INDIANS

SUPREME COURT OF THE U. STATES

THE CHEROKEE NATION

vs.

THE STATE OF GEORGIA.

BILL IN CHANCERY.

To the Honorable Chief Justice, ' the Associate Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States, sitting in chancery.

[CONTINUED]

They have understood that some of their white brethren, citizens of the United States, have sometimes indulged in speculative objections to their title to their lands, on the ground that they were mere savages, roving over the surface of the earth in quest of game, having never appropriated the soil to themselves by incorporating their own labor with it, and turning it to the purpose which the God of nature intended it, of supporting the greatest practicable amount of human life. Even if this hypothesis of fact were true, how such an objection could stand with those solemn treaties by which their boundaries have been designated and their lands within those boundaries guaranteed to them by the United States, they find themselves utterly unable to comprehend. Nor have they yet been informed how their white brethren have ascertained that this earth was designed only for the purpose of agriculture, and that no title could be acquired to any portion of it in any other manner than by actually digging in its bowels, nor how digging into one part of it can give a title to hundreds and thousands of miles at a distance from the part dug. They are still more confounded in attempting to reconcile this theory of a title derivable only from cultivation with the alleged title by discovery arising simply from sailing along the coast at several miles distance from the shore, without even touching the land; and finally, they are equally perplexed in reconciling this theory with the title which the U. States themselves assert to the untouched millions of acres which lie between their settlements and the Pacific Ocean, over which their people have never even chased their game, nor seen them from the distant mountain tops. But whatever foundation there may be for this theory, so unintelligible to your complainants for they are no longer savages, nor heathens in the hunter state. Under the promised 'patronage, aid, and good neighborhood' of the United States, they have become civilized Christians, and agriculturists, and have no more land than is sufficient for their subsistence and that of their posterity, and this land they hold under repeated, solemn, and still subsisting guaranties by treaty with the United States. They do not mean to allege that they have all become perfectly civilized, nor all public professors of Christianity, nor all agriculturists: but in all these respects they are willing that a comparison shall be instituted between them and their white brethren around them, and they are very little apprehensive of suffering by such comparison when instituted before this honorable court. If practicing justice, and the doing to others as we would have them do unto us, be the tests of civilization and Christianity, and the proportion of the cultivators of the soil to the whole number of the population be the test of the agricultural character of a nation, with reference to the theory in question, they apprehend that they have at least as little reason as their white brethren around them to shrink from such tests.

These complainants show farther unto your honors, that by the Constitution of the United States (to which they pray leave to refer as part of this bill) it is, among other things, provided that all treaties made, or to be made, under the authority of the United States, shall compose a part of the supreme law of the land, and it is further thereby declared, that the judges in every state, shall be bound thereby, anything in the constitution or laws to the contrary notwithstanding.

That by the same Constitution it is further declared, that no state shall pass any law impairing the obligation of contracts: and these complainants aver, that all the treaties aforesaid are contracts of the highest character, and of the most solemn obligation.

The same Constitution further provides, that the Congress of the United States shall have power to regulate commerce with the Indian tribes; a power which, from its nature, is exclusive, and consequently forbids all interference by any of the states.

These complainants further show unto your honors, that, in execution of this latter power, the Congress of the United States have, from time to time, passed various acts for the regulation of that commerce, and among others the act of 1802, 'to regulate trade and intercourse with the Indian tribes, and to preserve peace on the frontiers:' to all of which these complainants beg leave to refer, and to pray that they also may be taken as part of this bill. The great object of these laws is to consecrate the boundary arranged by treaty between the Indians and the citizens of the United States; and every provision is marked with the clearest recognition of the sovereignty of the Indians, and their exclusive right to give and to execute the law within that boundary.

These complainants show farther unto your honors, that, in violation of these treaties, of the Constitution of the United States, and of the act of congress aforesaid, the state of Georgia, one of the United States of America, at a session of her legislature, held in December, in the year 1828, passed an act which received the assent of the Governor of that state, on the 20th day of that month and year, entitled 'An act to add the territory lying within this state and occupied by the Cherokee Indians, to the Counties of Carroll, De Kalb, Gwinnett, Hall, and Habersham and to extend the laws of this state, over the same, and for other purposes:' a copy of which act, authenticated under the seal of the said state, these defendants herewith exhibit; and pray that it may be taken and considered as part of this their bill. That afterwards, to wit: in the year 1829, the legislature of the said state of Georgia passed another act, which received the assent of the Governor on the 19th December, of that year, entitled 'An act to add the territory lying within the chartered limits of Georgia, now in the occupancy of the Cherokee Indians to the counties of Carroll, De Kalb, Gwinnett, Hall and Habersham, and to extend the laws of this state over the same, and to annul all laws and ordinances made by the Cherokee Nation of Indians, and to repeal the 9th section of the act of 1820, on this subject,' of which last act a copy duly authenticated is also herewith exhibited, and these complainants pray that it may be considered as a part of this their bill.

