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previous: Chapter 23 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 25

[ Cherokee ]

 p321  Chapter twenty-four
Civil Disorders

The Cherokee delegation returned from Washington in the autumn in time to participate in the council which was attended and described by Maj. Ethan Allen Hitchcock.⁠1 It was the first day of December, 1841 that Chief Ross appeared

Major Hitchcock details some interesting proceedings witnessed by him at the council during several days of his attendance there. The council appointed another delegation of five members to return to Washington and make further efforts to obtain a treaty and adjustments of their claims against the Government. The delegation included Chief Ross, Jesse Bushyhead, David Vann, Captain Benge and William Shorey Coodey.

Major Hitchcock was engaged on an official mission of investigation in the Indian Territory and he reported to the secretary of war the result of his study of John Ross, and the Cherokee people, their grievances and demands. Of John Ross, he said, "like other conspicuous men, he has been variously spoken of, in terms of great praise and great censure. He resides five miles from this place on a beauti­ful prairie in sight of Park Hill — is of mixed blood between 45 and 50 years of age — is under size and his manners, unless excited, have a dash of diffidence in them — is not of ready speech — speaks English principally and will not trust himself to address his own people in Cherokee — is a man of strong passions and settled purposes which he pursues with untiring zeal; is of undoubted courage unless it be that he fears the defeat of his plans more than the loss of life and would preserve the latter to execute the former. After much attentive observation I am of opinion that John Ross is an honest man and a patriot laboring for the good of his people. In the recent trouble of his nation, including several years, with almost unlimited opportunities he has not enriched himself. . . . It would be strange if there was not ambition with the patriotism of Jno Ross, but he seeks the fame of establishing his nation and heaping benefits upon his people. Though not a fluent speaker, even in conversation, his is a clear-minded, accurate thinker of very far-reaching views."⁠3

The matters the delegation would present for adjustment, Major Hitchcock said, included a demand for a fee simple title to their land in the West; the withdrawal of the United States troops from Fort Gibson  p323  and Fort Wayne in the Cherokee Nation on the ground of the introduction of whisky and demoralization of the country adjacent to them; losses of cattle, horses and other property occasioned by the forced removal of the Cherokee from their homes; payment for their country and improvements necessarily abandoned by them and remuneration for the wrongs and suffering occasioned by their forced removal; the execution of a new treaty to incorporate the matters presented by them and as a vindication of their refusal to recognize the spurious Treaty of 1835 as binding on them.⁠4 The Cherokee Nation now numbered 12,000 members of the Ross faction, 4,000 of the Ridge or Treaty Party, and 2,000 Old Settlers.⁠5

Colonel Hitchcock returned to Washington in April, 1842, and made an extended report to the secretary of war which included 100 exhibits compiled by him in four months of searching investigation. Hitchcock was an honest and fearless investigator and his report corroborated in unequivocal language the charges of fraud committed by remorseless contractors on the helpless Indian immigrants. In the ordinary course the President would have transmitted Hitchcock's report to the House with no unnecessary delay. But that was not done in this instance. During Hitchcock's absence in the West John Bell of Tennessee was succeeded as secretary of war by John C. Spencer of New York. When Hitchcock delivered his report to the new secretary he found himself in a decidedly hostile atmosphere.

Members of the House of Representatives, aroused by charges that for years had been dinned into their ears, desired the report delivered to them so that appropriate action could be taken. It was said that friends of the administration were involved in the turpitude discovered and exposed by Hitchcock and the secretary was determined at all hazards to protect them. Confirmation was seen in his attitude when he said that the House should not see the report except over his dead body. He claimed that Hitchcock's investigation was ex parte; but the fact was that Hitchcock invited any one interested to appear and make such charges or defense and explanation as he chose. The contractors and their agents not only declined the invitation but those still there  p324 fled the country when the investigator came to the Indian Territory so that Hitchcock was unable to interview them.

