Today in Chickamauga History - April 3
1827, April 3: ARKANSAS TERRITORIAL PAPERS VOL XX – Page 442 – 443 - GEORGE GRAHAM TO WILLIAM McREE - [NA:GLO, Lets. to SG, Ill] –
April 3'd 1827.
Col Wm McREE Saint Louis. M 0
SIR, I now forward for your information the copy of a letter rec'd this day in reply 13 to yr communication14 relative to the Surveying of the Lands west of the present Cherokee boundary in Arkansaw. I understand that the Cherokees have remonstrated against the Surveys, & claim 1,500,000 of land more than is now contained within their survey, & that the President deems it proper to suspend, temporarily, the public Surveys until more particular information can be obtained as to the real quantity of land which have been ceded by the Cherokees in the states of Georgia, No Carolina &c, &c.
This decision will of course produce embarrassments as to the gentlemen with whom you have contracted to survey these Lands. Will it not be in your power to give them Contacts to execute until the Govt shall direct the Completion of those which they have undertaken.
With great Respect &c
GG
1828, April 3: ARKANSAS TERRITORIAL PAPERS VOL XX – Page 637 – 639 - THOMAS L. McKENNEY TO THE ARKANSAS CHEROKEE DELEGATION – [NA: OIA, Lets. Sent, Bk. 4] - DEPARTMENT OF WAR, Off: Ind: Affairs, 3 April, 1828.
To BLACK Fox, THOMAS GRAVES, GEORGE GUESS, & others, Cherokee Deputation &c.
FRIENDS & BROTHERS, I have received your note of yesterday 98 declining to assent to the proposition for an exchange of your lands in Arkansa, upon the basis as stated by me in my interview with you of three days past, and asking to be informed what number of acres the Government would be willing to assign to you where you are now located in satisfaction of the Treaty of 1817 and Convention of 1819.
There is some difficulty in deciding this question, seeing the stipulation of the Treaty is for a given quantity, and which limits that quantity to the same that was ceded by you in Georgia, Alabama, North Carolina and Tennessee, and because the Territory of Arkansa might except to it should a quantity be agreed upon which should exceed that to which that Territory might think you were entitled. This reason would not apply if you had accepted the proposal to take lands
West of the Territory; and that was one reason why the proposition was made to you. It was to disembarrass the subject of this difficulty.
The Secretary of War, however, anxious to give you all the satisfaction in his power, directs me to state the quantity of land ceded by you as this has been ascertained upon actual survey, and upon estimate, and according as these have been communicated by the Governors of three of the States; and by a report from the General Land Office here shewmg the quantity ceded in the other. 99
The returns from Georgia, show, that Eight hundred and twenty four thousand three hundred and eighty four, (824.384) acres, were ceded in that state. Those from North Carolina upon actual survey Seventy thousand, (70,000) acres--and upon a "supposition", or estimate Six hundred and thirty thousand, (630,000) making Seven hundred thousand acres (700,000); those from Tennessee, that, a little over Eight hundred thousand, (800,000) acres have been laid off into Sections, quarter sections &c-None of the Mountainous parts appear to have been surveyed, nor is there any data as to quantity. The returns from the Land Office for those ceded in Alabama state the quantity at Seven hundred and thirty Six thousand five hundred and Sixty, (736.560) acres-from which it is proper to deduct the twelve miles reserved for your own benefit-say Ninety two thousand one hundred and Sixty (92,160) acres which leaves for Alabama Seven
hundred and thirty eight thousand five hundred and Sixty (738,560) acres.-
The aggregate of Surveyed lands will stand thus:-
Georgia, 824,384
N. Carolina, 70,000
Tennessee, 800,000
Alabama, 738,560
2432. 944 to which add the supposed addition in N. Carolina 630,000, which if correct will make a Total, (except the mountainous parts of the Tennessee lands, and for which there is no data even on which to found an estimate,) of 3,062.944 acres. From this statement you will see how difficult it is, and indeed lIIlpossible to fix with accuracy upon a given quantity, unless you have some evidence of it - Seeing the line, now a provisional one, will, when made permanent so vitally effect Arkansa.
The Secretary however will receive and consider any statement you may have to make as to quantity, arid if he can, he will be happy to agree upon what may be mutually acceptable.1
I am Yr friend & Brother
Thoa L. McKenney
1. Answered Apr. 4, 1828 (NA, OIA, Lets. Recd., Cherokees W.), stating that since the precise quantity of lands ceded by the treaties of 1817 and 1819 is not known, and with a view to final settlement, the Arkansas Cherokees are willing to accept an offer of six million acres. See post, p. 645. In an entry in his ~1ary under date of Apr. 7, 1828, the President made the following comment: claim of the Cherokee Indians, removed into the Territory of Arkansas, to more lands. I told him that, from the inspection of the papers, I thought they had already had more than they had any right to claim. They were to receive acre for acre o~ the lands which they ceded in North Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia. They had already received upwards of four millions of acres while the surveys and estimates returned from the four States in which the lands relinquished by them are situated amount to little more than three millions. Mr. McKenney's report supposed that there was a part of their ceded lands still not estimated nor surveyed. But that requires further explanation" (Memoirs J. Q. Adams, 499). vu
And again on Apr. 11, 1828, the President commented: "Governor Barbour called for a decision upon the application of the Arkansas Cherokee Indians. Westward of the spot on which they are located is a large tract which goes by the name of Lovely's Purchase. When they went there is was unsettled, and Mr. Monroe, in a talk, and Mr. Calhoun, in a letter, in 1820 and 1821, gave them expectation that it would be reserved from settlement for the purpose of affording them an outlet to the West. But the white people have discovered that the land is excellent, and they are swarming thither like bees. They are covering 1t with unlicensed settlements, and the people of the territory are loudly claiming that the land should be offered for sale. This collision between the just and reasonable demands of our own people and the pledge seemingly given to the Indians is very embarrassing, and it is scarcely imaginable that within so recent a period the President and Secretary of War should have assumed so unwarranted an authority and have given so inconsiderate a pledge. I observed, however, to Governor Barbour that, as the pledge in its utmost extent assured to the Indians only an outlet, or, in other words, a right of way, they might be informed that in the grants of the lands upon Lovely's Purchase a right of peaceful way would
be reserved for them" (ibid., pp. 502-503) XXI),
See also Brearley to the Secretary of War, Mar. 21, 1829 (post, Vol. XXI).