[795-801]
Index ... Part: 1 ... 2 ... 3 ... 4
General Gaines to Governor Troup.
Head-quarters, Eastern Department, GA., June 13, 1825.
Sir:
I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of the correspondence referred to by your excellency in your verbal communication of this morning, representing the indications of hostility recently manifested by the Indians on the western frontier of this State, numbered I to 4, inclusively; together with your instructions to Captain Harrison, of the 10th of the present month. Of this paper (which I return herewith) I have to request the favor of a copy, with such information as that officer shall communicate, touching the execution of the important duty assigned to him.
With the greatest respect, I have the honor to be your excellency's obedient servant,
Edmund P. Gaines, Major General Commanding.
His Excellency Governor Troup.
Governor Troup to General Gaines.
Executive Department, Milledgville, June 13, 1825.
SIR
As you wished, the copy of my instructions to Captain Harrison is enclosed; and any information received from that officer will be communicated without delay.
With great consideration and respect, G. M. Troup.
Major General Edmund P. Gaines, Milledgeville.
Governor Troup to Captain Harrison.
Head-quarters, Milledgville, GA., June 10, 1825.
Sir:
In carrying into effect the orders of Major General Wimberly, under my general orders of the 7th instant you will be careful to act strictly on the defensive, until circumstances shall arise to justify an opposite conduct. If, therefore, upon your arrival at the frontiers, you find that the Indians have not proceeded to acts of violence or outrage, you will endeavor to pacify them by the assurance that your presence there is not for the purpose of making war upon them, but to protect our people, and others within our limits, in their persons and effects, against any assaults or inroads upon either, and to chastise those who shall be mad enough to attempt them. If, on the contrary, you shall discover they have already committed acts of hostility of unequivocal character, you will treat them in all respects as enemies; pursuing them, if necessary, into the country occupied by them, and punishing them there.
Should they have merely committed depredations on the property of our people, whilst you take the proper measures to recover what has been taken, you will remember that our jurisdiction is established, and the criminal laws extended over the country, so that offenders can be seized and brought to justice in the ordinary manner. Indeed, for every purpose, but more especially considering that these deluded men are objects more of pity than of resentment, it is important that, finding them in the wrong, you will endeavor to keep them so.
You will take the earliest occasion to inform yourself correctly of the actual state of things in that quarter, so that you may communicate with me immediately by express. If, in the mean time, further information shall be received, making it expedient to do so, three companies, or more, of infantry or riflemen, will be marched to your support. Money is advanced for the subsistence of your corps, which you are charged to expend to the best possible advantage for the public, taking the proper vouchers and receipts, both for our own satisfaction and to enable us to charge the General Government with the amount. If, on your arrival, you shall discover the frontiers tranquilized, you will immediately return; otherwise, you will cooperate to the best advantage with any force you may find embodied there.
Very respectfully, G. M. Troup
To Captain James Harrison,
Commanding Twigs County Cavalry.
Governor Troup to General Gaines.
Executive Department, Milledgeville, June 14, 1825.
Dear Sir:
It may be important to you to know, before you communicate with your Government and proceed to meet the Indians in convention, that the laws of Georgia are already extended over the ceded country, and, of course, that it is my bounden duty to execute them there. The statutory provision on this subject will be found in the papers of the morning, and in the act entitled " To dispose of and distribute the lands lately acquired," &c.
With great consideration and regard, I am, very sincerely, yours,
G. M. Troup.
Major General E. P. Gaines, Milledgeville, Georgia.
Governor Troup to General Gaines.
Executive Department, Milledgeville, June 13, 1825.
Sir:
In the course of the desultory and informal communication with you of to-day, my desire was intimated that the line between this State and Alabama should be run as early as possible, and I requested the favor of you to make known to your Government this desire, and without delay. A letter will be immediately despatched to the Governor of Alabama, to apprize him of the resolution of the Government of Georgia to run that line, and to ask his concert and co-operation. If that concert and co-operation be refused, we will proceed to run the line
without them, as we will also proceed in due time to make the survey of the lands within our limits, disregarding any obstacles which may oppose from any quarter. You will see, therefore, how highly important it is that, upon these points, the two Governments should understand each other immediately.
With great respect and consideration,
G. M. Troup.
Major General E. P. Gaines, Milledgeville.