After waiting in vain for the report a resolution was adopted May 18, 1842, calling on the secretary of war to communicate to the House the several reports made to the war department by Colonel Hitchcock, together with all information communicated by him concerning the frauds he was charged to investigate; also all facts in possession of the Executive relating to the subject. By direction of President Tyler the secretary refused to comply with the request on the ground that the nature and subject of the report rendered its publication at that time inconsistent with the public interest, referring particularly to Hitchcock's letters relating to negotiations with the Cherokee people then pending.

The House declined to accept the reply and explanation of the secretary which effectually barred the revelation of Hitchcock's investigation and action on it, and subsequently adopted another resolution to the same effect. To this President Tyler replied on January 31, 1843 in a special message which was in the main a demonstration of the right of the Executive to deny the demand of the House for the documents in question. While he decided the matter in his own favor, he did transmit a part of Hitchcock's report, including his 100 exhibits. Papers relating to Cherokee negotiations and parts of others he refused to submit. Of particular significance was a long letter written by Hitchcock at Tahlequah, December 21, 1841, to the secretary of war, in which he described the condition of the Cherokee people and the character and aspirations of some of the leading men of the Ross faction. Several pages of this letter including that part in which Hitchcock described John Ross as an honest man and a patriot, he deleted and submitted the remainder.⁠6

In the spring of 1842, an event occurred which again threw the whole nation into a state of the wildest excitement. The friends of the murdered Ridges and Boudinot had never forgiven the act, nor had time softened their resentment against the perpetrators and their supposed abettors. On the ninth of May, Anderson Springston, one of the Ross faction, was shot by a white man at a grocery store on the Arkansas side of the line, and a few days later, at the same place, Stand Watie  p325 killed James Foreman, a member of the Ross party whom Stand Watie charged with being a participant in the murders. Stand Watie was subsequently tried in Arkansas and acquitted on his plea of self-defense. Armed guards gathered for the protection of Ross adherents, and as the attacks were understood to be a renewal of the feud, they destroyed all hopes, for the time, of reconciliation of the tribal factions.⁠7 In February, Moses Alberty, Jr., killed in the Cherokee Nation a white man named George Long from Arkansas, and the governor of that state ordered the organization and rendezvous of a regiment of volunteers in Washington County. A messenger from Fort Smith was found hanging to a tree near Fort Gibson; Indians were suspected of the murder.⁠8

It was claimed that Alberty murdered Long in Madison County, Arkansas,⁠9 and Gov. Archibald Yell of that state wrote a petulant and abusive letter to the secretary of war saying that if the Federal Government would not protect the state he would call out the militia to do it. The secretary replied that there were plenty of Federal troops near to give the whites of the state all the protection necessary; but that the Cherokee Indians were peaceful and were not guilty of the disorders charged against them.⁠10

Pierce M. Butler, the Cherokee agent, said the Indians were much abused by being taken from their own country for minor offenses committed on white men having no business in the Cherokee country. Such broils were

An amusing illustration of the peculiar conception entertained by some of the white people of Arkansas regarding the Indian country west of them was furnished in connection with the efforts of Gen. W. G. Belknap, when he was in command of Fort Gibson, to preserve the peace of that community. He had made an order intended to suppress the activities of a gang of lawless horse racers and gamblers who infested the country and had a demoralizing influence on the party and the country round about. A particularly conspicuous offender was one Goggle-Eyed Williams who was removed from the country by the orders of the post commander at Fort Gibson. He seemed to have friends in high places, for one Senator Clarke of the Arkansas legislature introduced in the Senate a resolution reciting that General Belknap at Fort Gibson had perpetrated "unlawful tyranny and unjustifiable outrages upon citizens of Arkansas" and demanding that Congress define the rights of citizens in the Indian country beyond the limits of the state.⁠12

