Pen and Ink Witchcraft

by Calloway, Colin G.

  The treaty council convened as scheduled on December 21. Most Cherokees saw no need to attend. Many lived in Tennessee and did not face the immediate threat confronting their relatives in Georgia. Others had already voiced their rejection of the treaty at Red Clay. A long preamble to the treaty justified dealing with only part of the tribe: the Cherokees had been given notice that the meeting was to be held at New Echota and that those who did not attend would be assumed to give their approval. Only eighty-six Cherokee men turned up at New Echota, together with several hundred women and children; Schermerhorn characterized them as “the most intelligent and best informed among them.”83 Women, who had participated in eighteenth-century treaties and remonstrated against earlier removal efforts, took no part in the treaty proceedings here.84 According to one Ross supporter, Schermerhorn addressed the Cherokees “in his usual style, only a little more so.” The treaty makers met in the council house but Currey’s reading of the proposed treaty was interrupted when the roof caught fire. “Whether this fearful blaze was emblematical of the indignation of Heaven at the unlawful proceedings within, or of the fiery trial of our people, the Lord only knows,” wrote one witness.85

  Major Ridge addressed the assembled Cherokees as a Cherokee patriot and reluctant advocate of removal. The Cherokee title to the land was far older and derived from a far higher authority than what the Georgians claimed.

  Yet they are strong and we are weak. We are few, they are many. We cannot remain here in safety and comfort … an unbending, iron necessity tells us we must leave them. I would willingly die to preserve them, but any forcible effort to keep them will cost us our lands, our lives, and the lives of our children. There is but one path of safety, one road to future existence as a Nation. That path is open before you. Make a treaty of cession. Give up these lands and go over beyond the Great Father of Waters.

  Boudinot reiterated the necessity of the treaty, even though he knew that by signing it “I take my life in my hand.”86

  The Cherokees appointed a twenty-man committee, headed by Major Ridge and Boudinot, and including John Gunter, Andrew Ross, and Archilla Smith, to negotiate with Schermerhorn and consider the terms of the treaty.87 The final treaty contains a lengthy self-serving prelude justifying the treaty and the actions of the signers: the Cherokees are not being driven out by violence and injustice, they are moving west to reunite their nation and secure a permanent homeland. Instead of collaborators in a treaty depriving their people of their homeland, the Treaty Party presented themselves as the responsible government; they, not the obstinate and short-sighted Ross, were the ones willing to make the hard choices that had to be made if the people were to survive.88

  The treaty contained twenty articles. Basically, the Cherokees ceded ten million acres of land in the East for $5 million in cash plus money for investment; in other words just over 50 cents an acre. In return, they received lands in the West and assurances that at “no future time without their consent” would those lands “be included within the territorial limits or jurisdiction of any state or Territory.” Cherokees agreed to keep peace and not wage war against their neighbors and the United States promised to prevent trespass onto Cherokee land. In addition, the Cherokees were entitled to send a delegate to the House of Representatives “whenever Congress shall make provision for the same.” (The treaty contained a provision for reservation lands for those Cherokees who wanted to stay in the East, but Jackson objected, insisting “that the whole Cherokee people should remove together and establish themselves in the country provided for them west of the Mississippi river.” So, supplementary articles, agreed to by Ridge and other signers of the original treaty on March 1, 1836, declared this provision null and void and authorized an extra $600,000 in payment for the Cherokees’ lands.)89

  Reverend James Trott, a Methodist missionary, called the treaty the “Christmas trick at New Echota.”90 However, as the Cherokee scholar Daniel Heath Justice acknowledges (somewhat reluctantly, having himself always been “a Ross man”), the treaty is not just a manifestation of American deceit and Treaty Party betrayal; it is “a much more complicated document of resistance, particularly in its concerns about the People’s ultimate survival.” The Treaty Party used the document to assert their own legitimacy as leaders of the Cherokee Nation and also to include provisions for rebuilding the nation in the West, by outlining the Cherokees’ new territories, asserting their rights of self-determination, making provision for a possible diplomatic delegate to the House of Representatives, and securing schools, teachers, farmers, and mechanics, and funds to educate and support orphan children. Schermerhorn and co-commissioner Governor William Carroll were only concerned with getting a removal treaty, but the Cherokee signers were concerned with the independence and future survival of the Cherokee Nation, albeit with themselves at the head.91

