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previous: Chapter 21 This webpage reproduces a chapter of The Five Civilized Tribes by Grant Foreman University of Oklahoma Press Norman, Oklahoma, 1934 The text is in the public domain. This page has been carefully proofread and I believe it to be free of errors. If you find a mistake though, please let me know! next: Chapter 23

[ Cherokee ]

 p296  Chapter twenty-two
The Act of Union

The action of Ridge and his associates who signed the Treaty of 1835 became a bitter controversial subject.⁠1 It was a violation of their laws and upon the face of it was treason to the tribe. They acted as irresponsible members with no authority whatever to bind the Nation, a fact that was well known to the Federal Government. And Rev. John Schermerhorn who inveigled them into thus compromising themselves was in no small degree responsible for their tragic death. It was said, and no doubt truthfully, that their motives were consideration for the best interests of the tribe, which led them to pursue the line of least resistance. Schermerhorn himself acting as the Government negotiator, who knew full well that these men were wholly unauthorized to sign the treaty he tendered them, testifies to their good intentions and guilelessness and so compromises and convicts himself of guilt for their summary execution:

It mattered little to the unctuous Reverend Schermerhorn what the cost to others, he was out to do the servile bidding of his masters. President Jackson, at the instance of the whites, had determined that he would not, confessing that he could not, enforce the laws of his Government for the protection of the Indians. Any artifice, no matter how fraudulent, that would drive the Indians from the country, relieve him from importunities for their legal rights, abate the intolerable condition caused by the lawless action of the whites and put them in undisputed possession of the lands of the Indians, was what the subservient reverend gentleman was bent on securing. And he induced these unauthorized Cherokee individuals to sign their death warrant by agreeing to what purported to be a treaty of removal, but which was not a treaty because it was not the action of the tribe. However Schermerhorn took this fraudulent document to the President who, knowing full well that it was not a treaty, asked for its ratification by the Senate. And the Senate in the face of protests by 90 per cent of the tribe ratified it by a close vote.

An interesting light on that tragic situation appears in a letter written by the Rev. S. A. Worcester at Park Hill after the arrival of the Ridge and Boudinot parties and before the emigration of the great majority of the tribe: "The great trial we have at present is in relation to my translator. Mr. Boudinot whom I employed in the old nation arrived late last fall, and returned to his labor with me here. But in the mean time his extreme anxiety to save his people from threatening ruin had led him to unite with a small minority of the Nation in forming a treaty with the United States, an act, in my view, entirely unjustifiable; yet in his case dictated by good motives. This has rendered him so unpopular in the Nation that they will hardly suffer me to continue him in my employment." Mr. Worcester greatly needed the service of Boudinot but the feeling of the old settlers was so strong against the man they regarded as the betrayer of his people that the missionary  p298 was fearful the Cherokee people would not permit him to continue his mission and printing press in their country.⁠3 However as subsequent events showed, the members of the "Treaty Party" and most of the "Old Settlers" later found a common ground on which they stood against the members of Ross faction with their threat to dominate the Cherokee government.

The July 1 meeting was appointed to be held at Illinois Camp Ground about ten miles from Takatokah, one mile from the Illinois River, a mile and a half down the creek from Tahlequah and about as far north of the present Park Hill; this was in a little valley containing some fine springs; it was shut in on two sides by hills running east and west, so that it easily could be guarded at each end. Here were gathered two thousand Cherokee, and, while the western chiefs refused to attend, many individuals of their faction were present taking part in the deliberations. On July 2 Sequoyah, who was one of the presidents of the conference, and a number of other Western Cherokee at the meeting, joined with John Ross in a communication to the chiefs, Brown, Looney, and Rogers at Fort Gibson, requesting them to come to the meeting and help work out a solution of their difficulties. This the latter refused and countered with the information that they were going to have a convention at the old "Tahlontuskey" council house at the mouth of Illinois River on the twenty-second and invited "such others as choose to attend."