The constitution of the Cherokee tribe adopted at Tahlequah on September 6, 1839 provided that the chief and most of the other officers should hold office for four years. The first election was held in 1839 under the protection of the large body of Ross adherents during the convention at Tahlequah in 1839. The subsequent change in office holders was made under the influence of the martial law enforced in the Cherokee Nation by Gen. Arbuckle; the election on August 7, 1843⁠13 then, was to be the first test of a popular ballot under the constitution of the Cherokee Nation. A lawless element that was opposed to the government proceeded to terrorize the voters and  p327 election officials in some of the precincts; they were particularly active in Saline District, where they destroyed the election papers, attacked and killed Isaac Bushyhead at the polls and severely wounded David Vann and Elijah Hicks. Six persons were involved in the affair, four of whom were at once arrested and placed in irons.⁠14 Two of them escaped and fled with the Starr boys, who were engaged in similar efforts to nullify the election. One of the murderers who was taken was Jacob West, a white man from Virginia, who had lived with the Cherokee for thirty years and had a Cherokee wife and children. Though he had long exercised all the rights and privileges of a member of the tribe, when he was arrested, claiming the immunity of a white man from the processes of the Cherokee courts, he applied to the judge of the United States Court in Arkansas for a writ of habeas corpus, which was denied. He was accordingly tried, convicted and executed by the Cherokee authorities. During this disturbance Gen. Zachary Taylor came to Fort Gibson, but when the United States court refused to intervene, he satisfied himself that the Cherokee government could handle the situation without his assistance, and he returned to Fort Smith.⁠15

This same element continued their lawless course to show their contempt for the Cherokee government, and the next month the country was shocked by an outrage more than usually atrocious; on September 15, after killing a white man named Kelly, Thomas Starr, Bean Starr, Ellis Starr, and Arch Sanders killed old Mr. and Mrs. Benjamin Vore. ". . . about thirty miles from this post,⁠16 on the military road leading to Fort Gibson. Mr. Vore, a white man and licensed trader in the nation, was killed together with his wife & a stranger stopping for the night in the house. After robbing the premises the villains set fire to the house which was entirely consumed with the bodies of the unfortunate victims."⁠17 General Taylor sent a company of dragoons after them, and the murderers were pursued across the line into Arkansas, where they were captured, but the state officer in whose  p328 custody they were, permitted them to escape.⁠18 Most of the difficulty in the Cherokee Nation, General Taylor continued, was fomented by white people along the line in Arkansas.

By authority of the National Council, John Ross offered a reward of one thousand dollars each for the apprehension of Thomas Starr, Ellis Starr, and Bean Starr, who ". . . besides other deeds of blood and robbery, murdered, robbed and burnt in September, 1843, Mr. Vore, a licensed trader, his wife and a traveler." Thomas Starr was described as twenty-eight years old, six feet five inches tall, straight, well built, broad forehead, black hair, grey eyes, generally with the lashes plucked out, large feet, of great muscular strength and smiles when talking. Ellis Starr was but five feet ten inches or six feet tall, two hundred pounds in weight, with large neck, dark auburn hair, and blue eyes.⁠19

The grand jury of Washington County, Arkansas, returned into the circuit court an indictment against Isaac Springston and one Shell, charging them with the murder of Major Ridge, and on December 28, 1843, Governor Yell of Arkansas addressed a re­quisition to Gov. P. M. Butler, Cherokee agent, for the arrest and delivery of the persons named therein. Butler referred the matter to the military authorities, and on February 2, Gen. Zachary Taylor wrote to Loomis, in command at Fort Gibson, saying that he would not assist in delivering these Indians to Arkansas, as to do so would cause great excitement in the Cherokee Nation. ". . . I have little doubt from many circumstances, that the present case is connected with the systematic efforts which are making by certain citizens of Arkansas, to revive and keep up a political  p329 excitement in the Cherokee Nation in the internal affairs of which they have no legitimate interest whatever."⁠20

