e with certain hostile tribes, as one of two great
Territories (the other being, in the main, the present Territory of
Dakota, west of the Missouri) upon which might be concentrated the great
body of all the Indians east of the Rocky Mountains--are the Cherokees,
Choctaws, Chickasaws, Creeks, Seminoles, Senecas, Shawnees, Quapaws,
Ottawas of Blanchard's Fork and Roche de Boeuf, Peorias, and
confederated Kaskaskias, Weas and Piankeshaws, Wyandots, Pottawatomies,
Sacs and Foxes of the Mississippi, Osages, Kiowas, Comanches, the
Arapahoes and Cheyennes of the south, the Wichitas and other affiliated
bands, and a small band of Apaches long confederated with the Kiowas and
Comanches.

_Cherokees._--The Cherokees number, according to the census for 1872,
furnished by their agent, 18,000. In the report for 1871 the agent
estimated the number at 14,682, and stated that if the Cherokees
remaining in North Carolina and other States were gathered into the
nation, the population would then be 16,500. He does not now account for
the large increase over the enumeration for 1871, which must be due to a
gross error in one report or the other. The Cherokees occupy a
reservation of 3,844,712 acres in the north-eastern part of the
Territory, lying east of the 96 deg. west longitude. They also own a strip
about fifty miles wide adjoining Kansas on the south, and extending from
the Arkansas River west to the 100 deg. west longitude. By the treaty of
1866, however, the United States may settle friendly Indians within the
limits of the latter tract; and when such settlements are made the
rights of the Cherokees to the lands so occupied terminate, the lands
thus disposed of to be paid for to the Cherokee nation at such price as
may be agreed upon by the parties in interest, or as may be fixed by the
President. That portion of country lying between the 96 deg. west longitude
on the east, the Arkansas River on the west and south, and the State of
Kansas on the north, formerly owned by the Cherokees, has been sold to
the Osages.

The Cherokees originally inhabited sections of country now embraced
within the State of Georgia and portions of the States of Tennessee and
North Carolina, and moved to their present location under the provisions
of the treaties concluded with them in 1817 and 1835. They have their
own written language, their national constitution and laws, their
churches, schools, and academies, their judges and courts. They are
empha