remove, the United States agree to
defray their expenses, to supply them the means of transportation and a
year's support after they reach their new homes--a provision too liberal
and kind to bear the stamp of injustice. Either course promises them
peace and happiness, whilst an obstinate perseverance in the effort to
maintain their possessions independent of the state authority can not
fail to render their condition still more helpless and miserable. Such
an effort ought, therefore, to be discountenanced by all who sincerely
sympathize in the fortunes of this peculiar people, and especially by
the political bodies of the Union, as calculated to disturb the harmony
of the two Governments and to endanger the safety of the many blessings
which they enable us to enjoy."

The policy thus formally enunciated was already in practical operation.
In the closing days of the administration of John Quincy Adams a
delegation came to Washington to present to the administration the
grievances of the Cherokee nation. The formal reception of the
delegation fell to the lot of Eaton, the new Secretary of War. The
Cherokees asserted that not only did they have no rights in the Georgia
courts in cases involving white men, but that they had been notified by
Georgia that all laws, usages, and agreements in force in the Indian
country would be null and void after June 1, 1830; and naturally they
wanted the interposition of the Federal Government. Eaton replied at
great length, reminding the Cherokees that they had taken sides with
England in the War of 1812, that they were now on American soil only by
sufferance, and that the central government could not violate the rights
of the state of Georgia; and he strongly advised immediate removal to
the West. The Cherokees, quite broken, acted in accord with this advice;
and so in 1832 did the Creeks, to whom Jackson had sent a special talk
urging removal as the only basis of Federal protection.

To the Seminoles as early as 1827 overtures for removal had been made;
but before the treaty of Fort Moultrie had really become effective they
had been intruded upon and they in turn had become more slow about
returning runaway slaves. From some of the clauses in the treaty of
Fort Moultrie, as some of the chiefs were quick to point out, the
understanding was that the same was to be in force for twenty years; and
they felt that any slowness on their part about the return of Negroes
was fully nullified by t