Native Americans: 22 Books on History, Mythology, Culture & Linguistic Studies. James Mooney

for the sum of $214,000, the same to be invested by the President as a part of the general fund of the nation. Their present school fund shall also constitute a portion of the permanent national school fund.

      12. Such Cherokees as are averse to removal west of the Mississippi and desire to become citizens of the States where they reside, if qualified to take care of themselves and their property, shall receive their proportion of all the personal benefits accruing under this treaty for claims, improvements, and per capita.

      Such heads of Cherokee families as desire to reside within the States of North Carolina, Tennessee, and Alabama, subject to the laws thereof and qualified to become useful citizens, shall be entitled to a pre-emption right of 160 acres at the minimum Congress price, to include their improvements. John Ross and eleven others named are designated as a committee on the part of the Cherokees to recommend persons entitled to take pre-emption rights, to select the missionaries who shall be removed with the nation, and to transact all business that may arise with the United States in carrying the treaty into effect. One hundred thousand dollars shall be expended by the United States for the benefit of such of the poorer classes of Cherokees as shall remove west.

      13. All Cherokees and their heirs to whom reservations had been made by any previous treaty, and who had not sold or disposed of the same, such reservations being subsequently sold by the United States should be entitled to receive the present value thereof from the United States as unimproved lands. All such reservations not sold were to be confirmed to the reservees or their heirs. All persons entitled to reservations under treaty of 1817, whose reservations, as selected, were included by the treaty of 1819 in the unceded lands of the Cherokee Nation, shall be entitled to a grant for the same. All reservees who were obliged by the laws of the States in which their reservations were situated to abandon the same or purchase them from the States, shall be deemed to have a just claim against the United States for the value thereof or for the amount paid therefor, with interest. The amount allowed for reservations under this article is to be paid independently, and not out of the consideration allowed to the Cherokees for spoliation claims and their cession of lands.

      14. Cherokee warriors wounded in the service of the United States during the late war with Great Britain and the southern tribes of Indians shall be allowed such pensions as Congress shall provide.

      15. The balance of the consideration herein stated, after deducting the amount actually expended for improvements, ferries, claims, spoliations, removal, subsistence, debts, and claims upon the Cherokee Nation, additional quantity of lands, goods for the poorer class of Cherokees, and the several sums to be invested for the general national funds, shall be divided equally among all the people belonging to the Cherokee Nation east, according to the census just completed. Certain Cherokees who had removed west since June, 1833, were to be paid for their improvements.

      16. The Cherokees stipulate to remove west within two years from the ratification of this treaty, during which time the United States shall protect them in the possession and enjoyment of their property, and in case of failure to do so shall pay all losses and damages sustained by them in consequence thereof.

      The United States and the several States interested in the Cherokee lands shall immediately proceed to survey the lands ceded by this treaty, but the agency buildings and tract of land surveyed and laid off for the use of Col. R. J. Meigs, Indian agent, shall continue subject to the control of the United States or such agent as may be specially engaged in superintending the removal of the tribe.

      17. All claims arising under or provided for in this treaty shall be examined and adjudicated by General William Carroll and John F. Schermerhorn, or by such commissioners as shall be appointed by the President of the United States for that purpose, and their decision shall be final, and the several claimants shall be paid on their certificate by the United States. All stipulations of former treaties not superseded or annulled by this treaty shall continue in force.

      18. The annuities of the nation which may accrue during the next two years preceding their removal shall, on account of the failure of crops, be expended in provision and clothing for the benefit of the poorer classes of the nation as soon after the ratification of this treaty as an appropriation shall be made. So interference is, however, intended with that part of the annuities due the Cherokees west under the treaty of 1819.

      19. This treaty is to be obligatory after ratification.

      20. The United States guarantee the payment of all unpaid just claims upon the Indians, without expense to them, out of the proper funds of the United States for the settlement of which a cession or cessions of land has or have been heretofore made by the Indians in Georgia, provided the United States or State of Georgia has derived benefit therefrom without having made payment therefor.

      This article was inserted by unanimous request of the Cherokee committee after the signing of the treaty, it being understood that its rejection by the Senate of the United States should not impair any other article of the treaty.

      On the 31st of December, 1835, James Rogers and John Smith, as delegates from the Western Cherokees, signed an agreement which is attached to the treaty wherein they agreed to its provisions on behalf of the Western Cherokees, with the proviso that it should not affect any claims of the latter against the United States.

      Supplementary Articles to Foregoing Treaty, Concluded March 1, 1836

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PROCLAIMED MAY 23, 1836.346

      Agreed on between John F. Schermerhorn, commissioner on the part of the United States, and the committee duly authorized at a general council held at New Echota, Georgia, to act for and on behalf of the Cherokee people.

Material Provisions

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      These articles were concluded as supplementary to the treaty of December 29, 1835, and were ratified at the same time and as a part of that treaty. They were rendered necessary by the determination of President Jackson not to allow any pre-emptions or reservations, his desire being that the whole Cherokee people should remove together to the country west of the Mississippi.

      1. All pre-emption rights and reservations provided for in articles 12 and 13 are declared void.

      2. The Cherokees having supposed that the sum of $5,000,000, fixed as the value of Cherokee lands, did not include the amount required to remove them, nor the value of certain claims held by them against citizens of the United States, and the President being willing that the subject should be referred to the Senate of the United States for any further provision that body should deem just.

      3. It is agreed, should it receive the concurrence of that body, to allow the Cherokees the sum of $600,000, to include the expenses of removal and all claims against the United States not otherwise specifically provided for, and to be in lieu of the aforesaid reservations and pre-emptions and of the $300,000 for spoliations provided in article 1 of the original treaty to which this is supplementary. This sum of $600,000 shall be applied and distributed agreeably to the provisions of said treaty, the surplus, if any, to belong to the education fund.

      4. The provision of article 16 concerning the agency reservations is not intended to interfere with the occupant right of any Cherokees whose improvements may fall within the same.

      The $100,000 appropriated in article 12 for the poorer class of Cherokees, and intended as a set-off to the pre-emption rights, shall now be added to the general national fund of $400,000.

      5. The expenses of negotiating the treaty and supplement and of such persons of the Cherokee delegation as may sign the same shall be defrayed by the United States.

      Note.—The following amendments were