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Show 102 MYTH8 OF THE CHEROKEE [ ETH. ANN. 19 come. Jealousies had arisen in consequence, and the delegates representing the progressive element now proposed to the government that a line be run through the nation to separate the two parties, allowing those on the north to divide their lands in severalty and become citizens of the United States, while those on the south might continue to be hunters as long as the game should last. Taking advantage of this condition of affairs, the government authorities instructed the agent to submit to the conservatives a proposition for a cession of their share of the tribal territory in return for a tract west of the Mississippi of sufficient area to enable them to continue the hunting life. The plan was approved by President Jefferson, and a sum was appropriated to pay the expenses of a delegation to visit and inspect the lands on Arkansas and White rivers, with a view to removal. The visit was made in the summer of 1809, and the delegates brought back such favorable report that a large number of Cherokee signified their intention to remove at once. As no funds were then available for their removal, the matter was held in abeyance for several years, during which period families and individuals removed to the western country at their own expense until, before the year 1817, they numbered in all two or three thousand souls. 1 They became known as the Arkansas, or Western, Cherokee. The emigrants soon became involved in difficulties with the native tribes, the Osage claiming all the lands north of Arkansas river, while the Quapaw claimed those on the south. Upon complaining to the government the emigrant Cherokee were told that they had originally been permitted to remove only on condition of a cession of a portion of their eastern territory, and that nothing could be done to protect them in their new western home until such cession had been carried out. The body of the Cherokee Nation, however, was strongly opposed to any such sale and proposed that the emigrants should be compelled to return. After protracted negotiation a treaty was concluded at the Cherokee agency ( now Calhoun, Tennessee) on July 8, 1817, by which the Cherokee Nation ceded two considerable tracts- the first in Georgia, lying east of the Chattahoochee, and the other in Tennessee, between Waldens ridge and the Little Sequatchee- as an equivalent for a tract to be assigned to those who had already removed, or intended to remove, to Arkansas. Two smaller tracts on the north bank of the Tennessee, in the neighborhood of the Muscle shoals, were also ceded. In return for these cessions the emigrant Cherokee were to receive a tract within the present limits of the state of Arkan- > Royce, Cherokee Nation, Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, pp. 202- 204,1888; see also Indian Treaties, pp. 209- 215,1837. The preamble to the treaty of 1817 says that the delegation of 1808 had desired a division of the tribal territory in order that the people of the Upper ( northern) towns might " begin the establishment of fixed laws and a regular government," while those of the Lower ( southern) towns desired to remove to the West. Nothing is said of severalty allotments or citizenship. |