One of the first actions at Illinois Camp Ground was the preparation of a joint letter by several of the leading men to the chiefs of the Creek Nation concerning the excitement resulting from the killing of the Ridges and Boudinot and the resort to arms of their followers, assuring the Creeks that they did not wish to make war and warning them against believing false reports regarding their intentions circulated by their enemies. Later in the month they addressed a letter to the Seneca, Shawnee, Delaware and Quapaw Indians inviting them to send some of their number to the council so that they could observe the pacific proceedings there and "would be able to detect false reports that may have reached you."⁠4

On July 8 General Arbuckle addressed John Ross "and others,"  p299 at Illinois Camp Ground, in a truculent vein, demanding of them that they remove the cause for anxiety in the minds of the inhabitants of Arkansas who were reported to be leaving their homes from fear of Cherokee disorders. General Arbuckle had more than met his match in the adroit John Ross and he was enraged that his orders had been ignored and his plans thwarted. "In consequence of my efforts to restore peace to the Cherokee people, not having received from you the attention they merit, I determined to have no further concern with the present difficulties in the Cherokee Nation, unless my duty should imperiously require it; and I much regret that the information I have received does not justify me in remaining longer silent." Ross had not only held his convention, but he had secured the coöperation of influential men of the Western Cherokee like Sequoyah, who called on the chiefs Brown, Looney and Rogers to come and attend to the important business in hand and had put them in the position of recalcitrants, guilty of dereliction of duty — men on whom Arbuckle was depending to compel the surrender of Ross to his views.

Sequoyah wrote to the chiefs:

The constructive efforts of Ross and his followers were success­ful in spite of the opposition of General Arbuckle, and out of the difficulties an act of union was adopted on July 12, 1839, by which the two parties were declared "one body politic, under the style and title of the Cherokee Nation." John Looney, of the Western Cherokee realizing the futility of further opposing, joined the union; his former associates, chiefs John Brown and John Rogers, however, proceeded with their meeting at Tahlontuskey. A delegation from the Ross convention went  p300 to visit and confer with them on the subject of reunion, but they were driven away by threats of violence by Bell, Starr and other armed men on the ground. Brown and Rogers then on August 2 attempted the plan that had once been rejected by them, of having each faction appoint a committee to meet, this time at Fort Gibson. But, they added, "Old Settlers on your part of the committee will be rejected; that is, no old settler must be appointed to serve on your part of the committee, as the old settlers have refused to meet them." By this they repudiated men of their own faction such as Sequoyah who had already agreed to the union effected on the twelfth. Naturally the proposition was declined.

This declaration of union between the two factions of the tribe written by William Shorey Coodey, was preserved and published in the authorized printed editions of the constitution and laws of the Cherokee Nation, through the years that followed. And the union thus achieved by Ross was the foundation upon which all Cherokee national unity, prosperity and progress was constructed.

The convention at Illinois Camp Ground continued in session for several weeks and in the depth of their bitterness and sense of wrong, and determination in the new environment to vindicate their views and exercise the rights of a free people, the members permitted themselves to advocate and adopt futile measures calculated to do more harm than good. They went so far before the constitution was adopted as to enact a decree declaring that according to the laws of the tribe, the three men killed had rendered themselves outlaws by their own conduct, extending amnesty on certain stringent terms to their confederates, and declaring their slayers guiltless of murder and fully restored to the confidence of the community. This decree provided for the organization of eight auxiliary police companies to keep the peace. They were to be made up of volunteers each commanded by a captain and a lieutenant and the whole organization to be commanded by Jesse Bushyhead, with Looney Price second in command.⁠6 This was followed by another decree in August, made by another council, declaring the Treaty of New Echota void, and reasserting the title of the Cherokee to their old country. Three weeks later they adopted another decree summoning the signers of the treaty to appear and answer for their conduct under penalty of outlawry.

 p301  These extreme actions of the council were considered by the authorities as a menace to the peace of the country, and as the council had condoned the murder of the Ridges and Boudinot, John Ross was threatened with arrest as an accessory. Arbuckle demanded of Ross that the murderers be delivered to him,⁠7 under threat that otherwise he would send a military force into the Nation to make the arrest. Ross defied him on the ground that the offense was one with which the Cherokee Nation alone was competent to deal, and, as it had already acted in the matter, the Government under the treaties was powerless to proceed further. Ross's reply to Arbuckle written November 4, 1839, was a skillfully worded document beyond Arbuckle's ability to answer, and in cogent language exposed Arbuckle's illegal position in interfering in the local political affairs of the Cherokee Nation.

