Cherokee Phoenix
and Indians' Advocate
Vol. 1 No. 51
Wednesday, March 4, 1829
Pg. 2 Col. 4b
RIDGE'S FERRY
Feb. 22, 1829
Mr. Boudinott,
Sir:- William B. Wofford of Georgia, I am informed has started a claim
in the legislature of Georgia to a part of our territory, from Sowanny (sic)
Old Town, on the Chattahoochy River, to the Six's on the Hightower, and down
the river to its intersection with the western charter line of Georgia, embracing
all, or nearly all the District of Hightower; and on his motion, Gov. Forsythe
is instructed to obtain proofs of the validity of this claim, under the treaty
of the Indian Springs, concluded with Gen. M'Intosh of the Creek Nation, who
ceded the whole of the Creek lands in the chartered limits of Georgia. I am
also informed that affidavits or dispositions, all taken from citizens of Georgia,
and the frontier, to corroborate the claim, as having in their recollection,
a treaty concluded by the Cherokees with the Creeks, by which the former surrendered
the lands embraced by the aforementioned claim.
Be it known, therefore, to said Wofford, who is grossly ignorant of treaty
stipulations, and to deponents on this subject, and to all whom it may concern
that a treaty of boundary was several years ago concluded by said parties, Gen.
McIntosh being commissioner on the part of the Creeks, and that a copy
of it is deposited in the War Department at Washington-that the Indian Spring
treaty of McIntosh, which cost him his life, is annulled and made void by the
subsequent treaty of Washington between the United States and Creeks, and in
that treaty the boundary line between the Creeks and the Cherokees is distinctly
acknowledged in writing, and that the United States' surveyors followed the
line from Buzzard Roost on the Chattahoochy River towards the mouth of Will's
Creek on the Coosa River, to the Forty five mile point on said line as provided
for by the Treaty of Washington. For further particulars, I request these
claimants to be undeceived by the Hon. M'Pherson Berrien Senator of Georgia,
and Mr. Cobb. who were representing the State of Georgia at the ratification
of said treaty.
JOHN RIDGE.