ineering people. *t

[Footnote t: See in the Legislative Documents (21st Congress, No. 89)
instances of excesses of every kind committed by the whites upon the
territory of the Indians, either in taking possession of a part of their
lands, until compelled to retire by the troops of Congress, or carrying
off their cattle, burning their houses, cutting down their corn, and
doing violence to their persons. It appears, nevertheless, from all
these documents that the claims of the natives are constantly
protected by the government from the abuse of force. The Union has a
representative agent continually employed to reside among the Indians;
and the report of the Cherokee agent, which is among the documents
I have referred to, is almost always favorable to the Indians. "The
intrusion of whites," he says, "upon the lands of the Cherokees would
cause ruin to the poor, helpless, and inoffensive inhabitants." And he
further remarks upon the attempt of the State of Georgia to establish
a division line for the purpose of limiting the boundaries of the
Cherokees, that the line drawn having been made by the whites, and
entirely upon ex parte evidence of their several rights, was of no
validity whatever.]

Washington said in one of his messages to Congress, "We are more
enlightened and more powerful than the Indian nations, we are therefore
bound in honor to treat them with kindness and even with generosity."
But this virtuous and high-minded policy has not been followed. The
rapacity of the settlers is usually backed by the tyranny of the
government. Although the Cherokees and the Creeks are established
upon the territory which they inhabited before the settlement of the
Europeans, and although the Americans have frequently treated with them
as with foreign nations, the surrounding States have not consented to
acknowledge them as independent peoples, and attempts have been made to
subject these children of the woods to Anglo-American magistrates, laws,
and customs. *u Destitution had driven these unfortunate Indians to
civilization, and oppression now drives them back to their former
condition: many of them abandon the soil which they had begun to clear,
and return to their savage course of life.

[Footnote u: In 1829 the State of Alabama divided the Creek territory
into counties, and subjected the Indian population to the power of
European magistrates.

Chapter XVIII: Future Condition Of Three Races--Part III

In 1830