, of the one Part, and the Head-Men and Warriors of all the Cherokees of the other.
* a person, especially a diplomat, invested with the full power of independent action on behalf of their government, typically in a foreign country.
The Commissioners Plenipotentiary of the United States, in Congress assembled, give peace to all the Cherokees, and receive them into the favor and protection of the United States of America, on the following conditions:
* gives peace or grants peace and receives them into favor and protection. This cannot and does not mean that all the Cherokees surrender their sovereignty or plenary powers over their affairs.
* All the Cherokees denotes Cherokee speakers, not the ethnicity of Cherokee. There were Chickamauga and Shawnee present and more than likely Catawba, Creek, and Powhatan along with a number of smaller tribes who spoke the Cherokee Trade Language..
ARTICLE I.
The Head-Men and Warriors of all the Cherokees shall restore all the prisoners, citizens of the United States, or subjects of their allies, to their entire liberty: They shall also restore all the Negroes, and all other property taken during the late war from the citizens, to such person, and at such time and place, as the Commissioners shall appoint.
* all the Cherokee agree to return the chattel – Negroes and other personal property such as horses and cattle.
ARTICLE II.
The Commissioners of the United States in Congress assembled, shall restore all the prisoners taken from the Indians, during the late war, to the Head-Men and Warriors of the Cherokees, as early as is practicable.
ARTICLE III.
The said Indians for themselves and their respective tribes and towns do acknowledge all the Cherokees to be under the protection of the United States of America, and of no other sovereign whosoever.
* All of the Cherokees are under the protection shall mean what it literally says, that the United States shall protect all of the Cherokee from their enemies so that they do not need protection from other sovereigns.
ARTICLE IV.
The boundary allotted to the Cherokees for their hunting grounds, between the said Indians and the citizens of the United States, within the limits of the United States of America, is, and shall be the following, viz. Beginning at the mouth of Duck river, on the Tennessee; thence running north-east to the ridge dividing the waters running into Cumberland from those running into the Tennessee; thence eastwardly along the said ridge to a north-east line to be run, which shall strike the river Cumberland forty miles above Nashville; thence along the said line to the river; thence up the said river to the ford where the Kentucky road crosses the river; thence to Campbell's line, near Cumberland gap; thence to the mouth of Claud's creek on Holstein; thence to the Chimney-top mountain; thence to Camp-creek, near the mouth of Big Limestone, on Nolichuckey; thence a southerly course six miles to a mountain; thence south to the North-Carolina line; thence to the South-Carolina Indian boundary, and along the same south-west over the top of the Oconee mountain till it shall strike Tugaloo river; thence a direct line to the top of the Currohee mountain; thence to the head of the south fork of Oconee river.
* This land is set aside as a hunting ground, not as their territory. The territorial rights extend much further north, west and south than is set aside for hunting.
* The United States claims this same land but relinquishes plenary power over the land in Article 5.
ARTICLE V.
If any citizen of the United States, or other person not being an Indian, shall attempt to settle on any of the lands westward or southward of the said boundary which are hereby allotted to the Indians for their hunting grounds, or having already settled and will not remove from the same within six months after the ratification of this treaty, such person shall forfeit the protection of the United States, and the Indians may punish him or not as they please: Provided nevertheless, That this article shall not extend to the people settled between the fork of French Broad and Holstein rivers, whose particular situation shall be transmitted to the United States in Congress assembled for their decision thereon, which the Indians agree to abide by.
* The United States does not take plenary power from all the Cherokees on the hunting lands.
* The hunting lands immediately have a large plot of land taken and for which there is no easement for the settlers to get there or return from without being on the hunting grounds.
ARTICLE VI.
If any Indian or Indians, or person residing among them, or who shall take refuge in their nation, shall commit a robbery, or murder, or other capital crime, on any citizen of the United States, or person /F/ under their protection, the nation, or the tribe to which such offender or offenders may belong, shall be bound to deliver him or them up to be punished according to the ordinances of the United States; Provided, that the punishment shall not be greater than if the robbery or murder, or other capital crime had been committed by a citizen on a citizen.
* Traditional extradition agreement between two sovereigns.
ARTICLE VII.
