right to the oceupation of their lands independent of the States within whose chartered lines they happen to be; that until they cede them by treaty, or other transaction equivalent to ireaty, o act of a State can The Government is determined to exert al its cnergy for the patronage and protection of the rights of the Indians."

And the year before General Washington had said to the Six Nations : "In futuro you cannot bo defraudod of your lands. No State or person can give a right to such lands. purchasc your lands unless at public treaty beld under the authority of the United States. The General Government will never consent to your being defrauded; bnt it will protect you in al your just rights. *You possess the ight to sell, and the right of re fusing to sell your lands. **The United States will be truc aud faithful to their engagements."

TWhat could Cherokcc men and women have thought when, only thirty years later, they found this United States Govern ment upholding the State of Georgia in her monstrous proten- sions of right to the whole of their country, and in her infa- mous cruelties of oppression toward them when they found this United States Government sending its agents to sednce and bribe their chiefs to bargain away their country; even to leave on the public records of official instructions to a com some stooping as these: "Appoal to the chiefs and in missioner such phrases flucntial men-not together, but apart, at their own houses;" make offers to them of extensive reservations in fee-simple, aud other rewards, to obtain their acquiescence;" "the more careful you are to secure from even the chiefs the official char- on the advantage of their enlarge condition in the West: there the Government would protect acter you bear, the better;" c them." This the Secretary of War called "moving the line of their prejudices."

In a report submitted to the War Department in 1825 by Thomas L. McKenncy is a glowing doseription of the Clerokee on them in