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No further formal attempt was made to secure a compliance with the wishes of the Government until the winter and spring of 1831—'32. A delegation of Cherokees had visited Washington in the interests of their people, and though nothing was accomplished through them, the language used by some members of the delegation had led the Government authorities to hope that a change of sentiment on the subject of removal was rapidly taking place in their minds. In pursuance of this impression the Secretary of War, in the spring of 1832,369 intrusted Mr. E. W. Chester with a mission to the Cherokees, and with instructions to offer them as a basis for the negotiation of a treaty the following terms:

1. The United States to provide them with a country west of Arkansas sufficiently large for their accommodation.

2. This country to be conveyed to them by patent under the act of Congress of May 28, 1830, and to be forever outside the limits of any State or Territory.

3. The Cherokees to retain and possess all the powers of self-government consistent with a supervisory authority of Congress.

4. To have an agent resident in Washington to represent their interest, who should be paid by the United States.

5. With the consent of Congress they should be organized as a Territory and be represented by a delegate in that body.

6. All white persons should be excluded from their country.

7. The United States to remove them to their new country and to pay the expenses of such removal, which might be conducted in either of three ways, viz:

(a) By a commutation in money, to be allowed either individuals or families.

(b) By persons to be appointed and paid by the United States.

(c) By arrangement among themselves, through which some competent person should remove them at a fixed rate.

8. The United States to provide them with subsistence for one year after removal.

9. An annuity to be secured to them proportioned to the value of the cession of territory they should make.

10. The United States to pay for all Indian improvements upon the ceded land.

11. Provision to be made for the support of schools, teachers, blacksmiths and their supplies, mills, school-houses, churches, council-houses, and houses for the principal chiefs.

12. A rifle to be presented to each adult male, and blankets, axes, plows, hoes, spinning-wheels, cards, and looms to each family.

13. Indian live stock to be valued and paid for by the United States.

14. Annuities under former treaties to be paid to them upon their arrival west of the Mississippi.

15. Provision to be made by the United States for Cherokee orphan children.

16. Protection to be guaranteed to the Cherokees against hostile Indians.

17. A few individual reservations to be permitted east of the Mississippi, but only on condition that the reservees shall become citizens of the State in which they reside, and that all reservations between them and the United States, founded upon their previous circumstances as Indians, must cease.

Cherokees contemplate removal to Columbia River.—In the discussion of these propositions the fact was developed that a project had been canvassed, and had received much favorable consideration among the Cherokees themselves (in view of the difficulties and harassing circumstances surrounding their situation), to abandon their eastern home and to remove to the country adjacent to the mouth of the Columbia River, on the Pacific coast. This proposition having reached the ears of the Secretary of War, he made haste, in a letter to Mr. Chester,370 to discourage all idea of such a removal, predicated upon the theory that they would be surrounded by tribes of hostile savages, and would be too remote from the frontier and military posts of the United States to enable the latter to extend to them the arm of protection and support.

Nothing was accomplished by the negotiations of Mr. Chester, and in the autumn371 of the same year Governor Lumpkin, of Georgia, was requested to attend the Cherokee council in October and renew the proposition upon the same basis. A similar fate attended this attempt.