John Ross headed another delegation that arrived in Washington April 20, 1844; the other members were John Benge, David Vann, Elijah Hicks, and William P. Ross, secretary. William Wilkins of Pennsylvania had assumed the duties of secretary of war on February 15 and the delegates hopefully approached him on the subject of the much desired new treaty which they claimed had been promised them by President Tyler whose letter of September 20, 1841 they exhibited to him.⁠21 Secretary Wilkins treated them with much consideration and told them to put their propositions in writing; but he informed them also that the negotiations must include the complaints and grievances⁠22 presented to him May 6 by John Rogers, James Carey, and Thomas L. Rogers of the Old Settlers, and John A. Bell, Ezekiel Starr, and Bluford West of the Treaty Party. These men demanded a separate part of the Cherokee Nation for their exclusive use, a readjustment of the annuities growing out of the treaties of 1819, 1828, and 1833 so as to give the Old Settlers a larger share; and the Treaty Party demanded a per capita payment which they claimed to be due them under the terms of the treaty entered into by them in 1835. The Ross delegation replied that as theirs was a republican government representing the whole Cherokee Nation, they could not admit the necessity or propriety of negotiating with a faction of the tribe.

The secretary addressed a long communication to the delegation on July 8, giving them little comfort and advising them that he would ask the President to authorize the sending of a commission to the Cherokee country to investigate the charges brought by the minority faction of the tribe. To this the delegation replied that the difficulty was caused in a large part by the encouragement given to the complaining delegations by the Government. That the difficulty was created in the beginning by the Government in countenancing the fraudulent execution of a pretended treaty with a small part of the tribe. "Nothing was more natural nor more to be anticipated than excitements and divisions between the different portions of the Cherokee people on their being  p330 brought together west of the Mississippi. A very small portion, not more than one-fiftieth of the population had undertaken to cede away the whole country of the Cherokee. The great mass of our people were in consequence of this 'Treaty' expelled at the point of the bayonet from their native country — from the country where reposed the bones of their ancestors for countless generations, and where they had pleasant homes, good farms and all the comforts which their constant advances in civilization had secured for them — and removed under circumstances of varied and complicated sufferings and hardships, disease and death, when they found themselves re‑united with those who had entailed all this misery upon them, and who were still striving to prevent the re‑union between the Eastern and Western Cherokees, and the mutual adoption of a more regular and wiser constitution and laws for the government of the whole people; what was more natural ever with a people in the highest degree civilized, than occasional ebullitions of passion and acts of violence?"⁠23

The delegation argued to the secretary that no commission sent to the country could possibly learn more about conditions than was known by Gov. Pierce M. Butler and Gen. Zachary Taylor, representatives of the Government already living there. Concerning the secretary's rejection of their claim for indemnity for property lost on the removal they said that

With scant comfort to take home with them, the delegation returned in the summer to the Cherokee Nation; one of them however tarried in the East as romance took a hand in the affairs of the Cherokee Nation, and on September 2, 1844 Chief John J. Ross was married in Philadelphia to Miss Mary B. Stapler of Wilmington, Delaware.⁠25 He did not return to the Nation in time to attend the session of the council in October, and it was not until November 13 that he appeared before the council and made a full report of his mission to Washington and read all of the correspondence that passed between the delegation and the secretary of war.

Much dissatisfaction was caused by the enactment by the tribal council on October 30, 1843 of a measure⁠26 declaring all salines in the Cherokee Nation but one, to be the property of the Nation; that exception was the one granted to Sequoyah by the Treaty of 1828. In this they followed the theory that controlled in the Government of the United States with reference to salines on the public land. Unfortunately, a number of Old Settlers had expended considerable money in fitting up plants for the operation of works where a number of them for some years had been engaged in a small way in the manufacture of salt. This law operated to deprive them of their property, and there was loud complaint. Among those who suffered from the law was Capt. John Rogers, a chief of the Old Settlers, who had for many years operated what was known as The Grand Saline, near where is now Salina, Oklahoma. His bitter hostility toward the government of the tribe had caused him to remove to Fort Smith. In September, 1844, he and others circulated a call for a meeting on the sixteenth of the month at Tahlontuskee, at the mouth of the Illinois River, where they planned  p332 to memorialize the Government for relief. This meeting was decided upon at a conference near Fort Smith of 160 Old Settlers soon after the return from Washington of their delegation. On hearing of the proposed meeting the authorities of the nation took steps to prevent it, alleging that it was the intention at the meeting to agitate measures looking to the division of the Cherokee people and the overthrow of the government. Major Armstrong, fearing a renewal of bloodshed, prevailed on the Old Settlers to abandon their meeting.⁠27

