This attitude of the Indian toward European standards of civilization; his indifference to material possessions; his unwillingness to part with the land; and his refusal to work, made it impossible to "assimilate" him, as other peoples were assimilated, into colonial society. The individual Indian would not demean himself by becoming a cog in the white man's machine. He preferred to live and die in the open air of his native hills and plains. The Indian was an intense individualist--trained in a school of experience where initiative and personal qualities were the tests of survival. He placed the soles of his moccasined feet firmly against his native earth, cast his eyes around him and above him and melted harmoniously into his native landscape. Missionaries and teachers labored in vain--once an Indian, always an Indian. The white settlers pushed on across mountain ranges and through valleys. Generations came and went without any marked progress in bringing the white men and the red men together. When the Indian, in the mission or in the government school did become "civilized," he gave over his old life altogether and accepted the white man's codes and standards. The two methods of life were too far apart to make amalgamation possible. 3. _Getting the Land_ The white man must have land! Population was growing. The territory along the frontier seemed rich and alluring. Everywhere, the Indian was in possession, and everywhere he considered the sale of land in the light of parting with a birth-right. He was friendly at first, but he had no sympathy with the standards of white civilization. For such a situation there was only one possible solution. Under the plea that "necessity knows no law" the white man took up the task of eliminating the Indian, with the least friction, and in the most effective manner possible. There were three methods of getting the land away from the Indian--the easiest was by means of treaties, under which certain lands lying along the Atlantic Coast were turned over to the whites in exchange for larger territories west of the Mississippi. The second method was by purchase. The third was by armed conquest. All three methods were employed at some stage in the relations between the whites and each Indian tribe. The experience with the Cherokee Nation is typical of the relation between the whites and the other Indian tribes. (Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology. Vol. 5. "The Cherokee Nation," by Charles C. Royce.) The Cherokee nation before the year 1650 was established on the Tennessee River, and exercised dominion over all the country on the east side of the Alleghany Mountains, including the head-waters of the Yadkin, the Catawba, the Broad, the Savannah, the Chattahoochee and the Alabama. In 1775 there were 43 Cherokee towns covering portions of this territory. In 1799 their towns numbered 51.