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Unusual expenditures are always incident to the removal and establishment of a people in an entirely new country. Domestic dissensions and violence of a widespread character have a tendency to destroy the security of life and property usually felt in a well governed community, and insecurity in this manner becomes the parent of idleness and the destroyer of ambition.

Thus from a combination of adverse circumstances the Cherokees since their removal had been subjected to many losses of both an individual and a national character. Their debts had come to be very oppressive, and they were anxiously devising methods of relief.

Proposed cession of the "neutral land."—At length in the fall of 1852 they began to discuss the propriety of retroceding to the United States the tract of 800,000 acres of additional land purchased by them from the Government under the provisions of the treaty of 1835. This tract was commonly known as the "neutral land," and occupied the southeast corner of what is now the State of Kansas.

It was segregated from the main portion of their territory, and had never been occupied by any considerable number of their people. After a full discussion of the subject in their national council it was decided to ask the United States to purchase it, and a delegation was appointed to enter into negotiations on the subject. They submitted their proposition in two communications,540 but after due consideration it was decided by the Secretary of the Interior541 to be inexpedient for the Government to entertain the idea of purchase at that time. Thereupon, under instructions from their national council, they withdrew the proposition.

As soon as the Cherokees resident in North Carolina and the neighboring States learned of this proposed disposition of the "neutral land" they filed a protest542 against any sale of it that did not make full provision for securing to them a proportional share of the proceeds.