During the weeks the convention was in session considerable correspondence ensued between that body of men and General Arbuckle. The communications from the convention were signed by George Looney and George Guess (Sequoyah), Presidents, and John Ross and other members. But General Arbuckle persisted in addressing his replies solely to John Ross as Principal Chief of the eastern Cherokees,⁠8 ignoring the existence of the officers of an orderly meeting. He gravely repeated the most extravagant rumors of violence advocated by the meeting; he would send no one to the meeting to learn from first hand what was being discussed and what the members were trying to accomplish; but pursued what, in such an experienced officer, was the amazing course of receiving fantastic rumors to damn the meeting and its officers, such as that "Young Mr. Dillard was at Webbers Falls where he heard several individuals (Cherokees as I understand him) say  p302 that information had been received there, that it was the intention of your convention to send an armed force to the council of the Old Settlers, with the object of seizing the chiefs and taking them before you."

Largely upon such rumors, and somewhat from fear of the result of radical acts of the convention, General Arbuckle called on the governors of Arkansas and Missouri to raise and equip a brigade of volunteers to concentrate near the Cherokee boundary, for the protection of the frontier from an imaginary uprising of the Cherokee tribe; and he made a re­quisition upon the military storekeeper at Fayetteville for 132 muskets for Fort Gibson and for Fort Wayne 100 muskets with bayonets, 100 cartridge boxes and belts, 100 bayonet scabbards and belts, 10,000 musket cartridges, and 10,000 flints to be supplied to the citizens of Arkansas.⁠9

Realizing his defeat, General Arbuckle advised Brown, Looney and Rogers, whom he addressed as the Cherokee chiefs, to yield to the majority. It must be said to his credit, however, that he did so in the belief that that was the way of peace, for it must have been distasteful in the extreme to concede that Ross had carried his program against the stern hostility and opposition of the doughty old General, a course in which the latter had gone to the extreme in trying to control the internal affairs of the Cherokee Nation. But while General Arbuckle advised this course, he ignored to the last the fact that many of the Old Settlers had already joined the eastern Cherokee, and while manifestoes were issued from the convention in the name of both factions, Arbuckle persisted in addressing them merely as John Ross and the Eastern Cherokee.

After the adoption of the act of union of the tribe, a convention  p303 was held at Tahlequah where on September 6, the assembled Cherokee adopted the constitution which has been preserved throughout the tribal existence of that Nation as the basis of their government and laws. This document was signed by George Lowrey⁠10 as president of the convention and forty-six others, including Sequoyah. They then proceeded to organize their government according to its provisions, elected their officers, established courts of justice, passed all the regulations to put the new government into operation, and closed their proceedings on October 13 by appointing a delegation, with John Ross, their principal chief, at the head, to proceed to Washington to secure the adjustment of all unsettled claims and other questions pending between them and the United States. Ross and William Shorey Coodey left soon after for Washington, but the remainder of the delegation composed Joseph M. Lynch, Elijah Hicks, Edward Gunter, Archibald Campbell, and Looney Price, did not depart until November 15.

Though Ross had been elected by an overwhelming majority of the tribe as chief of the Nation, the secretary of war refused to see him or Coodey, agreeing, however, to see the remainder of the delegation; they declined the offer and demanded to know who was the accuser and what proof the secretary had of Ross's complicity in the killing of Ridge and Boudinot which the secretary gave as his reason for not receiving Ross.⁠11 Boudinot's half brother, Stand Waitie, who was then  p304 in Washington with John A. Bell, had made the charge of Ross's guilt.

