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The Indian Committees in both houses of Congress have reported, recommending
as we anticipated, the removal of the Indians to the west of the Mississippi.
The question is therefore now open for discussion, and soon we shall hear what
is to become of us. The crisis is at hand. Will justice prevail?
Will honor and plighted faith be regarded, and the poor Indians be shielded
from oppression? These are momentous questions which must in a very short
time receive a practical answer. If justice prevails, the Indians
will assuredly be protected. But if treaties are disregarded and declared
of no validity, as many high in office have already done, then indeed shall
we be delivered over to our enemies-it matters not whether we hide ourselves
in the western prairies-our enemies will have no difficulty in finding us there.
If therefore we are to be sacrificed, let the bloody tragedy be accomplished
here on our own native soil around the graves of our fathers & in the view
of the people of these United States. The good people of this boasting
republic may stand and gaze on the oppressive acts of Georgia, consenting or
not, as they please, to our destruction. It will not require their aid
to destroy us-they need only stand still-Georgia can accomplish her design easily--But
there will be a reckoning hereafter.
It is said, however, that the general Government and the state of Georgia,
do not contemplate using force. We have never intimated that open force
will be resorted to--this would be too barefaced. But measures are in
operation whose effects upon us are the same as those of compulsion. The
object is our removal, and if it is ever accomplished, it must be done contrary
to our wishes and inclinations, by means which honor and justice must forever
reprobate. It makes no difference whether we are ousted at the point
of the bayonet, or by indirect and oppressive measures--it is the same thing
with us, and we wish the public to know it. People of the U. S. our appeal
is to you---will you, with a relentless hand, extinguish all our rising expectations?
The leading men of this nation have been charged with a studied attention
to mislead their people in regard to the nature of the country allotted by the
government for the future residence of the Indians. They have said, and
repeated a hundred times, that the country was not fit for the Cherokees---it
is poor and unhealthy---it is deficient in wood and water. On the other
hand, the agents of the government have extolled it, as being unexceptionable
in every respect. We can answer these men by a retort. It is their
studied attempt to beguile and mislead the Indians and not only the Indians,
but the public. We hope they will never succeed. We have frequently
said that the good land, if any there be in the west, was not sufficient for
the support of the Indians proposed to be colonized there. In this opinion
we are not alone.
We invite our Cherokee readers to whom the deceptive promises have been
held out, to peruse the remarks which follow. They are taken from an article
in the Arkansas Gazette, headed " On the purchase of Texas." The writer must
be considered a good witness in the case, so far as the nature and extent of
the country is concerned.
The whole country west of Missouri and Arkansas, (including the forth
miles severed from the latter,) is already parcelled out to the different tribes
who now occupy it. The Cherokees and Creeks are already murmuring on account
of their restricted limits and complain that the Government has assigned to
both the same tract of country. The productions of the habitable parts
of the country under the careless culture of the Indians, will be found not
more than sufficient to supply the wants of its present population. And
it should be recollected, that, tinctured as the Indians are, with some of the
characteristics of civilization, the force of their original habits is broker,
which readers [sic] them as little qualified to subsist on the sterile prairies
towards the Rocky Mountains, as many of our own citizens. In meliorating
the condition of the Indians, humanity needs no subterfuge; its principles are
plain, direct, and unconditional. The Government is bound to protect the
Indians as a separate and distinct people, so long as that protection does not
interfere with the rights and interests of its own citizens; but when this sacrifice
becomes necessary to keep up the semblance of independence among the Indian
tribes, humanity can go no farther.
The language usually held out to the Indians, by the agents of the Government,
to induce them to remove, is, that they are to remain uncontrolled in their
habits; that an extensive country will be assigned them, abounding with game
and every other advantage suited to their pristine habits. Without an
extended country in the south, the Government cannot comply with those engagements.
It is a mere mockery of humanity to hold such language to the Indians, when
under existing circumstances, the promises contained can never be realized.
It is like adorning the victim with flowers and fillets, when you are leading
it to the altar. In our transactions with the Indians, as well as others,
the scale of justice should never preponderate or the language of humanity be
disguised. In placing them west of the civilization, they must have a
country in extent suitable to their roving habits. It they are all to
be crowded into the territory now at the disposition of the Government in the
west, the consequence will be, war, starvation, and a total extermination of
the race. If this is to be the case, the cause of humanity would be aided,
by compelling them to stay where they are, and submit to the restraints of civilization.
If the proposition respecting the formation of our Indian colony, without
the range of the States and Territories, contained in the report of the Secretary
of War, should be adopted by the Government, we will have according to the Secretary's
calculation, seventy-five thousand at one litter in addition to those already
in the country. We must acknowledge that the Secretary would be extremely
productive in people for his colony, but will he tell us where he will put them?
and how he will subsist them, under existing circumstances. I believe
his plan rational and practicable, if the Texas country belonged to the government,
but otherwise the restricted limits in which he would have to plant his colony
would render it a perfect Indian slaughter house.
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