Cherokee Phoenix

Cherokees- The last Cherokee Phoenix contains the memorial of the Cherokees to Congress, praying for

Published March, 17, 1830

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Cherokees- The last Cherokee Phoenix contains the memorial of the Cherokees to Congress, praying for protection in their rights, against the encroachments of Georgia. The memorial was written in Cherokee. It has already been signed by three thousand Cherokees, and sent on to Washington. It is still circulating in the nation. The editor of the Phoenix says, this affords `a most positive and practical answer,' to the assertions of Col. M'Kenney, that there is a disposition among the Cherokees to remove.

Some of our readers may think that three thousand is only a small part of the Cherokee Nation. A writer in the last New-England Review, among other strange statements respecting the Cherokees, says, there are about sixty thousand of them. If it is so, three thousand is only a fragment of the nation. If it is so, they are much more formidable people than we had supposed. There might be some cause of alarm, perhaps, among the Georgians. The writer does not tell us what his source of information is. As, however, he says, the remark of William Penn that a `majority of the Cherokees can read their native language,' `cannot be true,' we must suppose he had good data before him, when he made the statement. According to documents published by order of the War Department, in 1826, the number of Cherokees in Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee, was then nine thousand. The statements of William Penn referred to the Cherokees in these limits, or rather to the five thousand Cherokees in Georgia. The statements of the writer in the Review must relate, then, to the same. But if we include the six thousand Cherokees in Arkansas Territory, it will make only fifteen thousand of the whole race. If they now number sixty thousand, the rate of increase since 1826, is unexampled. Have not only William Penn, and Mr. M'Coy, and all the missionaries joined to deceive us--but has the War Department--has the General Government, joined in the deception? Justice to the cause of Missions, perhaps, requires an examination of some of the other statements of this writer, in his last number.--But the documents called for in the Senate, will soon be made public, and they will settle the dispute about the Cherokee civilization.

Connecticut Observer.