That by these laws the state of Georgia professes to parcel out the territory, which belongs exclusively to these complainants, and is guarantied to them by the aforesaid treaties, among the several counties named in the title of the laws, to extend all the laws of Georgia, both civil and criminal, over the whole of the said territory: to abolish all the Cherokee laws and ordinances therein; and to declare, that in all cases of indictment and civil suits, it shall not be lawful for the defendant Cherokee to justify under any of these laws; and the courts of the state are forbidden to permit these laws to be given in evidence; to make it unlawful for the Cherokees to attempt to prevent the individuals of their own nation from enrolling for emigration, under the penalty of indictment and punishment before the state courts of Georgia; to make it unlawful in the Cherokee Nation to prevent the individuals of that nation from selling or ceding their lands to the United States, for the use of the State of Georgia, (whereas your complainants aver, that by the Cherokee laws, there is no such thing as individual title to land in the Cherokee country, but the whole of these lands, according to their laws, belong to the entire nation, as a nation, and can be sold or ceded by them only in their nation capacity;) to make it murder in the Executive, ministerial, or judicial officers of the Cherokee Nation to inflict sentence of death, though in conformity with their own laws, and declaring all those officers, so concerned in carrying their own laws into effect, principals, and subjecting all to indictment therefore, and death by hanging; extending the jurisdiction of the justices of peace of the State of Georgia into the Cherokee territory, and authorizing the officers who shall carry their process for service, to call out the militia of the state to overcome resistance; and finally declaring that no Indian; or descendant of any Indian, residing within the Cherokee Nation of Indians, shall be deemed a competent witness in any court of the state of Georgia, in which a white person may be a party except such person as resides within the said nation.

These complainants aver that both these laws of the State of Georgia are null and void, because they are repugnant to the aforesaid treaties which are yet subsisting and in full force between the United States and the Cherokee Nation; because they are repugnant to the Constitution of the United States, in the provision before referred to as contained in the instrument; and because they are repugnant to a law of the United States, to wit: the law before mentioned as having been passed in the year 1802, entitled, 'an act to regulate trade and intercourse with the Indian tribes and to preserve peace on the frontiers.'

These complainants show further unto your honors, that by the aforesaid Treaty of Hopewell, the Cherokees acknowledged themselves to be under the protection of the United States of America, and of no other sovereign whatever. That a number of white man, citizens of the United States, having intruded into the Indian territory beyond the boundary established by the treaty, President Washington, in his message before mentioned to the Senate of the United States, adverting to that fact, declared it to be his determination to execute the power entrusted to him by the Constitution of the United States, to carry that treaty into faithful execution by the removal of the white intruders, unless a new boundary should be arranged by treaty, excluding them from the Indian territory those intrusive settlements; thereby avowing his opinion, that, as the President of the United States, he possessed the power and was constrained by his official duty to enforce in behalf of the Cherokees, the protection secured to them by that treaty.

These complainants show farther unto your honors, that by the second article of the treaty of Holston, before referred to, the Cherokee Nation again acknowledged themselves to be under the protection of the United States of America, and of no other sovereign whatsoever; and stipulated that they would not hold any treaty with any foreign power, individual States, or with individuals of any State; a stipulation with which they have faithfully complied on their part, and that protection has been, in the main, extended to them, as well as was perhaps practicable, down to the year 1829.

