WRITINGS OF 5AM HOUSTON, 1854
473
desirous to hear what they had to say to him; that they had come a great distance to see their Great Father; that he had understood from the agent they had important communications to make and favors to ask, and that he was prepared to hear them with the greatest consideration. They represented in detail pretty much what I have given as the history of their tribes, and the circum- stances under which they had become located in the far West. The President, after hearing all they had to say upon the subject, gave a reply, in which he assured them of the constancy, friend- ship, and protection of the Government of the United States; the consideration to which they were entitled from the fact of their having emigrated west of Arkansas at the suggestion of the President, and assured them that it entitled them to the most favorable consideration of this Government. He told them, you are now in a country where you can be happy; no white man shall ever again disturb you; the Arkansas will protect your southern boundary when you get there. You will be protected on either side; the white man shall never again encroach upon you, and you will have a great outlet to the West. As long as water flows, or grass grows upon the earth, or the sun rises to show your pathway, or you kindle your camp fires, so long shall you be protected by this Government, and never again removed from your present habitation. Reposing full confidence in these pledges, the Indians have acted; though the United States, in carrying out their-portion of the contract in relation to a part of the tribe west of the Mississippi, without adding to their territory, or without making it distinct, located the Indians east of the Mississippi river-after giving them ~illions of dollars for their lands-upon the territory of the Western Cherokees. The men who had organized them- selves into a government, and lived upon the territory guaranteed to them as a separate and distinct people, found these others thrown upon and intermingling with them; and although there was an additional and distinct territory to the north of them, designated and laid off for the Eastern Cherokees, they did not settle there, but located in the midst of the Old Settlers, dispos- sessed them of their homes, their improvements, their salt-works, and everything valuable, and formed a new government supersed- ing the former one, and usurping the rights vested in the former tribe. I need not rehearse to gentlemen ·who are familiar ";th the past, the tragedies that followed, the sanguinary murders and
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