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Show 116 MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE [ ETH. ANN. 19 dollars, of which by far the greater part had gone to Georgia or her citizens. In regard to the other criticism the report states that the civilizing policy was as old as the government itself, and that in performing the high duties of humanity to the Indians, it had never been conceived that the stipulation of the convention was contravened. In handing in the report, the President again called attention to the conditional nature of the agreement and declared it as his opinion that the title of the Indians was not in the slightest degree affected by it and that there was no obligation on the United States to remove them by force. 1 Further efforts, even to the employment of secret methods, were made in 1827 and 1828 to induce a cession or emigration, but without avail. On July 26, 1827, as already noted, the Cherokee adopted a constitution as a distinct and sovereign Nation. Upon this the Georgia legislature passed resolutions affirming that that state " had the power and the right to possess herself, by any means she might choose, of the lands in dispute, and to extend over them her authority and laws," find recommending that this be done by the next legislature, if the lands were not already acquired by successful negotiation of the general government in the meantime. The government was warned that the lands belonged to Georgia, and she must and would have them. It was suggested, however, that the United States might be permitted to make a certain number of reservations to individual Indians. 8 Passing over for the present some important negotiations with the western Cherokee, we come to the events leading to the final act in the drama. Up to this time the pressure had been for land only, but now a stronger motive was added. About the year 1815 a little Cherokee boy playing along Chestatee river, in upper Georgia, had brought in to his mother a shining yellow pebble hardly larger than the end of his thumb. On being washed it proved to be a nugget of gold, and on her next trip to the settlements the woman carried it with her and sold it to a white man. The news spread, and although she probably concealed the knowledge of the exact spot of its origin, it was soon known that the golden dreams of De Soto had been realized in the Cherokee country of Georgia. Within four years the whole territory east of the Chestatee had passed from the possession of the Cherokee. They still held the western bank, but the prospector was abroad in the mountains and it could not be for long. 8 About 1828 gold was found on Ward's creek, a western branch of Chestatee, near the present Dahlonega,* and the doom of the nation was sealed ( 41). 1 Monroe, message to the Senate, with Calhoun's report, March 30, 1824, American State Papers: Indian Affaire, n, pp. 460, 462, 1834. * Royce, Cherokee Nation, Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, pp. 241,242,1888. 8Personal information from J. D. Wafford. * Nitze, H. B. C., in Twentieth Annual Report United States Geological Survey, part 6 ( Mineral Resources), p. 112,1899. |