General Gaines to Governor Troup.
Head-Quarters, Eastern Department, Milledgeville, GA., June 14, 1825.
Sir:
In reply to your excellency's letter of yesterday's date, I have to observe, that, although it is not my purpose to enter into the discussion of any matter of controversy between the Government of Georgia and that of the United States, not immediately connected with duties confided to me, yet, perceiving as I do upon this occasion a direct collision between the views of your excellency and those embraced in my instructions from the Department of War - a collision that may tend to produce much embarrassment in our Indian relations, and which the interests of the General and State Governments equally require should be obviated
— I deem it proper to address you upon this subject, in a manner less liable to misapprehension or misconstruction than what I have stated, verbally, in the interviews with which you have favored me. Your letter, which I shall without delay refer to the Department of War, announces your intention to cause the line to be run between this State and Alabama, and to survey the public land of the State within the late ceded territory. Upon the last mentioned subject, I am distinctly authorized to state to the Indians that the President of the United States: has suggested to Governor Troup the necessity of his abstaining from entering into and surveying the ceded land, until the time prescribed by the treaty for their removal.
There is, perhaps, no principle of national law better established, or more universally admitted, than that the contracting parties to a treaty possess the right, and, in a case like the one in question, the exclusive right, of
expounding and carrying into effect such treaty.
The decision of the President, in this case, must govern me in my intended conference with the Indians; and this conference must necessarily take place before the subject can be submitted to the President; nor is it probable that, if it were submitted, it would undergo any change.
I cannot, therefore, but express a confident hope that your excellency may see the propriety of abstaining from the proposed survey, both of the boundary line and of the land within the late ceded territory, until the period arrives at which the removal of the Indians is required.
In the expression of this hope, I am actuated by no other feeling than that of an ardent desire to devote my best efforts towards an amicable adjustment of the existing differences with the Indians, upon just principles; regarding the interests of the State as in all respects the same as the interests of the Union or General Government. They are in fact the same, as different parts of one great animated body, through which the vital principle of life must circulate with equal freedom, affording equal health and vigor to each, as essential to the preservation and efficiency of the whole body.
With great respect and regard, I have the honor to be,
Edmund P. Gaines, Major General Commanding.
His Excellency Geo. M. Troup.
Governor Troup to General Gaines.
Executive Department, Milledgeville, June 15, 1825.
Sir:
I have this moment had the honor to receive your communication of the 14th instant, on the subjects of the survey of the ceded country and the running of the dividing line between Alabama and Georgia, and in which you request that, in conformity with the expressed will of your Government, both the survey and the running of the line may be forborne " until the period arrives at which the removal of the Indians is required."
It would give me great pleasure to be able to comply with any request made by yourself or your Government. You would make none that did not, to your apprehensions, seem reasonable and proper. As, however, there exist two independent parties to the question, each is permitted to decide for itself; and, with all due deference to yours, I must be permitted to say that my apprehension of the right and of the wrong leads me to the opposite conclusion — the conclusion to which the Legislature of Georgia, upon mature reflection, recently arrived, by an almost unanimous voice, and which was made the foundation of my late communication to the Secretary of War, and my more recent one to you upon the same subject.
I would deeply lament if any act proceeding from myself should cause the least embarrassment to yourself or your Government, especially considering the critical relations in which the United States stand to the Indians, and the great interest which the Government of Georgia feels in their early and satisfactory adjustment; but it cannot be expected by your Government that important interests are to be surrendered, and rights deemed unquestionable abandoned by Georgia, because of any embarrassment which may arise in the intercourse and negotiations between the United States and the Indians. I set too just a value on your high character to believe that you would willingly create them. I am equally persuaded that none will be suffered to exist which can with propriety be removed; and I know you will pardon me when I take the liberty of saying, that those to which you refer ought not to exist for a single moment. Upon every principle and practice of diplomacy, the particular instruction of your Government which has given rise to these embarrassments ought, at this moment, to be taken and held as no instruction at all: for it is now known to you that what purports to be an instruction was given upon information which was believed to be true, but which has turned out to be false; and the presumption is irresistible, that, the slate of things being changed, your Government, so far from desiring to press the execution, would gladly withdraw the instruction; and that, without any the least responsibility, you are at perfect liberty to consider it withdrawn. It is not for me to instruct, but to derive instruction from you, in every thing connected with the military art; and you know as well as I that no principle is better settled than the one which justifies disobedience to positive orders under a change of circumstances.
