C. STREET, Aug. 19, '53. To GEO. W. MANYPENNY ESQ., Com. of Indian Affairs, Sir, I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your note of yesterday with the accompanying copy of a letter to the Hon. Mr. Atchison, and make my thanks to you for this mark of your attention. The reply will be immediately forwarded to Meas Ami, to be published in the same paper in which your note to me covering the map on which the Indian's cessions & reserves west of Missouri, was published. Very respectfully, Sir, Yr. obt. servant, THOMAS H. BENTON. Indian Office _Miscellaneous Files, 1851-1854._ [20] Ray, _op. cit._, 86; Connelley, in Kansas Historical Society, _Collections_, vol. vi, 102; Connelley, _Provincial Government of Nebraska Territory_, pp. 24, 30 _et seq._ The Wyandots took an active part in the Kansas election troubles. For some evidence of that, see, House _Reports_, 34th congress, first session, no. 200, pp. 22, 266. [21] By the treaty of 1837 [Kappler, _op. cit._, vol. ii, 486], the Choctaws, for a money consideration as was natural, agreed to let the Chickasaws occupy their country jointly with themselves and form a Chickasaw District within it that should be on a par with the other districts (Moo-sho-le-tubbee, Apucks-hu-nubbe, and Push-ma-ta-ha), or political units, of the Choctaw Nation. The arrangement meant political consolidation, one General Council serving for the two tribes, but each tribe retaining control of its own annuities. The boundaries of the Chickasaw District proved the subject of a contention, constant and bitter. Civil war was almost precipitated more than once. Finally, in 1855, the political connection was brought to an end by the terms of the Treaty of Washington [Kappler, _op. cit._, vol. ii, 706], negotiated in that year. [22] See Report of C. C. Copeland to Cooper, August 27, 1855. [23] A secret society is said to have been formed in Missouri for the express purpose of gaining the Shawnee land for slavery. [24] Dean wrote to Butler, November 29, 1855 [_Letter Press Book_] saying that the disturbed state of things in Kansas was having a very serious effect upon the Cherokee Neutral Land. Early in 1857, Butler reported that he had given notice that if intruders had not removed themselves by spring he would have them removed by the military [Butler to Dean, January 9, 1857]. Manypenny approved Butler's course of action which is quite significant, considering that the federal administration was supposed to be unreservedly committed to the pro-slavery cause and the intruders were pro-slavery men from across the border.