WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1854
486
have been easy to give that line such a direction as to have excluded the Indians from the Territory, reserving to them their possessions, and rendered it unnecessary to have resorted to quibbles to explain that circumscribing them within a certain boundary was not including them within it. Sir, you may as well tell me that if you bring Indians within the jurisdiction of a State or Territory, they are not subject to the laws prevailing there. Look at Georgia, at· Tennessee, and see how soon they extended their jurisdiction over the Indians, and how soon they were swept from the face of the country. There has been no instance where, as soon as a Territory was formed, the authorities have not claimed immediate jurisdiction over them. The very moment they became a sovereign State, they would claim jurisdic- tion as such, over every foot of land within them. The Indians would be ·situated, by the passage of the bill, in a condition from which they could .not extricate themselves; and the only way in which the Government can redeem the pledges given to them is to exclude them in fact, not in fiction. Then, sir, they will have their guarantee secured, and the country's honor and pledges will be redeemed. But, if it is a foregone conclusion that they must be exterminated, be it so. This is progressing rapidly; and this bill is bringing it to a consummation; for the inevitable consequence is, that these Indians must be driven from the country guaranteed to them by the Government of the United States. But, sir, I will speak in reference to the Indians, and the advantage which arises when they are justly treated. Within my recollection, the first missionary, or schoolmaster, went to the Cherokee nation on the Tennessee river; for that was the northern boundary of the nation; and I found myself in boyhood located within six miles of that boundary, and every scene upon the banks of the river and its adjacent tributaries are as familiar to me as my right hand. ·I had every opportunity of becoming acquainted with them, and I knew the nation before there was an Indian, unless it is the present chief and one or two families, who could read a word of the English language, or write a legible hand; and the majority of them could not speak one word of English. I know when the first pair of cotton cards and spinning-wheel were introduced among them; when the first mill was erected; and when the first road was made through their territory communicating between Tennessee and Georgia-the great southern market for the produce of East
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