I say that the instruction had its origin singly in a falsehood, imposed upon your Government by its own agent, and that, but for that falsehood, the instruction would not have been given. You have the proof in common sense, and in the documents and evidence connected with the late disturbances. If you want more proof, look into the gazettes of yesterday, where you find a council of hostile Indians, assembled by the agent,
proclaiming by acclamation his innocence of the death of McIntosh, because that death followed, not from the survey, but the law of the nation. Your Government is informed by the agent that the hostile Indians are in array against us, because the Government of Georgia interfered to procure the consent to the survey. The same Indians testify to the falsehood of the declaration; and the dilemma is, that, if the agent is to be believed in the one case, the Indians cannot in the other. You see, therefore, sir, plainly the result: the Government of the United States, identifying itself in all things with the agent, assumes for granted what is false, and issues, in consequence thereof, a peremptory order to this Government to forbear an act which it feels it is its right, and its duty and interest to
perform. The falsity is made known to the officer instructed to carry that order into effect; the officer feels it to be his duty to proceed in the execution of the order, notwithstanding the change of circumstances which produced it. On the part of the Government of Georgia, the will of its highest constituted authority has been declared, upon the most solemn deliberation, that the line shall be run and the survey executed. It is for you, therefore, to bring it to the issue; it is for me only to repeat that, cost what it will, the line will he run and the survey effected. The Government of Georgia will not retire from the position it occupies to gratify the agent or the hostile Indians; nor will it do so, I trust, because it knows that, in consequence of disobedience to an unlawful mandate, it may very soon be recorded that " Georgia was."
Suffer me to say, also, that your Government has acted very precipitately and unadvisedly in this affair. After receiving notice of my intention to make the survey, it interposed no objection, though it had time to do so. A considerable interval elapsed, and it receives false information from the agent, upon which it issued its peremptory order. Soon after, it receives further false information from the same agent; upon which it issues other orders
confirmatory of the first, and which you seem to consider final.
But for my direct and active interference, hostilities would have immediately followed the death of McIntosh, and of a character so inveterate as to put at defiance any interference whatever, even on your part. Your power, not your influence, might have been availing, to be sure; but your power was not here; and for preserving this peace you know what a respectful testimonial I have of the thanks of your Government, couched in most delicate and complimentary terms.
The suggestions you make in derogation of our claim to participate in the construction or execution of the treaty, giving to that suggestion its utmost force, is merely that we are not nominally parties to the treaty; whilst the answer to it is, that we are party in interest deeper tenfold than they who appear upon the paper; and that the paper, in virtue of another paper to which we are parties, both nominally and in interest, passed a vested right of soil and of jurisdiction to Georgia, which none but the great Jehovah can divest.
You will be pleased to understand that there is no inclination here to urge hastily either the survey or the running of the line, so as to interfere in the least with the measures to be taken to pacify and tranquillize the Indians. On the contrary, all the facilities we can give for this object will be readily afforded; but it is believed that, in
reasonable time, this happy result can, with wise and prudent measures, of which your special agent was advised yesterday, be easily accomplished; but never to be accomplished, if the condition of that accomplishment be the abandonment of the survey and running of the line.
What, in our verbal conferences, had been promised, is now repeated — that the military requisitions, which, in compliance with your instructions, you may think proper to make upon the Government of Georgia, will be promptly attended to, and the force placed under your command with the least possible delay. The implicit
reliance in your high sentiments of honor is my sufficient security that that force, if it could, will in no event be employed against us.
With great consideration and regard,
G. M. Troup.
Major General Edmund P. Gaines, Commanding, &c.
General Gaines to Governor Troup.
Head-quarters, Eastern Department, Milledgeville, GA., June 16, 1825.
Sir:
In acknowledging the receipt of your excellency's letter of yesterday evening, I hasten to assure you that, in whatever I have said, verbally or in writing, as to the prospect of evil consequences, or the impolicy of entering upon the late ceded land, and of the survey in question, before the Indians can be required to depart
there from, I have not permitted myself to be influenced by any statements from Colonel Crowell, the agent, though by no means prepared to condemn that officer without a hearing: on the contrary, my impressions were the result of many years of attentive observation and experience, in official and unofficial intercourse, with the southern and western Indians, added to a knowledge of the construction which the treaty had received from the President of the United States.
