hree million
acres, or nearly the combined area of Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

Furthermore, they were no longer savages. The Creeks were the lowest
in civilization; but even they had become more settled and less
warlike since their chastisement by Jackson in 1814. The Choctaws and
Chickasaws lived in frame houses, cultivated large stretches of land,
operated workshops and mills, maintained crude but orderly
governments, and were gradually accepting Christianity. Most advanced
of all were the Cherokees. As one writer has described them, they "had
horses and cattle, goats, sheep, and swine. They raised maize, cotton,
tobacco, wheat, oats, and potatoes, and traded with their products to
New Orleans. They had gardens, and apple and peach orchards. They had
built roads, and they kept inns for travelers. They manufactured
cotton and wool.... One of their number had invented an alphabet for
their language. They had a civil government, imitated from that of the
United States." Under these improved conditions all of the tribes were
growing in numbers and acquiring vested rights which it would be
increasingly difficult to deny or to disregard.

A good while before Jackson entered the White House the future of
these large, settled, and prosperous groups of red men began to
trouble the people of Georgia, Alabama, and other Southern States. The
Indians made but little use of the major part of their land; vast
tracts lay untrodden save by hunters. Naturally, as the white
population grew and the lands open for settlement became scarcer and
poorer, the rich tribal holdings were looked upon with covetous eyes.
In the decade following the War of 1812, when cotton cultivation was
spreading rapidly over the southern interior, the demand that they be
thrown open for occupation to white settlers became almost
irresistible.

Three things, obviously, could happen. The tribes could be allowed to
retain permanently their great domains, while the white population
flowed in around them; or the lands could be opened to the whites
under terms looking to a peaceful intermingling of the two peoples; or
the tribes could be induced or compelled to move _en masse_ to new
homes beyond the Mississippi. The third plan was the only one ever
considered by most people to be feasible, although it offered great
difficulties and was carried out only after many delays.

The State which felt the situation most keenly was Georgia, partly
because there an olde