WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1854
470
Successive promises were made from 1785 to 1802, during the administration of General Washington; and the pledges of amity and regard that were made to the Indians by him, inured to Mr. Jefferson, for he, in 1809, made solemn promises to them, provided they would migrate west of the Mississippi. Long anterior to that they had been seduced by the promises of this Government. They went west of the Mississippi, and were recognized by the United States so soon as that territory was acquired from France. They continued there up to 1814, 1816 and 1817, under the promises of the Government, battling against the hostile, wild Indians, and relying upon the pledges of the different Presidents of the United States, their great father, that they should not be molested in their settlement there. The treaty of 1817 was negotiated after the war of 1812, in which it will be recollected that the Cherokees, as allies of the United States, enlisted under the banner of this Government, and marched to battle, under the immediate command of General Jackson. They were engaged in all the scenes of the Creek war of 1813 and 1814. Here was an earnest of their fidelity to the pledges which they had given to the Government of the United States. In consequence of these services, they were considered in the treaties of 1814, made with the Creeks. After that, the policy of the Government became more stringent upon them; and a disposition arising, owing to pressure from surrounding States, to remove them to Arkansas, it was proposed that the whole nation of Cherokees east of the Mississippi should migrate, and exchange their lands on the east for lands lying to the far west. The white people had surrounded them. It was suggested that it was necessary for them to remove; that when the white man and the Indian were in contact, and particularly when the Indians were surrounded by white men, they could no longer prosper; that they were now surrounded, and had no outlet; that they were not prepared precisely to go into the abodes of civilized men; and, therefore, it was necessary to withdraw them from that vicinity, and to give them a boundless latitude in the west. These were the suggestions, and the most solemn pledges were made by this Government-that if they would remove to the west of the Mississippi they should never again be surrounded by white men, and that they should have a boundless and in- terminable outlet, as far as the jurisdiction of the United States extended. This was most solemnly guaranteed to those Indians; and in obedience to that, and to the desire of the Government,
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