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With a view to reaching a full understanding on this subject, the Secretary of War notified230 General Andrew Jackson, Governor McMinn of Tennessee, and General David Merriwether that they had been appointed commissioners for the purpose of holding a treaty with the Cherokees on or about the 20th of June, 1817.231 In pursuance of these instructions a conference was called and held at the Cherokee Agency, which resulted in the treaty of July 8, 1817.232 By this treaty the Cherokees ceded two large tracts of country233 in exchange for one of equal area on the Arkansas and White Rivers adjoining the territory of the Osages. The Cherokees also ceded two small reservations made by the treaty of January 7, 1806.234

The large cession by the first article of the treaty of 1817, though partially in Georgia, was at the time supposed to cover all the territory claimed by the Cherokees within the limits of North Carolina,235 and was secured in deference to the urgent importunities of the legislature and people of that State. It was subsequently ascertained that this supposition was incorrect.

Majority of Cherokees averse to removal.—During the conference, but before the negotiations had reached any definite result, a memorial was presented to the United States commissioners, signed by sixty-seven of the chiefs and headmen of the nation, setting forth that the delegation of their nation who in 1809 visited Washington and discussed with President Jefferson the proposition for an exchange of lands had acted without any delegated authority on the subject. The memorialists claimed to represent the prevailing feeling of the nation and were desirous of remaining upon and retaining the country of their nativity. They were distressed with the alternative proposals to remove to the Arkansas country or remain and become citizens of the United States. While they had not attained a sufficient degree of civilization to fit them for the duties of citizenship, they yet deprecated a return to the same savage state and surroundings which had characterized their mode of life when first brought in contact with the whites. They therefore requested that the subject should not be further pressed, but that they might be enabled to remain in peaceable possession of the land of their fathers.236

The commissioners, however, proceeded with their negotiations, and concluded the treaty as previously set forth, which was finally signed by twenty-two of the chiefs and headmen whose names appeared attached to the memorial, as well as six others, on behalf of the eastern portion of the nation, and by fifteen chiefs representing those on the Arkansas.237 The treaty was submitted to the Senate, for its advice and consent, at the ensuing session of Congress, and although it encountered the hostility of those Senators who were opposed to the general policy of an exchange of lands with the Indians, and of some who argued, because of the few chiefs who had signed it, that it did not represent the full and free expression of their national assent,238 that body approved its provisions, and the President ratified and proclaimed it on the 26th of December, 1817.

A portion of the Cherokees emigrate west.—Immediately upon the signing of the treaty, the United States authorities, presuming upon its final ratification, took measures for carrying into effect the scheme of emigration. Within a month Agent Meigs reported that over 700 Cherokees had already enrolled themselves for removal the ensuing fall.

The Secretary of War entered into a contract for 60 boats, to be delivered by 1st of November at points between the mouths of the Little Tennessee and Sequatchie Rivers, together with rifles, ammunition, blankets, and provisions;239 and, under the control and directions of Governor McMinn, of Tennessee, the stream of emigration began to flow, increasing in volume until within the next year over 3,000 had emigrated to their new homes, which numbers had during the year 1819 increased to 6,000.240

Persecution of those favorable to emigration.—There can be no question that a very large portion, and probably a majority, of the Cherokee Nation residing east of the Mississippi had been and still continued bitterly opposed to the terms of the treaty of 1817. They viewed with jealous and aching hearts all attempts to drive them from the homes of their ancestors, for they could not but consider the constant and urgent importunities of the Federal authorities in the light of an imperative demand for the cession of more territory. They felt that they were, as a nation, being slowly but surely compressed within the contracting coils of the giant anaconda of civilization; yet they held to the vain hope that a spirit of justice and mercy would be born of their helpless condition which would finally prevail in their favor. Their traditions furnished them no guide by which to judge of the results certain to follow such a conflict as that in which they were engaged.

This difference of sentiment in the nation upon a subject so vital to their welfare was productive of much bitterness and violent animosities. Those who had favored the emigration scheme and had been induced, either through personal preference or by the subsidizing influences of the Government agents, to favor the conclusion of the treaty, became the object of scorn and hatred to the remainder of the nation. They were made the subjects of a persecution so relentless, while they remained in the eastern country, that it was never forgotten, and when, in the natural course of events, the remainder of the nation were forced to remove to the Arkansas country and join the earlier emigrants, the old hatreds and dissensions broke out afresh, and to this day they find lodgment in some degree in the breasts of their descendants.

Dissatisfaction with the treaty of 1817.—The dissatisfaction with the treaty of 1817 took shape in the assemblage of a council at Amoha, in the Cherokee Nation, in September of the same year, at which six of the principal men were selected as a deputation to visit the President at Washington and present to him in person a detailed statement of the grievances and indignities to which they had been subjected in greater or less degree for many years and to ask relief and redress.

They were to present, with special particularity, to the President's notice a statement of the improper methods and influences that had been used to secure the apparent consent of the nation to the treaty of 1817. They were authorized to enter into a new treaty with the United States, in lieu of the recent one, in which an alteration might be made in certain articles of it, and some additional article inserted relative to the mode of payment of their annuity as between the Eastern and Arkansas Cherokees.241

The delegation was received and interviews were accorded them by the President and Secretary of War, but they secured nothing but general expressions of good will and promises of protection in their rights and property.