After the government of the majority faction had been launched, a small and irregular council of the opposing Old Settlers was held for the purpose of closing up their depleted ranks. At this meeting on October 10, John Rogers was elected first chief, John Smith second chief, Dutch third chief, Will Rogers treasurer, James Starr and John Huss executive council, and John A. Bell chief justice of the Supreme Court.⁠12 A law was passed expelling all white men who were favorable to John Ross; a fine of $500 was prescribed for any person attempting to enforce the laws passed by the Ross government. "Sheriffs and light horse were appointed to each district authorized to press as many men as they shall require to enforce our laws."⁠13 The Treaty Party and this part of the Old Settlers entertained such implacable hostility toward the majority faction that Stand Watie, John A. Bell and William Rogers, then in Washington, joined in a communication to Secretary of War Poinsett, suggesting that the Cherokee Nation and their annuities be divided between the Old Settlers and Treaty Party on one side and the Ross faction on the other; and asked that Arbuckle and Armstrong be entrusted to make the division.⁠14

The Treaty Party, the followers of Boudinot and Ridge, held a meeting at Price's Prairie on August 20, and adopted a resolution and  p305 an address to the secretary of war representing that their lives were in danger; that they would not submit to the authority or dictation of John Ross and his partisans; that the only alternative left was to appeal to the United States for protection; that a delegation consisting of Bell and Stand Watie would proceed to Washington to represent their wishes to the secretary of war.

The Eastern Cherokee were winning over more of the Old Settlers, until both factions, well amalgamated, were meeting and discussing measures for their common good. The western chiefs, Brown and Rogers, on August 9 appealed to the Government of the United States to be sustained in the enforcement of their laws, and the protection of their lives. They and their following were the objects of a resolution adopted August 23, by a council of the Old Settlers including John Looney declaring that ". . . in identifying themselves with those individuals known as this Ridge party, who by their conduct had rendered themselves odious to the Cherokee people, they had acted in opposition to the known sentiments and feelings of that portion of this Nation known as the Old Settlers, frequently and variously expressed." And at the same time these offending chiefs of the Old Settlers, who had remained at Fort Gibson with the late emigrants, were deposed from all authority; and their appeal to Washington in support of their laws was declared to be without the sanction of the Old Settlers they claimed to represent. This document was signed by 200 persons, including Sequoyah, who signed as vice-president.

For answer some of the Western Cherokee held a meeting at "Takattokah" on November 5 where they resolved that Ross and his party were illegally attempting to annul the laws of the Cherokee Nation and declared all of their proceedings "unlawful, unauthorized, and made by this null and void;" protested against John Ross and his delegation doing any thing to bind the tribe in Washington, and declared that the Old Settlers who had joined the Ross faction were unauthorized in their acts.⁠15

Two days later they made an ingenious suggestion to Arbuckle: that an office be opened at the agency where the late arrivals should be invited to come in and enroll and pledge themselves to acknowledge  p306 the laws of the Western Cherokee, with the promise that the money due them by treaty would be paid them. "We believe when the plan would be made known to them throughout the nation, they would come in crowds to those offices, as numbers now come, and inquire how they can become citizens, in order that they may get their money and have the benefit of the law &c."⁠16

In reply to letter and "decree" Arbuckle wrote John Rogers, John Smith and Dutch, November 10, "I have no hesitation in saying that the government the late emigrants found here is the only lawful government in the Cherokee Nation." Governor Stokes however hastened to assure all the Cherokee by a formal writing that he held himself neutral between the partisans, though he said he would continue to recognize the old government of the Western Cherokee as the only government of that tribe until directed to follow some other course.⁠17

In November John Ross and his delegation departed for Washington; in order further to prejudice him with the secretary of war, Arbuckle wrote the letter on November 24, enumerating all the particulars he could think of calculated to involve him in the killing of the Ridges. Arbuckle said that if he had not "been prepared to start to Washington on business of much interest as it was understood, to the late emigrants, I would have caused him to be arrested and placed in confinement until the pleasure of the Government was known."⁠18 Another effort was made to embarrass them by arresting Lewis Ross in Wheeling, West Virginia on the alleged account for $9,000 growing out of the purchase of supplies for the emigrating Indians. Upon showing to the Court that these accounts were still pending in Washington, Ross was released.⁠19

The three chiefs of the Western Cherokee then on November 22 petitioned for authority to send a delegation of five to Washington, but on January 2, 1840 the Secretary of war said that as Bell and others were then in Washington, it was unnecessary for any more representatives of the Western Cherokee to be in the city.

