Chapter 6: A Barrier To Manifest Destiny (45.06)

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By: Dr. Bill Ambrose

A Barrier To Manifest Destiny

President Thomas Jefferson was made aware of this problem just days after taking office in March of 1801. A petition had been presented to Jefferson from Col. Wofford himself seeking the Presidents help in moving the Indian boundary line. The Cherokee refused for two years to sell the land, demanding the settlement be removed.

Source: https://picryl.com/media/american-progress-john-gast-painting-e75003

Inattention and Dismissal

Finally on Oct. 24, 1804, at Tellico, Tennessee, an agreement was reached which gave the Cherokees $5000 and $1000 annually for the 100 square mile tract. Interestingly, no action was taken by the United States Senate until 1824, when the Treaty was ratified. It is just another example of the discount of importance the U.S. has applied to the Cherokee Nation forever. Were the Cherokees ever paid for this land cession?

Thomas Jefferson, as President of the United States, began inserting himself in the “Indian problem,” that being that they occupied all the land to the west. Writing to William Henry Harrison in 1803, he wrote:

“To promote this disposition to exchange lands, which they have to spare and we want, for necessaries, which we have to spare and they want, we shall push our trading uses, and be glad to see the good and influential individuals among them run in debt, because we observe that when these debts get beyond what the individuals can pay, they become willing to lop them off by a cession of lands…In this way our settlements will gradually circumscribe and approach the Indians, and they will either incorporate with us as citizens of the United States, or remove beyond the Mississippi. The former is certainly the termination of their history most happy for themselves; but, in the whole course of this, it is essential to cultivate their love. As to their fear, we presume that our strength and their weakness is now so visible that they must see we have only to shur [sic] our hand to crush them, and that all our liberalities to them proceed from motives of pure humanity only. Should any tribe be foolhardy enough to take up the hatchet at any time, the seizing the whole country of that tribe, and driving them across the Mississippi, as the only condition of peace, would be an example to others, and a furtherance of our final consolidation.”

Jefferson’s strategy was to “…get rid of this pest, without giving offence or umbrage to the Indians.”

Land Sale Via Treaty

Area 16

Source: MoTrailofTears.com Geographic Information System (GIS)

Source: MoTrailofTears.com Geographic Information System (GIS)

Source: MoTrailofTears.com Geographic Information System (GIS) Missing Areas 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 10A, 10B, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, & 16.

Area 16, listed by Royce as “Kentucky and Tennessee west of the Tennessee River and Cumberland Mountain,” was sold to the United States through a treaty dated Oct. 25, 1805. The treaty ceded 8118 square miles of land (Actually 8531 square miles according to our GIS) to the U. S. for a $14,000 payment and an annuity of $3,000. The transaction included 7,032 square miles in Tennessee and 1,086 square miles in Kentucky south of the Cumberland River. In addition to the land cession, the treaty called for “free and unmolested use and enjoyment of the two following described roads, in addition to those which are at present established through their (the Cherokees’) country.”

Developing a Transportation Network

The new roads described in the treaty appear on the Royce Map as “General Jackson’s Old Military Road” from Nashville through Franklin and Muscle Shoals, and the “Federal Road to Georgia,” heading southeasterly from Nashville. Both of these roads became important to Andrew Jackson for military action, Indian relations, and his business interests. He made his home in Nashville beginning in 1788 when he was appointed as district attorney in Middle Tennessee.

Area 17

Source: MoTrailofTears.com Geographic Information System (GIS)

Source: MoTrailofTears.com Geographic Information System (GIS)

Source: MoTrailofTears.com Geographic Information System (GIS) Missing Areas 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 10A, 10B, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, & 17.

Area 17 on the Royce Map is located in a one square mile section of land at the mouth of the Clinch River onto the Tennessee River.

Area 18

Source: MoTrailofTears.com Geographic Information System (GIS)

Source: MoTrailofTears.com Geographic Information System (GIS)

Source: MoTrailofTears.com Geographic Information System (GIS) Missing Areas 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 10A, 10B, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, & 18.

Area 18 is located in the first island in the Tennessee River above the mouth of the Clinch. Fort Southwest Point was a frontier U. S. fort garrisoned by federal soldiers from 1797 until 1811.