These impressions lead me to the conclusion that the proposed surveys, with the consequent influx of white men, strangers to the Indians, during the existence of the feuds among them, would not fail to fan the flame of discord that has already produced so much mischief amongst them. I cannot but regret the difference of opinion between us upon this subject; and that it should have called forth any feeling or expression of controversy is still more to be regretted.
Having no doubt that you will, in due time, hear from the proper Department of the General Government, fully and satisfactorily, upon the subject of your letter generally, I take this occasion to tender to you my
acknowledgments for the promptitude and frankness with which you have furnished me with the information you had obtained in respect to the late disturbances on the frontier, and with which you have given me assurance of your readiness to co-operate with me in the discharge of the important duties to which my attention is called. Although there is much reason to hope that the spirit of hostility among the Indians may be restrained, and that peace may be restored between the contending parties; and, moreover, that the frontier may be rendered secure, without a resort to further bloodshed; yet, as the desired objects may be facilitated, and more effectually secured, by preparatory measures for coercion, I have to request that your excellency will be pleased to order a detail from the militia or volunteers of Georgia, to consist of two complete regiments, one of cavalry and one of infantry, to be
held ready to assemble at a moment's warning. Arms, ammunition, and subsistence will be provided at the agency, or at some other suitable point upon the frontier, where it may become necessary to assemble the forces; of which due notice will be previously given.
With great regard and consideration, I have the honor to be,
Edmund P.
Gaines, Maj. Gen. Commanding.
P. S. Pardon my scrawl; I am in haste, and have no officer to make a fair copy.
E. P. G.
His Excellency Governor Troup.
General Gaines to Governor Troup.
Tuesday morning, June 16, 1825.
*** General Gaines will take an early occasion to advise Governor Troup of the result of the intended conferences with the Indians. General Gaines salutes Governor Troup with esteem and respect.
Governor Troup to General Gaines.
Executive Department, Milledgeville, June 16, 1825.
Sir:
In compliance with your requisition of this morning, I have issued orders to hold in readiness two regiments for your service; and have taken measures, as I promised, to furnish as large a proportion of volunteers, infantry and cavalry, as can be
conveniently assembled.
Captain Harrison's troop of cavalry is placed under your orders.
With great consideration,
G. M. Troup, Major General Edmund P. Gaines, Commanding,
offc.
Governor Troup to General Gaines.
Executive Department, Milledgeville, June 18, 1825.
Sir:
The commissioners appointed, under the authority of the Legislature, to examine into the causes of the recent disturbances in the Creek
Nation, and more particularly into the conduct of the agent, as connected with them, will make you acquainted with my instructions. Having, like yourself, no other object than the development of truth, no doubt is entertained that they will receive your confidence, and that, by concert and co-operation, such aids and facilities may be afforded as would be desirable to you. They are particularly charged not to interfere in any deliberations or negotiations which the United States may hold with the Indians for other objects, unless solicited so to do by yourself.
From what has occurred, it is highly important that this Government should be represented at the council to be held at Broken Arrow on the 25th. The many inconsistencies in the conduct of the Indians to be explained and reconciled, arid their recent convocation by the agent, for the purpose of repelling charges made against him by the Governor of this State, at the instance of the Government of the United States, make it indispensable for the attainment of truth and justice that the commissioners should be present there. If for this purpose it should be thought advisable to take with them some of the friendly chiefs, who are deeply interested in vindicating their character against reiterated attacks upon it by the hostile party, it is hoped that this likewise will meet your concurrence, and that they will be placed under your safeguard and projection.
With great consideration and respect.
G. M. Troup.
To Edmund P. Gaines, Major General Commanding.
General Gaines to Governor Troup.
Head-quarters, Eastern Department, Indian springs, June 22, 1825.
Sir:
I have to acknowledge the honor of your excellency's letter of the 18th of the present month, in reference to commissioners appointed under the authority of the Legislature of the Stale of Georgia, to examine into the causes of the recent disturbances in the Creek nation, and more particularly into the conduct of the agent connected with them.