While union of the factions of the tribe was an accomplished fact, hostile influences persisted to prevent general acknowledgment and  p307 understanding of that fact. But the tact of the patient Governor Stokes did much to remove further open opposition and made it possible to announce a complete amalgamation of the factions. The veteran Cherokee agent met with the Ross organization at Tahlequah December 20, 1839, and requested the members to make certain concessions to the few Old Settlers who continued to stand against them, and to meet at Fort Gibson for a general conference. The members present would not agree to the Fort Gibson meeting, but did agree to hold a meeting at which, as on former occasions, all members of the tribe were invited to be present. Accordingly an invitation was extended to all Cherokee people to meet at Tahlequah January 15, 1840. At that meeting the 1,700 members present voted unanimously to rescind the decree of outlawry enacted against the members of the Treaty Party in the July preceding.

Under the new constitution John Ross was elected principal chief, and Joseph Vann for many years a chief of the Western Cherokee, second chief. Six executive counsellors including John Looney, Aaron Price and Dutch, Western Cherokee. Dutch however refused to serve, "and went over to the agitators." The national committee was composed of forty members of the two branches: a committee of sixteen and a council of twenty-four. William Shorey Coodey was president of the national committee which included also John Drew, Thomas Thumb, John Spears, Bluford West, Joseph M. Lynch, Joshua Buffington, Thomas Taylor, and Turtle Fields, the latter four of whom emigrated in 1837.

Of the council Young Wolf was speaker and David Carter was clerk. The five members of the Supreme Court included Looney Price, an old settler, and John Martin who emigrated in 1837. The two circuit judges were John Thom, an old settler and Daniel McCoy, emigrants of 1837. There were four district judges including Looney Riley, an old settler, and John Brewer who came west in 1837.⁠20

From February 2 to 8, 1840, another council of the Ridge faction was held at Fort Gibson, where was effected a union of Old Settlers and the Treaty Party. On the seventh the meeting adopted a resolution reported by a special committee, declaring that they were a sovereign and independent people; that John Ross and his partisans would not be permitted to participate in their government except by conquest or  p308 by their consent, and that they had no intention of yielding to Ross and they declared his conduct and that of his partisans to be an "unprecedented act of usurpation — we will never acknowledge his government"; they resolved further "that the only legitimate government of this nation is the one handed down to us by the original settlers of the Cherokee Nation West, and we will to the utmost of our power and ability uphold and defend the same." They then appointed a delegation composed of Dutch, William Rogers, George Adair, James Carey, Alexander Foreman, Moses Smith, John Huss, and William Holt to carry the resolutions to Washington and urge their claims before the officials there.⁠21

After the meeting adjourned, Governor Stokes wrote the secretary of war what had been done there, and that the Old Settlers and Ridge party claimed to own all the land of the Cherokee Nation in the West.⁠22 He called attention to the fact that the Cherokee council at his request had repealed the decree of outlawry enacted the July before; that the western Cherokee, including the Ridge party, numbered about six thousand as against sixteen thousand of the majority faction, and that the latter were bound to prevail by force of their number; and suggested that concessions from both sides be requested which would result in peace. Governor Stokes also sought to aid the department to attain a correct perspective of the situation by vouching for the character of John Ross whom he had known for twenty-five years. But in response, soon after the arrival of the Ridge delegation in Washington, the secretary of war suspended Governor Stokes from his office as Cherokee agent, and committed the regulation of Cherokee affairs to the military under General Arbuckle.

There were now two opposing delegations in Washington; that of the Ross faction composed of John Ross, John Looney, E. Hicks, Archibald Campbell, Joseph M. Lynch, Edward Gunter, Looney Price, and George Hicks, on February 28, 1840, prepared a memorial to Congress⁠23 giving an account of their removal, the steps taken to reëstablish themselves and their government in their new home, and the difficulties  p309 created by opposing forces, including the policy of the administration through the military at Fort Gibson.

The House responded on March 23 by adopting a resolution calling on the secretary of war for "copies of all orders and instructions issued from the department to any officer of the army, or to any agent of the Government, requiring his interference with the Cherokee Indians in the formation of government for the regulation of their own internal affairs," together with copies of instructions prescribing any particular form of government.