The location was a convenient waystation for American migrants between Knoxville and Nashville. The Cherokees operated a ferry there, charging fees for the river crossing. The treaty includes both Area 17 and Area 18, and reads as follows:

Art. 1. Whereas it has been represented by one party to the other that the section of land on which the garrison of Southwest Point stands, and which extends to Kingston, is likely to be a desirable place for the Assembly of the State of Tennessee to convene at (a committee from that body, now in session, having viewed the situation) now, the Cherokees, being possessed of a spirit of conciliation, and seeing that this tract is desired for public purposes, and not for individual advantages, reserving the ferries to themselves, quit claim and cede to the United States the said section of land, understanding, at the same time, that the buildings erected by the public are to belong to the public, as well as the occupation of the same during the pleasure of the Government. We also cede to the United States the first Island of the Tennessee (River) above the mouth of the Clinch (River.)

Art. 2. The Cherokees grant a mail road to the United States, from Tellico to the Tombigbee, ‘to be laid out by viewers appointed on both sides.’

Art. 3. In consideration of the above cession and relinquishment, the United States agree to pay to the said Cherokee Indians $1600.

Art. 4. The Treaty to be obligatory when ratified.

The Treaty was promptly ratified by Pres. Jefferson and the U. S. Senate.

Treaty of 1806

In December of 1806, more nefarious actions by the government led to a huge cession of land by the Cherokees. In addition to money bribes and strategically positioned tracts of land for the signers, roads were promised to be built near some chiefs’ farms. Those new roads would create great marketing opportunities for the Cherokee landowners nearby.

Area 19

Source: MoTrailofTears.com Geographic Information System (GIS)

Source: MoTrailofTears.com Geographic Information System (GIS)

Source: MoTrailofTears.com Geographic Information System (GIS) Missing Areas 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 10A, 10B, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, & 19.

The treaty was negotiated by the Chickamaugans on the southeastern limit of the nation. Doublehead, the chief of the Chickamaugans, had been the most feared Cherokee chief, having led raiding parties of Cherokee into Kentucky killing thousands of American settlers before 1794.

The land in this cession was a huge portion of the Cherokees’ beloved country lying between the Duck and Tennessee Rivers. It was a decade before the next land-cession treaty would be signed. In 1796 Chief Doublehead had become the Speaker of the Cherokee Nation and chief spokesman for all negotiations with the Federal government.

The Kickapoo

Kickapoos removed into and then out of “Missouri” – first the Territory, then the State.

The Kickapoo Indians, in a treaty with the U. S. in 1819, ceded 13 million acres of their homelands in Illinois.  The Kickapoo Treaty of 1819 was signed at Edwardsville, Illinois, on July 30, 1819.  Those lands included portions of central and eastern Illinois; their Grand Village of the Kickapoo was in present-day Mclean County. 

Treaty of St. Mary Map

They were given in exchange a grant of land in Missouri Territory described as :  Beginning at the confluence of the Pomme de Terre and Osage, thence up the Pomme de Terre to the dividing ridge that separated the waters of the Osage and White rivers, thence westerly to the Osage boundary line of 1808, thence north to Nerve creek, thence down said creek to a point due south of White Clay or Richard creek, thence north to the Osage River, and thence down said river to the place of beginning.  Of course it was given to the Kickapoos and their heirs forever.  The tract was confirmed and the treaty ratified and proclaimed on Jan. 13, 1821. 

This green out lined portion of Missouri shown on this map is the land given to the Kickapoos by this treaty.  This image from the 1837 road survey of a new road from Pulaski County to Springfield also shows “Kickapoo Prairie.”

Source: Missouri State Archives – 1837 map from Pulaski County to Springfield, Showing the “Kickapoo Prairie” File name: StateRoadMaps_Box5_Folder6_PulaskiCountytoSpringfield_0003.jpg

Treaty of Castor Hill

In 1832 the Treaty of Castor Hill, signed in St. Louis County, Missouri, was a series of treaties between the United States and several Native American tribes including the Shawnee, Delaware, and Kickapoo.  This treaty was part and parcel of the Indian Removal Treaty of 1830.  Using coercive circumstances and excessive pressure, the Kickapoo were removed from the State of Missouri by the Treaty of Castor Hill to a reservation north of the Delaware Nation in Wyandotte and Leavenworth Counties in Kansas and south of the Big Nemaha River in Nebraska.  The Kickapoo Tribe was removed to Indian Territory, now present-day parts of Lincoln, Pottawatomie, and Oklahoma Counties, in 1873.

Next: Chapter 7: Are the Cherokee a Sovereign Nation? (45.07)

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