nations in their first awakening from the long fixedness of wild life. This mighty engine, the press, once put in motion by native genius in the western wilderness, books are printed suitable to the nascent intelligence of the country. The Gospel of St. Matthew is translated into Cherokee, and printed at the native press. Hymns are also translated and printed. Christianity makes rapid strides. The pupils in the schools advance with admirable rapidity. There is a new and wonderful spirit abroad. Not only do the Indians throng to the churches to listen to the truths of life and immortality, but Indians themselves become diligent ministers, and open places of worship in the more remote and wild parts of the country. Even temperance societies are formed. Political principles develope themselves far in philosophical advance of our proud and learned England. The constitution of the native state contains admirable stamina; trial by jury prevails; and universal suffrage a right, to this moment distrustfully withheld from the English people, is there freely granted, and judiciously exercised; every male citizen of eighteen years old having a vote in all public elections.

The whole growth and being, however, of this young Indian civilization is one of the most delightful and animating subjects of contemplation that ever came before the eye of the lover of his race. Here were these Indian savages, who had been two hundred years termed irreclaimable; whom it had been the custom only to use as the demons of carnage, as creatures fit only to carry the tomahawk and the bloody scalping-knife through Cherry-Valley, Gnadenhuetten, or Wyoming; and whom, that work done, it was

T

declared, must be cast out from the face of civilized man, as the reproach of the past and the incubus of the future, here were they gloriously vindicating themselves from those calumnies and wrongs, and assuming in the social system a most beautiful and novel position. It was a spectacle on which one would have thought the United States would hang with a proud delight, and point to as one of the most noble features of their vast and noble country. What did they do? They chose rather to give the lie to all their assertions, that they drove out the Indians because they were irreclaimable and unamalgamable, and to shew to the world that they expelled them solely and simply because they scorned that one spot of the copper hue of the aborigines should mar the whiteness of their population. They compel us to exclaim with the indignant Abbé Raynal, "And are these the men whom both French and English have been conspiring to extirpate for a century past?" and suggest to us his identical answer,-"But perhaps they would be ashamed to live amongst such models of heroism and magnanimity !"

However, everything which irritation, contempt, political chicanery, and political power can effect, have been long zealously at work to drive these fine Nations out of their delightful country, and beyond the Mississippi; the boundary which American cupidity at present sets between itself and Indian extirpation. Spite of all those solemn declarations, by the venerable Washington and other great statesmen already quoted; spite of the most grave treaties, and especially one of July 2d, 1791, which says, "The United States solemnly guarantee to the Cherokee

One

nation all their lands not hereby ceded," by a juggle betwixt the State of Georgia and Congress, the Cherokees have been virtually dispossessed of their country. From the period of the American independence to 1802, there had been a continual pressure on the Cherokees for their lands, and they had been induced by one means or another to cede to the States more than two hundred millions of acres. How reluctantly may be imagined, by the decided stand made by them in 1819, when they peremptorily protested that they would not sell another foot. That they needed all they had, for that they were becoming more and more agricultural, and progressing in civilization. would have thought this not only a sufficient but a most satisfactory plea to a great nation by its people; but no, Georgia ceded to Congress territories for the formation of two new states, Alabama and Mississippi, and Georgia in part of payment receives the much desired lands of the Cherokees. Georgia, therefore, assumes the avowed language of despotism, and decrees by its senate, in the very face of the clear recognitions of Indian independence already quoted, that the right of discovery and conquest was the title of the Europeans; that every foot of land in the United States was held by that title; that the right of the Indians was merely temporary; that they were tenants at will, removable at any moment, either by negotiation or force. "It may be contended," says the Report of 1827, "with much plausibility, that there is in these claims more of force than of justice; but they are claims which have been recognized and admitted by the whole civilized world, AND IT IS UNQUESTIONABLY TRUE, THAT, UNDER SUCH CIRCUMSTANCES, FORCE becomes RIGHT !"*

*Stuart, ii. 173.

This language once adopted there needed no further argument about right or justice.

stand upon Rob Roy's law,

Georgia took its

That he shall take who has the power,

And he shall keep who can;

and it forthwith proceeded to act upon it. It decreed in 1828, that the territories of the Cherokees should be divided amongst the different counties of Georgia ; that after June 1st, 1830, the Cherokees should become the subjects of Georgia; that all Cherokee laws should be abolished, and all Cherokees should be cut off from any benefit of the laws of the State-that is, that no Indian, or descendent of one, should be capable to act as a witness, or to be a party in any suit against a white man. The Cherokees refusing to abandon their hereditary soil without violence, an act was passed prohibiting any white man from residing in the Cherokee country without a permit from the governor, and on the authority of this, soldiers were marched into it, and the missionaries carried off on a Sunday. An attempt was made to crush that interesting newspaper press, by forcing away every white man assisting in the office. Forcible possession was taken of the Indian gold mines by Georgian laws, and the penal statutes exercised against the Indians who did not recognize their authority. The Cherokees, on these outrages, vehemently appealed to Congress. They said "how far we have contributed to keep bright the chain of friendship which binds us to these United States, is within the reach of your knowledge; it is ours to maintain it, until, perhaps, the plaintive voice of an Indian from the south shall no more be heard within your walls of legislation. Our nation and our

people may cease to exist, before another revolving year reassembles this august assembly of great men. We implore that our people may not be denounced as savages, unfit for the good neighbourhood guaranteed to them by treaty. We cannot better express the rights of our nation, than they are developed on the face of the document we herewith submit; and the desires of our nation, than to pray a faithful fulfilment of the promises made by its illustrious author through his secretary. Between the compulsive measures of Georgia and our destruction, we ask the interposition of your authority, and remembrance of the bond of perpetual peace pledged for our safety— the safety of the last fragments of some mighty nations, that have grazed for a while upon your civilization and prosperity, but which are now tottering on the brink of angry billows, whose waters have covered in oblivion other nations that were once happy, but are

now no more.

"The schools where our children learn to read the Word of God; the churches where our people now sing to his praise, and where they are taught that of one blood he created all the nations of the earth;' the fields they have cleared, and the orchards they have planted; the houses they have built,—are dear to the Cherokees; and there they expect to live and to die, on the lands inherited from their fathers, as the firm friends of the people of these United States."

This is the very language which the simple people of all the new regions whither Europeans have penetrated, have been passionately and imploringly addressing for three hundred years, but in vain. We seem again to hear the supplicating voice of the people of