In response to the recommendation of the secretary of war, William Wilkins, to send a commission to the Cherokee Nation to investigate the situation, and ascertain whether their government was opposed by a considerable part of the tribe, and whether the laws were enforced equally on all factions, President Tyler named a commission composed of Roger Jones, adjutant general of the Army, Col. R. B. Mason, and Gov. Pierce M. Butler, Cherokee Agent. After organizing at Fort Gibson on November 15 and giving notice of the meeting⁠28 the commission began its inquiry on December 4, at Tahlontuskee.⁠29

The conference continued there in session four days, and it was attended by 546 Old Settlers and 362 of the Treaty Party; 155 of these, however, were ascertained to be white men who were found by the commission to include most of the individual complainants.⁠30 The Indians assembled under an open arbor, where speeches were made by deputations who represented them. The regularly constituted Cherokee government refused to send a delegation to the meeting; they informed the commission that if it would come to Tahlequah, the  p333 seat of the Cherokee government, they would be glad to participate, and furnish all the information possible; but they took the position that for the commission to meet a faction of the tribe in a remote part of the nation was a slight to the tribe as a whole, and was an unlawful meddling in the affairs of the nation. There were, however, a few individual members from the Ross faction who attended and cross-examined witnesses.

A few log cabins encircled the arbor, and as the weather was cold, the people were gathered in groups around the fires, warming themselves and cooking food. Before the meeting was over, it snowed, and many thinly clad people suffered from the cold. During the meeting, the police of the nation appeared on the ground, and as the people appeared to be in fear of them, the commission ordered them away. The commission was attended by a company of Dragoons to preserve order. The meeting was opened with a speech delivered by General Jones to which Dutch made a short response in behalf of the complaining Indians. Little was accomplished at Tahlontuskee, and the commission adjourned on the seventh to meet at the old Cherokee Agency, seven miles east of Fort Gibson; here was taken the testimony of Governor Stokes and of Gen. Arbuckle who had been returned to the command of Fort Gibson. The former testified to the regularity of the proceedings of the new government. The sessions were continued at Fort Gibson until December 14, when they were adjourned and resumed on the sixteenth;⁠31 after a few days in Tahlequah, the commission concluded its work at Fort Gibson on January 17, 1845.

The commission reported in detail on its investigation of the charges January 17. It found that the complainants were not deprived of their property. And that they had

The continuation of disorder in the country or the restoration of peace the commission believed, depended on the course which the Government thereafter would pursue toward the parts —

As a means of restoring peace and harmony and permitting the improvement of the whole Cherokee people, the commission recommended that "their authorities be heard in support of their claims on the United States, and that a new treaty be concluded on the just and liberal basis set forth and promised in the letter of his excellency President Tyler, September 20, 1841. By such a measure, it is believed, not only will the good faith of the United States be triumphantly shown, but they will be more than repaid for this liberal policy in the beneficial results to the Cherokee nation, and its rapid progress to the position of an enlightened well ordered community."⁠32

Came a new administration. James K. Polk of Tennessee was inaugurated President March 4, 1845 and two days later William M. Marcy became secretary of war. The "Treaty Party" sent another delegation to Washington composed of Ezekiel Starr, J. L. Thompson and J. V. McNair, who proceeded to demonstrate the truth of the report made by the recent commission to the Cherokee Nation: that the administration at Washington was greatly responsible for keeping alive the unrest and resistance to constituted authority in that nation by the encouragement it gave to frivolous complaints of irresponsible individuals.⁠33 Notwithstanding the charges had been found baseless  p336 by the president's commissions, Secretary Marcy addressed a communication April 24, 1845, to the delegation containing a threat of military intervention in the Cherokee Nation if the authorities there neglected to "strictly regard the wishes of" the war department and committed further "outrages" on any individuals in the nation.⁠34 On May 15 next the secretary transmitted the correspondence on the subject with a letter to John Rogers as "principal chief of the Western Cherokees" thereby perpetuating and encouraging the schism in the tribe created by the defection of the small and jealous body of malcontents who were still striving to break down the Cherokee government and discredit its constituted leaders.