Before the secretary of war complied with this request, the opposing Cherokee delegation⁠24 submitted a counter memorial which was introduced in the House April 1.⁠25 In this the memorialists detailed at length the wrongs alleged to have been committed upon them by the majority faction, and the tyranny of their laws, and prayed that Congress intercede to protect them in the independent government they had enjoyed before the removal of the majority of the Cherokee tribe from the east. By the middle of the month the secretary complied with the request made on him, and filed with the House a report with many interesting letters and orders attached. A few days later the Ross faction filed an additional statement of their contentions attaching copies of the proceedings creating their new government in the West.⁠26 These documents were all referred to the committee on Indian affairs.

Part of the Old Settlers claimed that those of their faction who participated in the union of the tribe of 1839 were but a minority without authority to bind the remainder; moved by this contention, the secretary of war on March 7, directed General Arbuckle to call a meeting of representatives of the factions at Fort Gibson where the union of 1839 would be ignored and a new one formed, under which all should have equal rights, but John Ross and William Shorey Coodey, who would not be permitted to have any voice in the new government. He was instructed to say further that the government of the western Cherokee was recognized as the only legitimate government in the tribe. This meeting was held at Fort Gibson on April 21, 1840, when General Arbuckle made a speech in which he gave the information directed by the secretary, and said that John Ross would not be permitted  p310 to hold any office in the Cherokee Nation. The administration was determined to maintain a hostile attitude toward any form of government achieved by the majority of the tribe under the leader­ship of John Ross. It is not surprising that the meeting broke up with nothing accomplished.

However, Arbuckle tried again and assembled another meeting of members of the factions at Fort Gibson in June, when he was more success­ful. To that meeting he invited twelve men from each of the two factions and induced them to agree to a new act of union prepared by him, and required those members claiming to represent the Ross government to surrender a third of the offices held by them, to be filled by the Old Settlers. A majority of those participating signed this so‑called act of union, but later, when testifying before General Jones's commission, most of the signers belonging to the Old Settlers disclaimed having any authority to bind any one but themselves.⁠27 In fact, John Rogers, chief of the Old Settlers, refused to sign the agreement prepared by Arbuckle, and left for Mexico City to avoid taking part in carrying it into effect. Under the martial law imposed upon the Cherokee Nation, the so‑called government dictated by Arbuckle, was enforced for some time, and the government established by the great majority of the tribe in 1839 was suspended.⁠28

---

The Author's Notes:

1 An excoriating arraignment of John Ross by Stand Watie and John A. Bell appeared in the Arkansas Gazette, August 21, 1839, p2, cols. 1 and 2.

2 From a letter from Rev. John Schermerhorn to the Utica Observer published in his home town, July 17, 1839, and copied in the Little Rock Observer, October 2, 1839, p2, col. 3.

3 Worcester to Samuel Chandler (his brother-in‑law) June 14, 1838 property of his grand-daughter Mrs. N. B. Moore, Haskell, Oklahoma.

4 United States House Document No. 222, Twenty-sixth Congress, first session.

5 United States House Document No. 188, Twenty-sixth Congress, first session.

6 Arkansas Gazette, August 21, 1839, p2.

7 Arbuckle charged that Daniel Colston, Joseph Spear, James Spear, Archibald Spear, and Hunter and twenty-five others murdered John Ridge; that James Foreman, two of the Springstons, Bird Doublehead, Jefferson Hair, and James Hair, killed Major Ridge; and Soft Shell Turtle, Money Taker (or Money Striker) Johnston, Car‑soo‑taw‑dy, Cherokee (or Joseph Beanstalk) and Duck-wa were guilty of the murder of Boudinot (United States House Document No. 188, Twenty-sixth Congress, first session).

8 In contrast to this was the attitude of the courteous and dignified Governor Stokes, the Cherokee agent, who refused to depart from his uniformly correct manner; in addressing the meeting, he named the officers according to the manner in which their names and titles were signed to the communications to him.

