His reflections on this problem were further stimulated by the progress of events. The day of the trader had passed, while that of the settler had come. The swelling tide from Europe had settled around the Cherokees, and the frontier of settlement had begun to continually spill over into the Cherokee country. What was even more maddening, encroachments were on the increase and held no promise of abating. At last in despair, the Cherokees appealed to the “Great Father” in Washington to stem the tide. A treaty followed, clipping away a goodly portion of their ancestral domain. The ink on it was hardly dry before another wrested from them still more thousands of acres of rich land. In each treaty the Federal Government recognized the Cherokee claims and titles and solemnly declared it to be “the last and final adjustment of all claims and differences.” Obviously, the Cherokees were shocked by these acts of treachery. The fact that the hand of the “Great Father” was gloved and that it purported to throw continual favors in their path did not make them less apprehensive of the menace. Yet they were convinced of the folly of an appeal to arms through a realization of the inequality of the struggle. Therefore, they did that which no other Indian tribe in the face of calamity has ever done. They attempted to combat civilization by becoming civilized themselves. At a great council they organized themselves to form a Federal Union after the United States, and set to cultivating the arts of peace and the ways of civilization. By this time Sequoyah had become imbued with the idea that the secret of the white man’s superiority lay in his power of communication by writing. Indeed, he struck a salient note here, for the invention of writing has made tremendously for the superior advantages of the civilized races over the primitive. “The mind and the pen have ultimately, in all ages, been mightier than the sword. Rome, the conquerer, was led in chains by Greece, who, though herself over-run by barbaric Romans, compelled them to adopt, respect, and maintain her institutions.” History, in fact, is replete with instances of people who have been able to ward off the effects of conquest because they were intellectually above their victors. But this superiority has always preceded conquest; it has _never_ followed it. Unfortunately, Sequoyah was ignorant of this. Nevertheless, the mere fact that such an ideal had its birth in the mind of an untutored savage is sufficient to vest it with sublimity.