The Cherokee council named another delegation to Washington composed of John Ross, Richard Taylor, Joseph Vann, John Looney, Aaron Price, David Vann, Joseph Spears and Thigh Walker. They were directed to continue their efforts to secure an adjustment of the claims and other unsettled business of the Cherokee Nation. They left Park Hill for Washington on April 1, 1845.⁠35

Receiving little comfort from the commission sent to investigate their complaints, in the summer of 1845 a part of the Old Settler and Treaty parties feeling that they could not be happy under a government dominated by John Ross, determined to seek a home on the borders of Mexico. Conferences were held near the Arkansas line where members were selected to explore the country to which it was proposed to move. A delegation left Evansville Arkansas, about September 1 for that purpose. Among them were Charles Reece, Tessee Guess, the son of George Guess, James Starr, Ezekiel Starr, Joseph M. Lynch, Dr. J. L. Thompson, Matthew Moore, John Harnage, Jess Mayfield and John A. Bell; beside W. Quesenbury who went along out of curiosity.  p337 They were equipped with horses and pack mules.⁠36 The party consisting of forty-three members of the Treaty and eleven of the Old Settler party, met at the forks of the Canadian and Arkansas rivers and after electing a captain proceeded by Fort Washita, crossing the Red River at Coffee's trading house, and followed the ridge dividing the waters of the Trinity and Brazos to the latter river, which they crossed at Basky Creek. Here they found a small settlement of sixty-three Cherokees, who had moved in the preceding June from a place called by them Mount Clover, in Mexico.⁠37

Leaving the Brazos River the explorers traveled westward to the Colorado, reaching it at the mouth of Stone Fork Creek, beyond which they proceeded in a southwesterly direction to the San Saba Creek, at a point about forty or fifty miles above its mouth. They returned on a route some sixty miles south of their outgoing trip, by way of Fort Towson, where they arrived early in January.⁠38 On their return to the Cherokee Nation they held a council with their partisans, at which it was decided to ask the United States to provide them a home in Texas upon their relinquishment of all interest in the Cherokee Nation, or in case of the refusal of this request that the territory of the nation be divided into two parts, and their share be assigned to them with the privilege of setting up their own government and living under it.

---

The Author's Notes:

1 Grant Foreman, A Traveler in Indian Territory.

2 President Tyler wrote this letter September 20, 1841 (Cherokee Advocate, November 28, 1844, p1, col. 3). See Butler to Taylor with Taylor to adjutant general April 27, 1842, AGO, OFD, 133 T 42.

3 Grant Foreman, A Traveler in Indian Territory, 38.

4 Ibid., 234.

5 Butler to Taylor, April 16, 1842, with Taylor to Jones, April 27, 1842, AGO, OFD, 133 T 42.

6 United States House Executive Document No. 219, Twenty-seventh Congress, third session.

7 Charles C. Royce, op. cit., p297‑8; J. M. Lynch and others to P. M. Butler, May 17, 1842, OIA.

8 Taylor to adjutant general, February 14, 1842, AGO, OFD, 58 T 42.

9 Daily National Intelligencer, January 31, 1842, p4, col. 2.

10 Ibid., April 4, 1842, p4, col. 3 and p3, col. 2.

11 Butler to commissioner, Report of commissioner of Indian affairs for 1842.

12 Cherokee Advocate, November 26, 1851, p2, col. 1, copied from Arkansas Banner.

13 In this election John Ross was reëlected chief by a handsome majority, defeating Joseph Vann, the candidate of the "western Cherokees" (United States Senate Document No. 140, Twenty-eighth Congress, second session, p35). Vann had been elected assistant principal chief in 1839 and served until the revision of the government, June 26, 1840, when he resigned and the office was filled by Andrew M. Vann, who served until his death in 1842 (ibid., 41).

