Cherokee Phoenix

From the Litchfield Enquirer

Published January, 27, 1830

Page 3 Column 1c-2b

From the Litchfield Enquirer

GEORGIA AND THE CHEROKEES*

In a number of the Georgia Journal of some ten or twelve weeks ago, and confined almost entirely to its own county, (Baldwin) and the neighboring counties of Jones and Putnam, the following matters and things are advertised under the head of Sheriff's Sales, viz.

Fourteen thousand six hundred and twenty-four acres of land, most of it under improvement;

Two hundred and thirty-six horses, oxen, cows, sheep, and geese; and

Two hundred and forty-two negroes and mulattoes; all levied on and to be sold,(time and place being specified,) 'to satisfy sundry executions.'

Besides these, the sheriffs also advertise, and for the same purpose, whole libraries of lawyer books, and doctor books, and road waggons (sic), and gear, and corn, and fodder, and ginned cotton, and seed cotton, and feather beds, and wardrobes, and sideboards, and lockers, and safes, and chairs, and tables, and clocks, and grindstones, and ovens, and rifles, and shot guns, 'c. 'c. 'too tedious to mention.'

INFERENCES.

1. Some of the people in the counties of Baldwin, Jones, and Putnam, Ga. have got 'sort o'+ into debt.

2. After their negroes, stock, and lands shall have been sold; or at farthest, by 'last Christmas come a year,' they must find homes and 'new ground' somewhere else.

3. Having become of 'no account upon the yerth (sic),' as to property; without money, and 'very like,' without credit; they will be unable to purchase.

4. Their only prospect of ever obtaining another plantation, therefore, 'nayturally (sic)' rests on the possibility 'as how' they may draw a prize in some future LAND LOTTERY. But,

5. If the State of Georgia has no more undivided territory to be billeted out among the people in that way, she cannot make another Lottery.

* * * * * * *

Again-6. If there be such a 'smart chance' of property to be sold for debt, in some few of the central, and most fertile counties in the State, must it not be a 'heap sorrier' times 'up in Habersham' and away down in the piney woods! Hence,

7. If those who, in such numbers, are to be ejected from house and home by legal process, cannot try for a 'quarter section' in another lottery, 'may be if they don't' get up a fight against the government, which will not be quelled by a double draft of patrollers, nor their whole muster roll, even.

8. Such being the danger of insurrection, and no penitentiary now to make the 'run-mad,' poverty-struck population 'be hush', the Legislature must take the 'running start' of them, and authorize another Land Lottery at all events.

9. But before the Legislature can authorize another Lottery, they must find the land to make it of.

10. This land must be found within the 'chartered limits' of their state: and

11. As they have got the lands of the Creeks, already, they must of course, now take the territory owned and held by the Cherokees.

12. If 'starvation has no laws,' and Georgia folks want the Cherokee land 'so bad;' the conclusion is, THEY MUST, AND WILL HAVE IT.

All this logic mout (sic) be called 'powerful weak' by a Georgian; but an Indian has a right to 'reckon,' though he cannot be a 'competent witness;' and one Indian does reckon, that if there is such an amount of property now going, going, going, gone, under the hammer, then Georgia has some real knockdown arguments by which to enforce her claims to the lands of the Cherokees.

UNCAS.

________

* Written last April.

+ Most of these quotations are expressions peculiar to the Southern people, in Georgia and elsewhere.