WRITINGS OF 5AM HOUSTON, 1853
436
Sir, the tribes emigrated under the faith of treaties. They had become civilized under the influence of the missionary preachers, and they are advancing in civilization every day. What was once the home of the red man has become the garden of civilization. They are not Indians to be regarded as they once were; for having lived in juxtaposition with the whites on the east of the Mississippi, they have imitated and adopted the arts of agriculture and peace, and are now improving themselves in science and literature, and in everything that is calculated to develop the resources of the human mind. I .can go back to their history since the treaty of 1817, and detail pretty correctly the incidents that have befalien the tribes who have removed west of the Mississippi river from that time to the present. During Mr. Jefferson's administration, he sent to the Cherokee nations inviting them to send a delegation to Washington City. They complied with that, and promises were made to them to the end that if they would remove west of the Mississippi, and abandon their lands on the east of the Mississippi, they should have there a perpetual home, and never again be disturbed-never driven from them. Upon the faith of these promises, they emigrated first to St. Francois and remained there for some years. The Osages were then numerous, powerful, and warlike. They poured down upon this little band of Chero- kees who were settled there. After some time, Taloukista, a war chief from the Cherokees east of the Mississippi, went to them, and remained there for a number of years, and then removed up to what was called Point Remove, on the Arkansas river, above Little Rock a considerable distance, leaving St. Francois and the settlements in that vicinity. T'hese remained at Point Remove until some time about 1827, I think it was. In the mean time, from the point where Fort Smith now stands, on the Arkansas, to Fort Gibson, on the Neosho, the land was acquired by Major Lovely, representative and sub-agent of ·the Cherokees who had emigrated to the West, and it received the name of Lovely's Purchase. The white people immediately went into that country and made settlements, and were then locating the settlements on the Arkansas Territory, in the · rear of the Indians and west of them. A treaty was proposed by the Gov- ernment of the United States to exchange Lovely's Purchase, as it was called, with an additional quantity of land lying between Grande river or the Neosho, to a point ·on the Arkansas river. The Indians made the exchange, and removed from Point Remove,
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