  On December 29 those present voted on the treaty: seventy-nine approved, seven opposed. The members of the negotiating committee signed the treaty. Major Ridge’s name appears first. In their report and regulations of Indian treaty making submitted to the Senate in 1829, Lewis Cass and William Clark had noted that “he who signs first, incurs a heavy responsibility; and it requires no ordinary degree of resolution in the man, who thus, in the presence of his countrymen, leads the way in sanctioning a measure which many may regret after the presents are expended and the excitement of the moment has subsided.”92 Never did that responsibility weigh more heavily than on Major Ridge. As the seventy-year-old chief made his mark on the treaty, he was reputed to have said, “I have signed my death warrant.”93 For years to come, many Cherokees called it “Ridge’s Treaty.”94 The illegal council adjourned on December 30 “after distributing among the Cherokees a blanket each, which had been brought to the council ground for the accommodation of the Cherokee people at that inclement season.”95

  Elated, Schermerhorn scribbled a quick letter to Cass the same day: “The meeting was large and respectable, and everything conducted in that open and fair manner, that there will be no difficulty in its ratification,” he said. “Ross, after this treaty, is prostrate. The power of the nation is taken from him, as well as the money, and the treaty will give general satisfaction.”96

  The Ridge party gave their approval to sending the treaty to the Senate. John Ridge and Stand Watie (figure 4.6), who were in Washington when the treaty was made, added their support, impugning at the same time the “constituted authority” of the Cherokee Nation as “a few men, at the head of whom is John Ross, who is nearly a white man in color and feelings.”97

  Despite the Ridges’ insistence that they acted only for the good of the Cherokee people and to preserve the Cherokee Nation, the National Council at Red Clay declared the treaty null and void, denouncing it as “a fraud upon the Government of the United States, and an act of oppression on the Cherokee people.”98 Stunned to hear that a treaty had been made while they were away in Washington, John Ross and his delegation bombarded the president, the secretary of war, Congress, influential individuals, and the public at large with protests and appeals for justice. Ross could not believe that the United States government would countenance “the Christmas trick” if it knew the truth. The Cherokees had been faithful allies of the United States and had made advances in agriculture, education, literacy, government, and all civilized pursuits; what wrong had they committed to merit such treatment? “Before the civilized world, and in the presence of Almighty God,” they declared, “the instrument entered into at New Echota, purporting to be a treaty, is deceptive to the world, and a fraud upon the Cherokee people.” If the Cherokees had ceased to exist by state legislation as a nation or tribe, then the president and senate could not make a treaty with them; if they had not, then no treaty could be made for them without their consent and against their will. If treaties were to be made and enforced “wanting the assent of one of the pretended parties, what security would there be for any nation or tribe to retain confidence in the United States?” In the case of the New Echota tre
aty, the assent of the Cherokee Nation had been “expressly denied.” A handful of chiefs, “seduced and prompted by officers of the United States Government,” had assumed powers that had not been conferred by the people and had negotiated a treaty “over the heads and remonstrances of the nation. Is there to be found in the annals of history, a parallel case to this?”99

  FIGURE 4.6 Stand Watie. (Western History Collections, University of Oklahoma Libraries, Phillips 1459)

