The Cherokees were now perfectly peace able, industrious and rapidly growing civilized in the genuine sense; and they did good service to the United States in the War of 1812. In 1810 they abolished the clan system and blood feuds. In 1820 they organized a regular civil ized government, including a legislature with paid members, and adopted a code of laws. In 1827 they took the name of The Cherokee Nation, and framed a constitution. In 1825 the Cherokee Sequoyah (q.v.) invented an alphabet of 85 letters, one for each sound in Cherokee, and it was officially adopted by the Cherokee government. In 1827 the first Indian press north of Mexico was established, and on 21 Feb. 1828 the first number of the Cherokee Phcenix was issued at New Echota, one-half printed in the new alphabet. But the nation's time had come, hastened by the discovery of gold, which they worked successfully. Georgia, on 24 April 1802, as consideration for ceding western lands to the United States, had stipu lated that the Indian titles to lands within the State should be extinguished "as soon as it could be done peaceably and on reasonable The government did its best, but found that it had promised the impossible. In 1808 both the Lower (hunters) and the Upper (farmers) sent deputations to Washington. The former expressed a desire to remove to the virgin hunting-grounds of the West, the latter to retain their own. The former, there fore, on 8 July 1817, were granted an exchange of lands to the West. This left about 5,000,000 acres of Georgia in the hands of the Cherokees, and 4,000,000 in those of the Creeks, or about 14,000 square miles in all, nearly a quarter the present area of the State,— the whole north western triangle above the line of Atlanta (which was Cherokee land) and Gainesville. In 1819 Georgia began to grow impatient, and memorialized the President to carry out the agreement of 1802. But the remaining Cher okees loved their beautiful and salubrious country, which they had covered with improve ments; they had not much more in that moun tain country than they needed; and the reports from Indian Territory were that their brethren were being badly harassed by the wild tribes of the plains. They refused to sell as a nation; by all Indian law, confirmed by the United States, no individual could sell, as the land belonged to the tribe; and to prevent sales they dared not disallow, the Cherokees in 1820 passed a law making such sale a capital offense in any mem ber of the tribe. The Creeks duplicated this action in 1824. There was therefore no way for Georgia to rid herself of these two huge Indian states within her borders except by naked vio lence in defiance of United States treaties. She aid so first with the Creeks, 1826-32, openly defying the United States, and proclaiming the separate sovereignty of Georgia (see CREEKS; Nuunricariori) ; then in 1828-30 (see title below) passed laws extinguishing the govern ment of the Cherokees and parceling out their land. The President (Jackson) would give no help, the Supreme Court said it could not; but the Cherokees clung desperately to their land even under the new legislation. Finally, on 29 Dec. 1835, a small fraction of the tribe, headed by a few influential men, were induced by an emissary of the United States to sign a cession of all tribal lands, in exchange for others in Indian Territory and the sum of $5,700,000, and agree to entire removal within three years. This was of course perfectly invalid; the leaders were immediately assassinated, and were execrated as bribed traitors. There is, however, no reason to doubt their good faith to the nation. One of them was the still remem bered Elias Boudinot, editor of the Cherokee Phoenix, who was educated at Cornwall, Conn., and married a Connecticut wife. They proba bly thought the nation could make better terms by yielding than by holding out. The bulk of the tribe, however, repudiated the treaty, and, refusing to go in 1838, were deported by an armed United States force, after a strong re sistance and some bloodshed. Many hundreds,
however, escaped on the march, lingered about in the woods, and finally concentrated near the Great Smoky Mountains in western North Carolina, where about 1,400, called the Eastern Band, still live, mainly in Swain, Graham, and Jackson counties. Of those who went, thou sands are said to have died on the march or from resultant hardships. The number de ported is unknown: probably between 10.000 and 20,000.
The chief of the tribe for nearly 40 years (1828-66) was the able John Ross (q.v.). or Kooweskoowee, a Scotch half-breed; and after fighting the removal to the last, when the crisis came he superintended it. When the tribe had gathered in Indian Territory it resumed its form of government and made Tahlequah the capital; and in 1845 resumed publication of a national paper, the Cherokee Advocate—which. however, was suspended in 1854, the present paper of the name dating only from 1870. The nation was doing well till the Civil War came as a blight. The Cherokees were almost equally divided in sentiment; their treatment by Georgia had been capped by that of the national government, and after all they were Southerners by birth and industriLl sympathies, and slave holders. Each section furnished a large body of troops to its chosen side, and in consequence each side in turn ravaged the country as a hostile land, and with the consideration usually shown by whites to Indian property; and the land was almost swept bare. After the war they made a new treaty with the United States, freeing their slaves and admitting them to full citizenship in the tribe: and in 1866 they ab sorbed the remnant of the Delawares. Since then their land has been opened up by railroads, despite their protests. The case of Cherokee Nation v. Southern Kansas Railway, 1889, de cided that the United States had right to grant eminent domain through their territory, and in .fact four trunk lines traverse it. In 1892 they sold their great western extension, known as the Cherokee Outlet, and it forms the larger part of northern Oklahoma. Their region is the whole of Indian Territory north of the Arkansas. Their government was by an elected principal chief, and a legislature with two chambers. The open policy of the United Statesgovern ment to substitute allotment in severalty for tribal ownership as fast as possible, and it an end to the anomaly of independent tribes with a figment of sovereignty which only makes hardship to government, tribe and innocent outsiders alike went into effect, 30 lune 1914, when the tribal government was abolished. No tribe was better fitted for the change than the Cherokee; generations of good living and civil ization having not only tamed and elevated the Indian character in them, hut greatly modified even the Indian physiognomy; there are scores of full-blooded Indian ladies in Tahlequah scarcely distinguished from whites save for duskiness of skin. A thorough system of public schools among them has been one of the chief instrumentalities in refining both face and char acter at once.
The 1915 annual report of the superintendent for the five civilized tribes stated there was contained in the Cherokee nation a total of 4,420,068 acres, of which 22,880 acres were re served for town sites, railroad rights of way and other purposes ; 4,346,203 acres were allotted to 40,193 citizens and freemen; and the re mainder, consisting of 50,905 acres, was sold except an 80-acre tract which was involved in litigation, and a 226-acre tract included in what is known as Big Lake, the title to which had not yet been definitely determined. The tribal affairs of the Cherokee nation were completed with the exception of the disposition of the 306 acres above mentioned, by the delivery of ap proximately 750 deeds; the completion of the per capita and equalization payments to citizens and freedmen of the nation; and payment of the amounts due, to citizens and freedmen enrolled under the act of 1 Aug. 1914.