The western territory assigned the Cherokee under this treaty was
in two adjoining tracts, viz, (1) a tract of seven million acres,
together with a "perpetual outlet west," already assigned to the
western Cherokee under treaty of 1833, as will hereafter be noted,
[314] being identical with the present area occupied by the Cherokee
Nation in Indian Territory, together with the former "Cherokee strip,"
with the exception of a two-mile strip along the northern boundary,
now included within the limits of Kansas; (2) a smaller additional
tract of eight hundred thousand acres, running fifty miles north
and south and twenty-five miles east and west, in what is now the
southeastern corner of Kansas. For this second tract the Cherokee
themselves were to pay the United States five hundred thousand dollars.
The treaty of 1833, assigning the first described tract to the western
Cherokee, states that the United States agrees to "guaranty it to them
forever, and that guarantee is hereby pledged." By the same treaty,
"in addition to the seven millions of acres of land thus provided
for and bounded, the United States further guaranty to the Cherokee
nation a perpetual outlet west and a free and unmolested use of
all the country lying west of the western boundary of said seven
millions of acres, as far west as the sovereignty of the United
States and their right of soil extend ... and letters patent shall
be issued by the United States as soon as practicable for the land
hereby guaranteed." All this was reiterated by the present treaty,
and made to include also the smaller (second) tract, in these words:
Art. 3. The United States also agree that the lands above ceded by
the treaty of February 14, 1833, including the outlet, and those
ceded by this treaty, shall all be included in one patent, executed
to the Cherokee nation of Indians by the President of the United
States, according to the provisions of the act of May 28, 1830....
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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