In reply, I have to observe, that, however much I might be aided by the experience, talents, integrity, and honor of the commissioners referred to, on the part of the State of Georgia, I do not feel myself authorized, without new instructions from the Department of War, to comply with the demand contained in their letter of yesterday's date, " to be admitted to a full and free participation of the council of Indians."
The council will be assembled for the purpose of enabling me to discharge important duties confided to me by the Government of the United States, and of which your excellency has been apprized. The Indians appear
disposed to yield to the just and pacific views of the President; but they are still laboring under some delusion and excitement. This would be increased, rather than diminished, by adding to the number of individuals by whom they are to be addressed, or by any addition or multiplication of the matters of controversy to which their
attention may be culled.
I am fully authorized and instructed by the Government of the United States to protect the friendly Indians; to mitigate their calamitous condition; and, in the event of hostilities having ceased on the part of the opposite party, to restore harmony between them. Hostilities have indeed ceased, and I have received satisfactory assurance of an earnest desire on the part of the chiefs of both parties to remain at peace with each other, as well as with the United Slates. It becomes my duty, therefore, td make peace upon just principles, and, consequently, to avoid an Indian war.
My impression of the high responsibility of the high trust reposed in me suggests clearly the propriety of my having the entire control of every individual white man allowed to address the council; and that I should, moreover, have the control of every expression uttered to the council by any citizen or officer of the United States.
Without such control, our council, on both sides, might be involved in confusion; and the benevolent objects of the Government
entrusted to me might, by my improper acceptance of the proposed participation, he deieated. To avert an evil so pregnant with mischievous consequences to the Creek nation, to the peace and honor of my country, and to my own reputation, I must decline the demand of the Georgia commissioners.
Should I be instructed by the proper authority to recognize the proposed co-operation of the Georgia
commissioners, I shall take great pleasure in serving with them.
My whole duty as a public officer is comprised in one single word, which suggests the propriety of the course pursued by me upon this occasion, and that word is obedience
— obedience to the laws and authorities placed over me.
I renew to your excellency assurances of my respectful consideration.
Edmund
Pendleton Gaines, Maj. Gen. U. S. Army Commanding.
His Excellency George M. Troup, Governor of Georgia.
General Gaines to Governor Troup.
Head-quarters, Eastern Department, Creek Nation, July 1, 1825.
Sir:
I had promised myself the pleasure of sending you a detailed account of my conference with the Indian council at this place by this day's mail; but the mail is on the point of closing, and my account is not ready.
I have therefore only to say, that the council here promised to be peaceable, and to settle their differences with the friends and followers of General
McIntosh upon just principles.
They protest against the treaty.
They refuse to receive any part of the consideration money, or to give any other evidence of their acquiescence in the treaty. But they have, in the strongest terms, deliberately declared that they will not raise an arm against the United States, even should an army come to take from them the whole of their country; that they will make no sort of resistance, but will sit down quietly, and be put to death where the bones of their ancestors are deposited; that the world shall know the Muscogee nation so loved their country that they were willing to die in it rather than sell it or leave it.
This was their mode of expression, as interpreted in presence of Benjamin Hawkins, and several other interpreters, who were instructed to state whether or not the public interpreter did his duly.
The council, fully attended, has thus appealed to our magnanimity; an appeal which never can be unavailing when addressed to citizens of the United States.
With great respect, I have the honor to be,
Edmund P. Gaines, Maj. Gen. Commanding.
To Governor Troup.
Governor Troup to General Gaines.
Executive Department, Milledgeville, July 4, 1825.
Sir:
I had the honor to receive your letter of the 1st instant this morning, for which be pleased to accept my thanks.
