Cherokee Phoenix

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Published December, 26, 1830

Page 3 Column 2b

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COMMUNICATED.

Passed Head of Coosa, Cherokee Nation, on the 17th Inst. for Washington City, upwards of forty Choctaw Indians, all on foot. Of this number there were two women. They are accompanied by two whitemen, and intend taking the large Towns of the Southern States on their route. Their conductor represented the mass of the Choctaw people to be in a state of great confusion and dissatisfaction, owing to the late treaty which has been negotiated by the Hon. Secretary of War with their Chiefs, and that three attempts were made by the people to convene a council of the whole nation, for the purpose of remonstrating to Congress against the ratification of the treaty, but their chiefs whose private interests have been advanced in the making of the treaty, tool: steps to thwart their wishes by preventing the convention of the council, and form the ignorance of the common people their intentions were thus frustrated, and in consequence of which, the whole nation exhibits a scene of drunkenness and confusion, ' that three or four hundred Indians had left the nation with disgust and hard feelings against their own chiefs, and the officers of the General Government and declared that they would not stop within the limits of the United States, but would seek protection under the Mexican Government. A large number had strolled off to Natchez, New Orleans and elsewhere--and many of them burnt their houses, destroyed their improvements and killed their cattle, and said that they would accept of no compensation from the United States under the treaty -- and the lives of the chiefs who negotiated the treaty had been strongly threatened.

This party states that since they have been sold out of house and home by their chiefs, trouble and vexation surrounded them, and as it was impossible for them to experience any more joy and happiness upon the land of their birth, they determined upon travelling through the United States as a resort of alleviating the grief with which their nation has been overwhelmed by their treacherous chiefs, and to pass away the days of their trouble by amusing their white brethren with exhibitions of their native dances and ball plays.