WRITINGS OF 5AM HOUSTON, 1830
167
the Agent, in despite of oath, law, and every honest principle, swindled out of his right, by Col. McKenney's correspondent. If the register had been made, as it should have been, and sent to the War Department, the money would have been sent to the Agent, and he would have paid if to them ( if he had been honest), and saved to them fifty per cent. An Indian does not know the value of paper in his hands, for the Agents of Government never re- deem it in good faith, and it is worse than highway robbery thus to impose upon them, knowing that the Government had appro- priated funds to pay them honestly. Now, that the chances of the Agent and his friends to speculate upon the Indians by delay of the register was most natural, and these facts stated were the most potent causes of delay, there can be no doubt. What will the Colonel say now, about the "scrarnble among lracle1·s for these certificates," and as "requiring great caution on the part of the Depctrt1nent here to keep the Indians from being cheated out of them?" I wonder who gave the Colonel this in- formation. But this is not all the information he has received, for he has heard "that there a1·e those who hove1· about these • Indians more in the chara.cter of birds of prey than angels of me1·cy." Here the Colonel's imagination took flight, and after an excursive range ·of angelic soaring, eased itself down upon "clothing and other little necessaries, among which whiskey may be enumerated as a leading article." It cannot be difficult to as- certain from whom the Colonel derived the information touching whiskey. For it will be recollected, that the late Agent of the Cherokees, soon after the last treaty with the Cherokees, had a brother, with his partner, to establish themselves1in merchandiz- ing, below Fort Smith, and separated from the Cherokee Nation only by the Arkansas river. They have sold more whiskey to the Cherokees than all the "birds of pray,'' and it will seem strange that the Agent should not have demanded some power of the Government to prevent the bad and ruinous effects of thjg traffic. It is reported and believed, that, in the short space of six weeks, they did actually sell to Indians no less than 250 ban·els of whiskey, making in all about 8,250 gallons. And to say that 40,000 gallons had been introduced and sold to the Indians, would not enlarge upon the truth. Now, at the lowest estimate, this must have drawn from the Indians, in certificates, &c. $30,000. All this whiskey was brought by the old Agency, where the Agent resided, and he must have known of the fact of its introduction, as he was rarely absent from home. He has
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