How does the obstinate refusal to remove consist with the universal consent given at one time to the treaty at the Springs, with the exception of the Tuckaubatchees; or with the report made by Hambly to Colonel Williamson, that he had the yea or nay in the matter, and by the authority of these same people; or with the placid content and good feeling for
McIntosh, manifested in their talk to Colonel Lamar? &c. I much fear that this ardent love of country is of recent origin; we can scarcely believe that the amor patria: is all upon the one side, and that side the hostile one. Will you not be able to discover, in the course of your investigation, that every thing has been said and done by white men to prejudice them against their new home? It is, indeed, a pity that these unfortunate men should be the dupes of the most depraved of our own color, and so far the dupes as to be made to act in direct repugnance to their own best interests; it is more to be lamented that the impostors and knaves cannot be dragged from their hiding-places and punished. Presupposing these unhappy people to continue blind and obdurate, the utmost which your Government can do, in the spirit of magnanimity and forbearance, will be to relinquish the benefit which would result to it from the execution of the treaty, and guaranty to them, for their permanent home, the lands west of the Georgia line. If the Cherokees continue to conduct themselves in like temper, the like provision may be made for them. But how will this accord with the1 recent policy adopted by the United States, or with the substantial and lasting interests of the Indians? In every estimate of humanity, it would be better that this deceitful charm, by which they are bound, should be broken and dispelled; that, after adjustment and reconciliation of differences, the entire body should move without sorrow to the country allotted to them. I am persuaded that no efforts of yours will be unessayed to accomplish this most desirable and holy end
— holy I say, because it is the only one that can consist with their peace, Safety, and happiness. Pardon me for throwing out these hasty and desultory reflections; they have, no doubt, already presented themselves to your own mind.
Presuming that the followers of McIntosh, who almost exclusively occupy the Georgia lands, will remove; and that, in their present unsettled condition, it would be very desirable to them to do so, whilst it would save to the United States the expense of their maintenance and support here, I would feel myself obliged if, consistently with your duty, you would give every encouragement to such dispositions.
With great consideration and regard,
G. M. Troup.
Edmund P. Gaines, Maj. Gen. Commanding, Fort Mitchell.
General Gaines to Governor Troup.
Head-quarters, Eastern Department, Flint River, July 10, 1825.
Sir:
The excessive heat of the weather, added to the many inconveniences and interruptions which I have daily encountered in the course of my visit to the Creek nation, has deprived me of the pleasure of writing to your excellency as often, or as fully, as I have been desirous of doing.
I have now the honor, without entering into details that could afford but little interest, to communicate to you the result of my conferences with the Creek Indians.
After meeting in this State the chiefs of the McIntosh party, and hearing their respective statements, with the evidence for and against each party, I have urged them to an adjustment of differences; to which they have mutually assented.
The McIntosh party demanded retaliation for their fallen chiefs, with the immediate restoration of property taken or destroyed. Their demands were founded upon the eighth article of the treaty of February last, which promises, on our part, protection "to the emigrating party" against the whites and all others; which party they (the
followers of General McIntosh) assume themselves exclusively to be.
Whether this provision of the treaty was, or was not, intended to protect the Creek Indians against themselves, or to protect a Comparatively small part of them against the main body of the nation, were questions which I was happily not called upon to decide; as, in the event of hostilities having subsided, my instructions simply required me to make peace upon just principles, and to require the complainants, as well as the opposing party, to abstain from acts of retaliation or violence.
The reputed hostile party consists of all the principal chiefs, and of nearly forty-nine fiftieths of the whole of the chiefs, headmen, and warriors of the nation; among whom I
recognize many who were in our service during the late war, and who, to my certain knowledge, have been for twenty years past (and I think they have been at all times) as friendly to the United States as any of our Indian neighbors could have been known to be.
I met them at Broken Arrow, the usual place of holding the great council of the nation; I could not, therefore, but view-the supposed hostile party as in fact and in truth the Creek nation, and altogether free of the spirit of hostility ascribed to them.
I have received from them, in council assembled, the most deliberate assurance of their determination to be peaceable and friendly towards their absent people, as well as towards the United States. They regretted the necessity which, they contend, existed for the strong measures they adopted against General
McIntosh and others, who, they affirm, forfeited and lost their lives by having violated a well-known law of the nation.
They have engaged to restore all property taken, and to pay for all that has been destroyed contrary to law; and they have promised a reasonable time to those who have borrowed and run off with money out of their national
treasury to reimburse the same.
The council strongly and unanimously objected to the Late treaty, as the offspring of fraud, entered into
contrary to the known law and determined will of the nation, and by persons not authorized to treat.
They refuse to receive any part of the consideration money due under the treaty, or to give any other evidence of their acquiescence in it.
In conclusion, they expressed the hope that their white friends would pity their deplorable condition, and would do them the justice to reconsider and "undo that which has been wrongfully done."
I have, pursuant to my instructions from the Department of War, endeavored to convince the council, but without success, of the fallacy of their objections to the treaty, and to dissipate their delusive hopes that it can ever be annulled.
