Chapter 13: “[T]he most solemn guarantee of the United States” (45.13)

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By: Dr. Bill Ambrose

“[T]he most solemn guarantee of the United States”

Source: https://www.cherokeephoenix.org/news/dec-29-marks-treaty-of-new-echotas-182nd-anniversary/article_802b2ef8-7e0f-5749-b932-ba2c12ceeea4.html

The western boundary of the Arkansas Territory had been moved eastward from the western limit of the Louisiana Purchase to 45 miles west of Fort Smith in 1824, as it is shown on the 1826 Anthony Findley map below. Click the map to open a detailed view.

Source: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RiZAJHTecPjdCyvVr9NeBhgJOiwEltS0/view?usp=drive_link

Lovely County was established in 1827. Whites were moving in quickly as the U. S. government surveys were completed. Under white occupation inside the territorial limits, the Cherokee access to bison on the short grass prairie plains would end. Then worse news came as calls began Arkansas political figures that the Cherokees had no rights to land in Arkansas.

Deadly Consequences

In 1828 a delegation from the Council was sent to Washington. They had been advised that giving up Cherokee lands in Arkansas would be punishable by death. They met opposition in Washington that would not give them more lands for the Cherokees – but would move the Cherokee far west onto the prairie or allow the Cherokee to exchange their Arkansas land for land east of the Falls of the Verdigris to the existing western border of Arkansas.

The Treaty with the Western Cherokee, 1828

In May of 1828 they signed the document relinquishing their Arkansas land for the western half of Lovely’s purchase. This new land was beyond any U. S. boundary line and considered to be “Indian Territory.” The image below shows a second Royce Map detailing Area 37 as being relinquished and the new Cherokee land to the west. This land transaction became confirmed by the Treaty with the Western Cherokee, 1828.

Area 37

This Second Royce Map above shows the Arkansas Cherokee land being lost (Area37) and the new Cherokee land to the west of Arkansas.

Treaty with the Western Cherokee, 1828.

As one reads this formal introduction to the treaty, consider all the things this treaty attempts to accomplish. Whilst doing so, having an image of Anthony Findley’s 1826 Map of Missouri and the Territory of Arkansas will be helpful!

WHEREAS, it being the anxious desire of the government of the United States to secure to the Cherokee nation of Indians, as well those now living within the limits of the Territory of Arkansas, as those of their friends and bothers who reside in States East of the Mississippi, and who may wish to join their brothers of the West, a permanent home, and which shall, under the most solemn guarantee of the United States, be, and remain, theirs forever – a home that shall never, in all future time, be embarrassed by having extended around it the lines, or placed over it the jurisdiction of a Territory or State, nor be pressed upon by the extension, in any way, of any of the limits of any existing Territory or State; and Whereas, the present location of the Cherokees in Arkansas being unfavorable to their present repose, and tending, as the past demonstrates, to their future degradation and misery; and the Cherokees being anxious to avoid such consequences, and yet not questioning their right to their lands in Arkansas, as secured to them by Treaty, and resting also upon the pledges given them by the President of the United States, and the Secretary of War, of March, 1818, and the 8th October, 1821, in regard to the outlet to the West, and as may be seen on referring to the records of the War Department, still being anxious to secure a permanent home, and to free themselves, and their posterity, from an embarrassing connexion[sic] with the Territory of Arkansas, and guard themselves from such connexions[sic] in future; Whereas, it being important, not to the Cherokees only, but also to the Choctaws, and in regard also to the question which may be agitated in the future respecting the location of the latter, as well as the former, within the limits of the Territory or State of Arkansas, as the case may be, and their removal therefrom; and to avoid the cost which may attend negotiations to rid the Territory or State of Arkansas whenever it may become a State, of either, or both of those Tribes, the parties do hereby conclude the following Articles, viz:

Article 1: The Western boundary of Arkansas shall be, and the same is, hereby defined, viz: A line shall be run, commencing on Red River, at the point where the Eastern Choctaw line strikes said river (see on above image near Pecan Point), and run due North with said line to the River Arkansas (at Belle Point on map), thence in a direct line to the South West corner of Missouri.

This description moved the western boundary line of Arkansas 40 miles eastward, not shown on the Finley map, but shown on the following image of the Cherokee seven million acres deeded to them by this treaty. The United States agree to possess the Cherokees, and to guarantee it to them forever, and that guarantee is hereby solemnly pledged, of seven million acres of land, to be bounded as follows, viz:

Commencing at that point on Arkansas River where the Eastern Choctaw boundary line strikes said river, and running thence with the Western line of Arkansas, as defined in the foregoing article, to the Southwest corner of Missouri, and thence with the Western boundary line of Missouri till it crosses the waters of Neosho, generally called Grand River, thence due west to a point from which a due South course will strike the present (on Findley map, the 1824 line) North West corner of Arkansas Territory, thence continuing due South, on and with the present Western boundary line of the Territory (on Findley map, the 1824 line) to the main branch of Arkansas River, thence down said river to its junction with the Canadian River, and thence up and between the said Rivers Arkansas and Canadian, to a point at which a line running North and South from River to River, will give the aforesaid seven millions of acres…

A Promise to Remove All White People

The next article in the treaty stated that the United States will immediately remove all white persons from West to East of the new Eastern line from the Arkansas River to the Southwest corner of Missouri.

In retrospect this 1828 treaty had significance to the Cherokee, Creek, and Osage Indian Nations, the states of Arkansas and later Oklahoma, and the course of Indian removal over the next two decades. This treaty ties Cherokee removal to the state of Missouri, as Missouri is named several times in the treaty document.

The Treaty of New Echota (Often Misidentified as The Treaty with the Western Cherokee, 1833)

The Treaty of New Echota was supplemented by the Treaty with the Western Cherokee, 1833, whose primary function was to change the description of the Cherokee lands to give up some Creek lands previously selected by their treaty of 1826. The new Cherokee boundaries are quite complicated but continued to provide the seven million acres guaranteed by the United States. The Cherokee Nation after the adjustment for the loss of the Creek lands and the addition of new land in exchange for land lost appear in the image below.

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, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, & 36.

Next: Chapter 14: Arrival in “Indian Country” (45.14)

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