14 General Taylor to adjutant general, August 15, 1843, AGO, OFD, 223, T 43. The same summer the Starrs killed David Buffington.

15 United States Senate Document No. 138, Twenty-eighth Congress, second session, p123; Taylor to Adjutant General, ibid.

16 The home of the Vores was near Dwight Mission.

17 General Taylor to adjutant general, October 8, 1843, AGO, OFD,, 265, T 43.

18 The next autumn Bean Starr, Tom Starr and Ellis Starr were making their escape to the Texas border with stolen horses, when they were overtaken at a Cherokee settlement on the Washita River twenty-five miles above Fort Washita by a volunteer company of Cherokee commanded by Daniel R. Coodey; a fight ensued in which Bean Starr was wounded, and a number of horses and mules stolen from Cherokee citizens were recovered. Colonel Harney at Fort Washita, assisted in holding the prisoners. Bean Starr died of his wounds in the hospital at Fort Washita. Relatives of the Starrs organized to waylay Coodey and his company on their return, and early in December, 1844, the Cherokee police started southwest from Webbers Falls to meet and protect them (United States Senate Document No. 140, Twenty-eighth Congress, second session, p141; Cherokee Advocate, December 26, 1844, p3, cols. 2, 3, and 4).

19 Cherokee Advocate, January 23, 1845, p1, col. 5; ibid., March 20, 1845, p4, col. 6. Tom Starr emigrated to the west in 1829 or 1830 (Documents II, 171).

20 Taylor to adjutant general, February 14, 1844, AGO, OFD, 46 T 44.

21 Cherokee Advocate, November 28, 1844, pp1, 2 and 3.

22 Dated April 13, 1844. United States House Document No. 254, Twenty-eighth Congress, first session.

23 Cherokee Advocate, December 5, 1844, p2.

24 Ibid.

25 Ibid., October 5, 1844, p3, col. 1.

26 Laws of the Cherokee Nation, Edition of 1868.

27 Arbuckle to Jones, September 14, 1844, AGO, OFD, 1 A 44.

28 Cherokee Advocate, November 28, 1844, p3, col. 6.

29 This was the council ground of the Old Settlers, near the mouth of the Illinois River; it was on the east bank of the stream near the home of John Jolly, and was named for his brother, former chief of the Cherokee who lived in Arkansas. The investigation was based largely on charges made by Capt. John Rogers, Thomas L. Rogers, John A. Bell, Ezekiel Starr and Bluford West.

30 Report of Commission — United States Senate Document No. 24, p5, Twenty-eighth Congress, second session. Ross's delegation had informed Wilkins that the agitation was fomented and kept alive by white men. "Colonel Armistead, an old, white haired gentleman, and Col. George C. Washington, who had been among the Cherokee," descended the Arkansas in the steamboat Lucy Long which on April 10, 1845, went aground about sixty miles above Little Rock. "Colonel Hunter," also was on board (Autobiography of William Wood, Vol. II, 34).

31 Cherokee Advocate, December 26, 1844, p3, cols. 1 and 2; AGO, OFD, 366 C 44.

32 United States Senate Document No. 140, Twenty-eighth Congress, second session.

33 A scholar­ly study of this unhappy phase of Cherokee history is that of Thomas Valentine Parker, The Cherokee Indians, with Special Reference to their relations with the United States Government (New York, 1907). Concerning this stage of Federal ineptitude he says:

34 Cherokee Advocate, July 17, 1845, p1, col. 3.

35 Cherokee Advocate April 3, 1845, p3, col. 1.

36 Arkansas Intelligencer, August 30, 1845, p2, col. 2.

37 Charles C. Royce "The Cherokee Nation of Indians": Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology for 1887, p302.

38 Royce, ibid.; Arkansas Intelligencer, January 10, 1846, p2, col. 1.

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