I have assured them that, in all our treaties with the Powers of Europe, as well as with near fifty Indian nations, there has not been one instance, to my knowledge, of a treaty having been revoked or annulled, after being duly ratified, except by the free consent of all the parties to it, or by war.
I yesterday met in council, near Joseph Marshall's ferry, the chiefs of the McIntosh party, and communicated to them the proposition of the council at Broken Arrow; to which they have assented.
The chiefs of both parties have solemnly and distinctly assured me that they will remain at peace with each other, and that they will in no case raise an arm against the citizens of the United States. Under these
circumstances, it is my duty to notify your excellency that there will be no occasion for calling into
service any part of the militia or volunteers of the State over which you preside.
The certificate, of which I enclose herewith a copy, (marked A,) added to the declarations of the chiefs in council, of whom Joseph Marshall was principal and interpreter, proves that your excellency has been greatly deceived in supposing that the
McIntosh party ever consented to the survey of the ceded territory being commenced before the time set forth in the treaty for their removal.
This fact, giving altogether a new aspect to the subject of the proposed survey of the land, added to a strong conviction on my mind that the attempt to make the survey would be a positive violation of the treaty, and will, under existing causes of excitement, be certain to produce acts of violence upon the persons or property of unoffending Indians, whom we are bound to protect, it becomes my duty to remonstrate against the surveys being commenced until the Indians shall have removed, agreeably to the treaty. I cannot doubt that the facts disclosed by the accompanying certificate, with the concurrent testimony of the chiefs in council, to which I have adverted, will induce your excellency, without hesitation, to abandon the project of surveying the land before the month of September, 1826.
This would be particularly gratifying to me, as it would relieve me of the painful duty of acting not in concert with the venerated authorities of an enlightened and patriotic member of the United States, to whom I stand pledged by every principle of honor, under the solemnity of an oath, to serve them honestly and faithfully.
With great consideration and regard, I have the honor to be your obedient servant,
Edmund P.
Gaines, Major General United States Army, Commanding.
His Excellency Geo. M. Troup, Governor of Georgia.
A.
Certificate enclosed in the preceding letter.
We certify that we accompanied the express from Governor Troup to General McIntosh, conveying the request that he would allow the survey of the land acquired by the treaty at the Indian Springs to be immediately commenced. General McIntosh replied that he could not grant the request, but would call the chiefs together, and lay it before them; which was never done.
William Edwards,
Joseph Marshall,
At Portess, Upson County, July 9, 1825.
I certify that this is a correct copy of the original certificate, signed in my presence.
E. G. W. Butler, Aid-de-Camp.
Governor Troup to General Gaines.
Executive Department, Milledgeville, July 16, 1825.
Sir:
I have only a moment left to say one word in answer to that part of your letter I had the
honor to receive yesterday which relates to the assent given by McIntosh to the survey of the country. The certificate of Marshall, no matter how procured, is one of the most daring efforts that ever was attempted by malignant
villainy to palm a falsehood upon credulity. Now, sir, that you may be at once undeceived with regard to this trick which has been played off by somebody, I have to assure you that, independently of the assent three times given by
McIntosh, under his own hand, which I have in my possession, this same man (Marshall) has repeatedly declared to me that there was not a dissentient voice from the survey among the friendly chiefs. All the chiefs I have seen have uniformly declared the same; and so they have declared to others, both in and out of council; and for this you have my word of honor, and may have my oath. I very well know, from the late events which have transpired under the eyes of the commissioners, that the oath even of a Governor of Georgia may be permitted to pass for nothing, and that any vagabond of the Indian country may be put in requisition to discredit him; but I assure you, sir, if that oath should not weigh one feather with your Government, it will weigh with the people of this State, who, so far as I have a knowledge of their history, have never refused credence to the word of their Chief Magistrate, and I believe will not to the present one,
unworthy as he may be. Permit me to say, in frankness, that I do not like the complexion of things at all as disclosed
by the commissioners on the part of the State, and sincerely hope that you may never have cause to regret the part you have taken in them. Every prepossession here was in your favor, and it would have given me great pleasure to cherish it in behalf of an officer who had rendered signal service to his country through many a perilous and trying scene.
Very respectfully, your obedient servant,
G. M. Troup.
Edmund P. Gaines, Maj. Gen. Commanding, Indian Springs.
[Next]