Cherokee Phoenix

Missionaries- Where are the Missionaries that were lately employed in learning the Cherokees to read

Published November, 11, 1832

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Missionaries- Where are the Missionaries that were lately employed in learning the Cherokees to read and write? They are now in the Georgia penitentiary, in company with felons, and they themselves are treated as such. Why were they put in prison? Because they would not swear to support the laws of Georgia; or, in other words, because they would not swear to join in and help persecute the Cherokee Indians.

It seems to us a far fetched infliction of cruelty to compel the imprisoned missionaries to make the Lottery wheel which is to distribute the Cherokee lands among the merciless Georgians. At any rate, it shows the spirit by which the Georgians are actuated; a spirit of wanton outrage and persecution, even where no possible benefit can result to them from the act. The missionaries, however, are not first who have been forced to yield themselves the unwilling instruments of oppression; and the Georgians are not the first who have played practical witticisms upon suffering victims who were by far their betters. The Spanish Inquisition, and the History of the Martyrs, furnish many such examples. The day of retribution will come, we fear, and the missionaries themselves may yet live to see it, and possible to administer relief to some of those who are now their persecutors.

P. S. When we speak of the Georgians in this connection, we mean only their public agents, and so many of the people as concur in their measures of oppression. ____Jour. of Com.