sent of the Cherokees” to new grants of land and establishment of boundaries. The instructions given to these commissioners are remarkable for their reiterated assertion of the Indians’ unquestioned right to do as they please about ceding these lands. Such phrases as these: “Should the Indians refuse to cede to the United States any of the above-designated lands,” and “you will endeavor to prevail upon them to cede,” and “you will endeavor to procure the consent of the Indians,” are proof of the fulness of the recognition the United States Government at that time gave of the Indians’ “right of occupancy;” also of the realization on tho part of the Government that these Indian nations were powers whose good-will it was of importance to conciliate. “It is of importance,” the instructions say, “that the Indian nations generally should be convinced of the certainty in which they may at all times rely upon the friendship of the United States, and that the President will never abandon them or their children;” and, “It will be incumbent on you to introduce the desires of the Government in such a manner as will permit you to drop them, as you may find them illy received, without giving the Indians an opportunity to reply with a decided negative, or raising in them unfriendly and inimical dispositions. You will state none of them in the tone of demands, but in the first instance merely mention them as propositions which you are authorized to make, and their assent to which the Government would consider as new testimonials of their friendship.”
Nevertheless, the Cherokees did reply with “a decided negative.” They utterly refused to cede any more lands, or to give their consent to the opening of any more roads through their territory. But it only took four years to bring them to the point where they were ready to acquiesce in the wishes of the Government, and to make once more the effort to secure to themselves an unmolested region, by giving up several large tracts of land and a right of way on several roads. In 1805 they