  Assistant Principal Chief George Lowery secured more than fourteen thousand signatures to a petition against the treaty.100 Schermerhorn and the Treaty Party dismissed Ross Party protests as the efforts of a self-serving minority and contended that the numbers on the petitions were inflated and that there were irregularities in the way the signatures were obtained.101 Citizens from towns throughout the northern states sent petitions and protests to Congress, and even Congress had misgivings—the debates over the treaty lasted almost two months. In the House, John Quincy Adams called it “an eternal disgrace upon the country.”102 Adams had his own anti-Jackson axe to grind, of course, but it was a view widely shared. Missionary Rev. Cephas Washburn believed “a tremendous responsibility rests upon our government for that transaction. By that treaty, a foul stain is fixed upon our national escutcheon, which is now indelible. No subsequent act can wash it away. It will not be washed away in all time, nor all eternity.”103 Missionary Daniel Butrick, formerly a close friend of John and Major Ridge, now denounced the action of the treaty signers as “not only a political crime but a Christian sin.”104

  Petitions were not likely to carry much weight with a government that had deliberately chosen to deal with the Treaty Party rather than the legitimate Cherokee leadership. When the treaty finally reached the Senate, the vote on ratification did not divide along the same sectional lines as had the debates and was as much to do with the expansion of the Cotton Kingdom and slavery as about the rights of the Cherokees. On May 23, 1836, the Senate approved the treaty by just one vote more than the two-thirds majority required for ratification. Senator Hart Benton of Missouri said that the votes of the free state senators secured for the South a treaty that would convert “Indian soil to slave soil.”105 Jackson proclaimed the treaty the same day. The clock on Cherokee removal was ticking. They had two years in which to be gone.

  The emigration agent, Benjamin Currey, did not live to see the Cherokees emigrate; he died in December 1836 “after a serious and painful illness of several weeks.”106 Stand Watie and Elias Boudinot lost their wives in the same year. In April, while Watie was in Washington, his wife Betsey died in childbirth (the child died, too).107 Harriet Gold Boudinot died in August. Within the year, Elias Boudinot married Delight Sargent, a missionary. She accompanied him and his six children when they migrated west.108

  The Treaty Party leaders claimed that most Cherokees received the treaty with relief and gratitude, even, said Boudinot, “with cheerfulness.” Major and John Ridge told the president: “We have been hailed by the poor Cherokees as their deliverers from Ross’s domination. So far all is well.” But all was not well: the Cherokees were being fleeced and abused by the Georgians, and the Ridges implored Jackson to send regular troops “to protect our people as they depart for the West.”109

  By supporting Georgia in its unlawful actions against the Cherokees and demanding removal the government disregarded promises it had made in every treaty with the Cherokees since 1785.110 But it was determined to carry out this one to the letter. On the president’s instructions, Brigadier General John Wool, commander of the army in Cherokee country, issued a proclamation at Red Clay in September 1836, announcing that no alteration would be made in the treaty “and that the same, in all its terms and conditions, will be faithfully and fully executed.” Another proclamation from General Nathaniel Smith, who replaced Currey as superintendent of Cherokee removal, issued in late December 1837 and published in the Athens Courier warned the Cherokees that they now had only five months left. It was time to stop listening to Ross and fooling themselves. “The treaty will be executed, without change or alteration, and another day beyond the time named, cannot or will not be allowed you.” The president had refused any further discussion or correspondence with Ross in regard to the treaty and further delay risked bringing “evils” and “horrors” on the Cherokees and their families. It was time for the Cherokees to get moving or suffer the consequences.111

  In 1836 Jackson called Wilson Lumpkin out of retirement to serve with Tennessee governor William Carroll as commissioner for settling all Cherokee claims under the terms of the treaty. By his own estimation Lumpkin “had contributed more than any one man in bringing this Treaty into existence.” He thought it “exceedingly liberal and advantageous in all its provisions to the Cherokee people,” and the sooner it was implemented the better. The fact that most Cherokees opposed it caused him little concern: “In truth, nineteen-twentieths of the Cherokees are too ignorant and depraved to entitle their opinions to any weight or consideration whatever.” He made it clear to the Cherokees that he was there to execute the treaty, not negotiate a new one, and he urged a strong military presence to eliminate any possibility of trouble. “The intelligent and wealthy” Cherokees were busy settling their affairs, “getting all the money they can under the treaty, and looking exclusively to their own interest, with the most perfect indifference to the interests of the great body of their people.” For eighteen months, Lumpkin tried to push ahead with adjudicating thousands of claims arising from the treaty.112