They show farther unto your honors, that they are informed and believe, that, in the year 1802, the State of Georgia ceded to the United States a large body of lands alleged to be within her chartered limits, upon several conditions, one of which was, that the United States would extinguish, for the use of Georgia, the Indian title to the lands within her remaining limits, 'as soon as it could be done peaceably and on reasonable terms.' The State of Georgia thus admitting that the Indian title was a subsisting title, which remained to be extinguished, and that it could properly be extinguished only peaceably, and on reasonable terms, by the United States. This stipulation must be considered as referring to the uniform practice which had always prevailed in extinguishing that title, and to be construed and expounded by that practice; and that uniform practice had been to extinguish the Indian title by peaceable treaties held with the Indian nation in their national character, in which, terms were offered, rejected, or modified, at the pleasure of those nations, nothing being forced upon them. That the Cherokee Nation went on amicably to meet the wishes of the United States and of the State of Georgia, by ceding, from time to time, as much of their lands as they could spare, until by the cession of 1819, they had reduced their territory into a small compass as their own convenience would bear; and they, then, accordingly resolved to cede no more.- That the State of Georgia, although she already possesses millions of acres more than her people can cultivate, becoming impatient for the lands owned by your complainants, and forgetting her own stipulation with the United States, that the Indian title was to be extinguished peaceably and on reasonable terms, pressed upon the United States, (as your complainants are informed and believe,) the obligation of extinguishing that title at once, with an intimation that she expected the application of force to the Indians, if necessary for the accomplishment of her object, and with a menace that if the United States withheld it, she would herself apply that force and expel your complainants from their possessions. In the course of that correspondence the State of Georgia, (as your complainants are informed and believe,) reproached the United States with unfairness in those measures which had been so humanely adopted to civilize your complainants, and to turn them from the hunter state to those of agriculturists, and herdsmen, under a regular government and laws of their own, which, she alleged, had had a tendency to attach them to the soil, and to disincline them to cede it for the use of Georgia; and although, in her capacity of one of the States of the U.S. she had been a party to all the treaties which had those her measures in view, and had reaped the fruits of these treaties, by the large cessions which she had, from time to time received of the Indian lands, and although she had been also a party to all those acts of Congress which had looked to the accomplishment of the same humane and benevolent objects, from the time of the adoption of the present Constitution of the United States until she had gained the last cession under the treaty of 1819 she now affected to consider those measures, consecrated as they were by the best patriots of the United States, and sanctioned by herself, as a tissue of hypocritical pretenses of benevolence and philanthropy, which had no other object in view than to disappoint her own just hopes of engrossing to herself all the Indian lands within her remaining limits. These complainants have understood and believe, that Presidents Monroe and Adams, in succession, understanding the articles of cession and agreement between the State of Georgia and the United States, in the year 1802, as binding the United States to extinguish the Indian title so soon only as could be done peaceably and on reasonable terms, refused, themselves to apply force to these complainants, or to permit to be applied by the State of Georgia, to drive them from their possession; but, on the contrary, avowed their determination to protect these complainants by force, if necessary, and to fulfil the guaranty given to them by the aforesaid treaties.

That the State of Georgia, disappointed in this her unjust design upon these complainants and their territory, resorted in the next place, to the scheme of her legislation, before set forth, expecting, as your complainants believe, to accomplish by the morel force of her laws, that expulsion of them from their territory which she had been prevented by the just and honorable interference of the United States from effecting, or attempting to effect, at the point of the bayonet. Your complainants, unwilling to resist by force of arms, if it could be avoided, the unjust and unlawful pretension of the State of Georgia to parcel out their territory among her neighboring counties, and to extend her laws by compulsion over them, have applied to the present Chief Magistrate of the United States to make good the protection pledged to them by treaty with the United States; but, to their great surprise and regret, have received or (sic) answer from that Chief Magistrate, that the President of the United States has no power to protect them against the laws of Georgia.

Your complainants beg leave to show farther, unto your honors, that, at the last session of the Congress of the United States, an act was passed entitled 'An act to provide for an exchange of lands with the Indians residing in any of the States or Territories and for their removal west of the river Mississippi.' By this act, the President of the United States is authorized to cause so much of any Territory belonging to the United States, west of the river Mississippi not included in any State or organized Territory, and to which the Indian title has been extinguished, as he may judge necessary, to be divided into a suitable number of districts, for the reception of such tribes or nations of Indians as may choose to exchange the lands where they now reside and remove there; but there is a proviso annexed to this act, which declared, that nothing therein contained shall be construed as authorizing or directing the violation of any existing treaty between the United States and any of the Indian tribes.

Under this act, overtures have been made to your complainants to give them in exchange for their lands, other to the west of the Mississippi. These overtures, as it was their right to do, they have declined. They prefer to remain on their present lands, and to insist on their rights under their various treaties with the United States.

As a sovereign and independent state, it would be enough for them to say, that they do not choose to make the proposed exchange, without assigning any other reason therefore- then their non-pleasure. But as this offer of exchange has been held up before the world, as an evidence of great humanity towards these complainants and as the happiest means that could be devised, to save them from that extinction, which it is supposed that Indian tribes are fated to experience, from the approach and 'good neighborhood' of white population; and as your complainants are not disposed to be considered, either as so stupid as to be blind to their own best interests, or so contumacious as to resist, through mere obstinacy, the desire so strongly expressed by their brethren of Georgia for their expulsion; they beg leave to state in a few words the motives that have induced them to decline this offer of exchange.

