CHEROKEE PHOENIX
Wednesday October 8, 1828
Volume 1 No. 32
Page 2 Col. 5b-
Page 3 Col. 1a

   From the New-York Observer

 Messrs. Editors.- The following is an extract of a letter dated "Hopefield, (Osage Nation,) July 9, 1828,"  from Rev. William B. Montgomery; who is stationed at that place:

 "The past Spring has been a more than usually eventful one to the Osages.  Our principal settlers, who thought they had forever buried the tomahawk even with regard to Indians, now stand responsible for the killing of five white men in a single day.- But, happily, the transaction was one for which they are not likely to be blamed, at least in this country.  At 10 o'clock, on the 15th of June, this place was alarmed by the report of guns in rapid succession, a short distance beyond the fields, on the opposite side of the river.  The next moment brought intelligence that The Bird, one of the earliest settlers, was lying in the road killed and scalped.- The men, immediately seizing their guns, crossed over and set off in pursuit of the party, supposed of course to be Indians.  In this there was no difficulty, for the murders, as injudicially (sic) deprived of common sense, kept together and were overtaken in open country, and the whole of them, amounting to five persons, were destroyed, without loss to the Osages.  The return of the latter after an absence of about two hours, exhibiting in triumph the scalps of those wretched men, and their outcry and firing when they arrived at the spot where the man was killed, presented a full specimen of barbarous manners.  The lamentations of the widow and children over the corpse were of course more vehement than even their ordinary mournings.  Whether the Osages had any suspicion with regard to the murderers being white men till after the termination of the battle, I do not know-but such they were soon ascertained to be.  Three brothers and two other relatives, who alledged (sic) that their father had been killed by the Osages on Red River, came to seek revenge, and such was the result.- Some of our people expressed a regret at having killed their fellow creatures; -but plead, as white people would do, the urgency of the occasion.

 Another interesting occurrence to us as well as to the Indians, is the transfer of the country Westward from Fort Smith as far as the Neeslio, to the Cherokees, by a treaty recently concluded at Washington.  The removal of the Osages to their reservation, seventy miles North of this, hitherto delayed from year to year, will now be carried into effect, - and the doubtful question with regard to the forbearance with which one tribe of Indians will witness the best of their lands put into the hands of another, with whom also they were not long space at war, will soon be determined.  How well the United States may be able to keep the peace amongst these people, I cannot say: but I am confident that unless some judicious measures are taken to enable and induce the Osages to cultivate more land than they are likely to do if left to themselves, nothing but most distressing want and wretchedness can result from crowding them together."
     Yours respectfully,
      John Montgomery.

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Send comments or questions to: George Frizzell
Special Collections . Hunter Library . Western Carolina University . Cullowhee, NC 28723 . 828-227-7474