If any citizen of the United States, or person under their protection, shall commit a robbery or murder, or other capital crime, on any Indian, such offender or offenders shall be punished in the same manner as if the murder or robbery, or other capital crime, had been committed on a citizen of the United States; and the punishment shall be in presence of some of the Cherokees, if any shall attend at the time and place, and that they may have an opportunity so to do, due notice of the time of such intended punishment shall be sent to some one of the tribes.
* The United States does not agree to extradition to all of the Cherokees.
ARTICLE VIII.
It is understood that the punishment of the innocent under the idea of retaliation, is unjust, and shall not be practiced on either side, except where there is a manifest violation of this treaty; and then it shall be preceded first by a demand of justice, and if refused, then by a declaration of hostilities.
* This was never upheld by the United States and was continually violated by both parties until hostilities were declared by the Chickamauga
ARTICLE IX.
For the benefit and comfort of the Indians, and for the prevention injuries or oppressions on the part of the citizens or Indians, the United States in Congress assembled shall have the sole and exclusive right of regulating the trade with the Indians, and managing all their affairs in such manner as they think proper.
* Congress shall have the exclusive right of regulating trade with the Indians can only be interpreted from Article III that as long as the United States is protecting all of the Cherokees then the United States has the right to regulate trade with all the Cherokees.
* Congress shall manage all their affairs in such a manner as they think proper does not remove the plenary power of all of the Cherokees, contextually, this immediately refers back to regulating trade and thus only relates to trade between the United States and its citizens.
ARTICLE X.
Until the pleasure of Congress be known, respecting the ninth article, all traders, citizens of the United States, shall have liberty to go to any of the tribes or towns of the Cherokees to trade with them, and they shall be protected in their persons and property, and kindly treated.
* The text of this Article is of further definition of the previous Article in which Congress shall have the trade between all the Cherokees and the United States and its citizens.
ARTICLE XI.
The said Indians shall give notice to the citizens of the United States, of any designs which they may know or suspect to be formed in any neighboring tribe, or by any person whosoever, against the peace, trade or interest of the United States.
ARTICLE XII.
That the Indians may have full confidence in the justice of the United States, respecting their interests, they shall have the right to send a deputy of their choice, whenever they think fit, to Congress.
* The Congress of the Untied States refuses to uphold this Article with all of the Cherokees and is in continual violation of this Article which violates this treaty and is a violation which can make this treaty null and void under the paragraph prior to Article I.
ARTICLE XIII.
The hatchet shall be forever buried, and the peace given by the United States, and friendship re-established between the said states on the one part, and all the Cherokees on the other, shall be universal; /M/ and the contracting parties shall use their utmost endeavors to maintain the peace given as aforesaid, and friendship re-established.
In witness of all and every thing herein determined, between the United States of America and all the Cherokees, we, their underwritten Commissioners, by virtue of our full powers, have signed this definitive treaty, and have caused our seals to be hereunto affixed.
Done at Hopewell, on the Keowee, this twenty-eighth of November, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-five.
EDITORIAL:
Nowhere within this contractual treaty, Article 13, do all of the Cherokee surrender their Plenary powers over the described hunting lands, nor their other lands. Furthermore; they do not surrender to the United States their (above the ground) rights, (below the ground) rights, nor (water, river-bed, under river-bed) water rights.
It is further understood historically, that the United States is claiming lands from England that extend to the Mississippi River in the 1783 Treaty of Paris. England had no legal or legitimate rights to the lands west of the Appalachian Mountain ridge by any known theory of the time including Conquest or Discovery. All of the lands from the Ridge of the Appalachians to the Mississippi river south of the Ohio River would have been Spanish under any known doctrine of the time. All of the lands north of the Ohio River to the Mississippi would have been French under the same legal theories of the time.
The 1790s map that de Carondelet showed to Bloody Fellow documenting the lands of the Cherokee Nation (Chickamauga) the only “Cherokee” the Spanish dealt with, details exactly the boundaries of the Chickamauga from the Ohio River south, east to the ridge of the Appellations, west to the Mississippi, and south to near Atlanta, and extending to just south of the Tennessee River in Alabama, and just the northern tip of Mississippi to the Mississippi River.