9 Army and Navy Chronicle, November 14, 1839, p316. "A detachment of two hundred and fifty men of the First Regiment of Dragoons under command of Colonel S. W. Kearney, have just returned to Fort Leavenworth, from a march from that post along the Missouri frontier, and into the Cherokee country as far as Fort Wayne on the Illinois River near Fort Gibson. On reaching Fort Wayne he learned from authority to be relied upon that the reports of intended hostilities, on the part of the Cherokees were utterly groundless, and that the whole country was entirely quiet. The command remained three days at Fort Wayne, during which Colonel Kearney corresponded with General Arbuckle at Fort Gibson, distant sixty miles, by express. He then marched his command back to Fort Leavenworth" (Army and Navy Chronicle, December 12, 1839.)

10 Maj. George Lowrey, one of the most distinguished citizens of the Cherokee Nation was born at Tohskeege on the Tennessee River near Tellico Block-house about 1770. He was one of the Cherokee delegation headed by John Watts who visited President Washington at Philadelphia in 1791 or 1792. He was captain of one of the Light Horse companies appointed to enforce the laws of the Nation in 1808 and 1810; a member of the National Committee organized in 1814, and one of the delegation that negotiated the treaty of 1819 in Washington. He was a member of the conventions that framed the constitutions of 1827 and 1839 and was elected assistant principal chief under the latter, an office he held for many years. At the time of his death he was a member of the Executive Council. He died October 20, 1852 at the age of eighty-two. The National Council being in session at the time, on hearing of his death, passed resolutions providing for his interment in a burying ground near Tahlequah and for funeral services on the occasion, then adjourned to Friday. His funeral services were preached on Thursday by the Rev. S. A. Worcester. His passing brought sorrow throughout the Cherokee Nation. (From an account prepared by Rev. S. A. Worcester on information obtained from Chief John Ross: Indian Advocate, January, 1853, p3, col. 1.)

11 Cherokee Delegation to Poinsett, secretary of war, January 3, 1840, OIA, Cherokee L 902.

12 John Brown deserted however, and left the Cherokee Nation for Mexico; on June 20, 1840, Almonte, secretary of war for Mexico, gave Brown and the families with him permission to settle in Chihuahua, Nueva Leon Coahuila, and Tamaulipas (OIA, Cherokee File B 1087).

13 Stand Watie to Crawford, January 8, 1840, OIA, Cherokee File B 856.

14 Stand Watie, Rogers, and Bell to Poinsett, January 22, 1840, ibid., R 454. On their arrival in Washington Stand Watie and Bell proceeded to deck themselves out in the prevailing hues and fashions. They went shopping together and bought each a "superfine" frock coat, the former selecting green, Bell preferring mulberry color. These garments cost $32 each; Bell's beaver overcoat was $43 and his companion's brown cloth coat cost $38. Cassimere pantaloons, velvet and "superfine" vests, stocks, cloaks, handkerchiefs and other items completed the gaudy raiment these Indians wore to standardize themselves with the white man with whom they associated. Bell departed for the Indian Territory March 16, 1840 and Stand Watie May 3. Just before leaving, the latter settled their account at the Globe Hotel amounting to $333.75. One of the bills for clothing purchased by both, amounting to $156, he paid with a draft on Glasgow and Harrison, though the character of his relation with these contractors is not disclosed. Half a dozen bills for the clothing purchased by them were filed with the commissioner by Stand Watie with the view to being reimbursed.

15 United States House Document No. 188, Twenty-sixth Congress, first session.

16 Idem.

17 Idem.

18 Idem.

19 Wheeling Gazette, copied in Arkansas Gazette, February 5, 1840, p3, col. 4.

20 United States House Document No. 222, Twenty-sixth Congress, first session.

21 Stokes to secretary of war, February 13, 1840, OIA, Cherokee File, S 1717.

22 Ibid., Stokes to Poinsett, February 12, 1840.

23 United States House Document No. 129, Twenty-sixth Congress, first session.

24 Representing the Old Settlers and Treaty parties.

25 United States House Document No. 162, Twenty-sixth Congress, first session.

26 This was filed by the secretary with the Senate in response to a resolution of that body of March 12.

27 United States House Document No. 222, Twenty-sixth Congress, first session.

28 United States House Document No. 140, Twenty-eighth Congress, second session.

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