The Cherokee Nation of Indians. (1887 N 05 / 1883-1884 (pages 121-378))Royce, Charles C.
History
The Cherokee Nation of Indians. (1887 N 05 / 1883-1884 (pages 121-378))
Royce, Charles C.
Cherokee Indians -- Government relations; Cherokee Indians -- Treaties
must be left to their fate, or renounce the whole. What that fate
is to be unhappily is too plain.
The State of Georgia has assumed jurisdiction over them, has
invaded their territory, has claimed the right to dispose of their
lands, and has actually proceeded to dispose of them, reserving
only a small portion to individuals, and even these portions are
threatened and will no doubt, soon be taken from them. Thus the
nation is stripped of its territory and individuals of their
property without the least color of right, and in open violation
of the guarantee of treaties. At the same time the Cherokees,
deprived of the protection of their own government and laws, are
left without the protection of any other laws, outlawed as it were
and exposed to indignities, imprisonment, persecution, and even to
death, though they have committed no offense whatever, save and
except that of seeking to enjoy what belongs to them, and refusing
to yield it up to those who have no pretense of title to it. Of the
acts of the legislature of Georgia your memorialists will endeavor
to furnish copies to your honorable bodies, and of the doings
of individuals they will furnish evidence if required. And your
memorialists further respectfully represent that the Executive of
the United States has not only refused to protect your memorialists
against the wrongs they have suffered and are still suffering at
the hands of unjust cupidity, but has done much more. It is but too
plain that, for several years past, the power of the Executive has
been exerted on the side of their oppressors and is co-operating
with them in the work of destruction. Of two particulars in the
conduct of the Executive your memorialists would make mention, not
merely as matters of evidence but as specific subjects of complaint
in addition to the more general ones already stated.
The first of these is the mode adopted to oppress and injure
your memorialists under color of enrollments for emigration. Unfit
persons are introduced as agents, acts are practiced by them that
are unjust, unworthy, and demoralizing, and have no object but
to force your memorialists to yield and abandon their rights by
making their lives intolerably wretched. They forbear to go into
particulars, which nevertheless they are prepared, at a proper
time, to exhibit.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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