of the fraudulent methods. Writing from
Columbus, Georgia, on July 15, 1833, Col. John Milton informed the War
Department ... "Many of them [the Indians] are almost starved, and
suffer immensely for the things necessary to the support of life, and
are sinking in moral degradation. They have been much corrupted by white
men who live among them, who induce them to sell to as many different
individuals as they can, and then cheat them out of the proceeds."...
(p. 81.) Luther Blake wrote to the War Department from Fort Mitchell,
Alabama, on September 11, 1833 ... "Many, from motives of speculation,
have bought Indian reserves fraudulently in this way--take their bonds
for trifles, pay them ten or twenty dollars in something they do not
want, and take their receipts for five times the amount." (p. 86). On
February 1, 1834, J. H. Howard, of Pole-Cat Springs, Creek Nation, sent
a communication, by request, to President Jackson in which he said, ...
"From my own observation, I am induced to believe that a number of
reservations have been paid for at some nominal price, and the principal
consideration has been whisky and homespun" ... (p. 104). Gen. J. W. A.
Sandford, sent by President Jackson to the Creek country to investigate
the charges of fraud, wrote, on March 1, 1834, to the War Department,
... "It is but very recently that the Indian has been invested with an
individual interest in land, and the great majority of them appear
neither to appreciate its possession, nor to economize the money for
which it is sold; the consequence is, that the white man rarely suffers
an opportunity to pass by without swindling him out of both".... (p.
110).

The records show that the principal beneficiaries of these swindles were
some of the most conspicuous planters, mercantile firms and politicians
in the South. Frequently, they employed dummies in their operations.

[94] Reports of House Committees, Second Session, 26th Congress,
1840-41, Report No. 1.

[95] Ibid., 1 and 2.

[96] Executive Documents, First Session, 23rd Congress, 1833-34, Doc.
No. 132.

[97] Senate Documents, First Session, 22nd Congress, 1831-33, Vol. iii,
Doc. No. 139.

[98] "No inventor," reported the United States Commissioner of Patents
in 1858, "probably has ever been so harassed, so trampled upon, so
plundered by that sordid and licentious class of infringers known in the
parlance of the world, with no exaggeration of phrase as 'pirates.' The
spoliation of