  After he resigned to take up his seat in the US Senate “much fraud and corruption found their way” into the commissioner’s office. For twelve years, first in the House of Representatives, then as governor, then as commissioner, and finally as senator, Lumpkin made it his policy “never to cease my efforts while an Indian remained in Georgia” and he continued to push for speedy implementation of removal on the floor of the Senate. As far as Lumpkin was concerned, Indian treaties were a farce and should be abandoned, leaving the federal and state governments to legislate directly for Indians “in the same manner that we legislate for minors and orphans, and other persons who are incompetent to take charge of their own rights.”113

  Meanwhile John Ross worked tirelessly to have the treaty abrogated or amended, denouncing it as an illegal act carried out by greedy and self-interested traitors. Lumpkin considered Ross “the master spirit of opposition,” a “wary politician” who committed no overt act but whose presence and influence stiffened resistance to removal among the mass of Cherokees. Colonel William Lindsay of the Second Artillery, the commanding officer in the western district of Cherokee country, saw things rather differently. Lindsay told Secretary of War Joel Poinsett that the vast majority of Cherokees would be willing to consider a fair treaty but would never move under the fraudulent one made at New Echota except under force. Many vowed to die rather than leave. Lindsay did not hold Ross responsible for the resistance; Ross was “the slave, rather than the leader of his nation,” and his real position was “mysterious.” Whereas Lumpkin warned that Ross’s ambition risked destroying the Cherokees, Lindsay thought Ross “a man of enlarged mind and consummate judgement” who fully understood the consequences of war with the United States and stood in the way of bloodshed, a difficult task given “the exasperated state of party feeling prevailing through the Cherokee nation.”114

  The Treaty Party maintained that they had achieved the best deal possible under the circumstances. Unable to claim legitimate leadership on traditional grounds of consensus or mandate of the community, Ridge and Boudinot instead took the position that an intelligent leadership had a moral responsibility to act for the good of the ignorant and misinformed majority. In a “Reply to Ross,” which was published with accompanying documents in 1837 and became public record as a Senate document, Boudinot accused Ross of intransigence, misleading the people, and prolonging their suffering. “If one hundred persons are ignorant of their true situation, and are so completely blinded as not t
o see the destruction that awaits them,” wrote Boudinot, “we can see strong reasons to justify the action of a minority of fifty persons—to do what the majority would do if they understood their condition—to save a nation from political thralldom and moral degradation.” Exile was far better than submitting to the laws of the states “and thus becoming witnesses of the ruin and degradation of the Cherokee people.” In another country and under different circumstances, there was a chance for the Cherokee Nation to survive and rebuild.115

  Ross and the Cherokee delegation continued to look for justice in Washington. How would “the faithful historian” view the government’s sorry record in this affair? they asked Congress. “In the name of the whole Cherokee people we protest this unhallowed and unauthorized and unacknowledged compact. We deny its binding force. We recognize none of its stipulations.” They presented the new president, Martin Van Buren, with an account of the fraudulent treaty and implored him to investigate. “Our fate is in your hands—may the God of truth tear away every disguise and concealment from our case—may the God of justice guide your determination and the God of mercy stay the hand of our brother uplifted for our destruction.”116 In February 1838, 15,665 Cherokee people signed another petition protesting the treaty and begging relief from “the appalling circumstances in which we are placed by the operation of that perfidious compact.” In April Ross and the delegation submitted it to Congress. The Cherokees’ last hope against the coming storm lay in appealing to the justice of the US government: “Will you sustain the hopes we have rested on the public faith, the honor, the justice, of your mighty empire? We commit our cause to your favor and protection. And your memorialists, as in duty bound, will ever pray.”117 They reached in vain for the conscience of America.