In the first place, the territory which they now inhabit is wellknown to them, and has been found well adapted to all their wants. It has been opened, improved, settled, built upon, and placed in a condition for agriculture, which they are now prosperously carrying on. It is well supplied with wood and water, enjoys a salubrious climate, and every convenience of commerce and intercourse suited to a civilized people composed of farmers, planters, mechanics, and herdsmen. The ports of the United States are all within the reach of these exchanges which their pursuits make necessary for their prosperity. They have schools established for the education of their children, and the means of furnishing them with instructors from among the citizens of the United States: they have places of religious worship established, in which the Christian religion is peaceably taught by Missionaries and Pastors, easily supplied from the United States, and the word of God is prospering among them; they have learned to relish the manners and pursuits of civilized life, and if their treaties with the United States shall be faithfully executed, they have continually brightening prospects of becoming, speedily, as civilized, as enlightened, and as Christian as the best portion of their white brethren. This country, too, so fraught with every convenience and advantage to them, and so endeared to them by the great and multifarious benefits which they have already received, and are still receiving from it, is consecrated in their affections from having been, immemorially, the property and residence of their ancestors, and from containing, now, the graves of their fathers, relatives, and friends. Such are the grounds of their attachment to this country, and of their unwillingness to relinquish it.

On the other hand, they know little of the country offered to them in exchange; but the little they do now of it, convinces them that instead of being the Paradise which it has sometimes been described to be, it will become, if they except it, the grave not only of their civilization and Christianity, but of their entire nation itself. In the first place, they are by no means satisfied that the Indian title to it has been extinguished. But let it be admitted that it is so, those who have visited that country represent it as being for the most part barren, there being but, comparatively a small portion of it fit for agriculture. It is represented, and they believe it, to be destitute, in the far greater part, both of wood and water, and therefore wholly unfit for a settlement of planters, farmers, and herdsmen. It is, also, said to be sickly. It is far removed from all intercourse with the ports and markets of the United States. And these complainants, if they could be tempted to remove, would have all their labors to commence anew in that distant wilderness, without any hope of enumeration. But the worst feature of the country is yet to come. It is surrounded and infested with fierce and powerful nations of Indians, in the wildest state of savage barbarity, who claim that country as their own, and wage a war of extermination on all the new tribes who enter it, and whom they consider as intruders. In evidence of this fact, these complainants beg leave to state, that their Cherokee brethren, who emigrated to the west of the Mississippi under the patronage and sanction of the President, in the years 1808,1809, and subsequently, under the treaty of 1817 before mentioned, were authorized, in the first place, to settle on the river Arkansas, in the territory of the same name, where they were assured, by the 5th article of the treaty last mentioned, that they should be entitled to all the immunities and privileges of all the treaties which had before been made with their nation. But the white population again growing up to them, they were required to remove again. This second removal was effected by the treaty, made at Washington on the 6th of May, 1828, between the United States and the Cherokees west of the Mississippi, to which these complainants refer, and pray that it may be taken as part of this Bill. The object of this treaty, as is alleged in the preamble is to provide for those Indians 'a permanent home, and which shall under the most solemn guarantee of the United States, be and remain, theirs forever.' The second article of that treaty runs thus: 'The United States agree to possess the Cherokees and to guarantee it to them forever, and that guarantee is hereby solemnly pledged, of seven millions of acres of land, to be bounded as follows:' [The boundaries are then given by that article.] By the third article, the United States stipulate to remove all white intruders and others, and to keep them off 'so that no obstacle arising out of a white population, or a population of any other sort, shall exist to annoy the Cherokees.' On the faith of these stipulations their Cherokee brethren removed to their new and permanent

home, where, in the language of the 8th article of the treaty, they were 'to enjoy the repose and blessings of such a state, in the future:' and the consequence, has been, as your complainants are informed and believe, that they have been delivered up to the tomahawks of the Osages, Sioux, and other savage tribes, with whom they are engaged in constant scenes of killing and scalping, and have to wage a war of extermination with more powerful tribes, before whom these complainants have no hope but that they must ultimately fall. Such is the region of country to which these complainants have been invited, and such 'the repose and blessings' which they have to anticipate from such an exchange. The only consequences which they could anticipate from it as inevitable, would be, first their relapse into all the habits of savage life in their own defence, and, finally and speedily, the dissolution and extinguishment of their entire nation.

With these views of the subject, they have decidedly rejected the offer of exchange, as they and a right to do; and as they had, at one time, flattered themselves that the laws of Georgia were merely held over them in terror, with the view of constraining them to accept that exchange, they had hoped that so soon as their firm and final resolution to reject it was made known, the State of Georgia would suffer those laws to fall as a dead letter, without any farther attempt to enforce them in practice. But in this hope they have been disappointed. In the face, and in defiance of all the treaties that have been referred to, and in equal defiance of the Constitution of the United States, and of the authority of the Congress of the United States, as expressed in the before mentioned act of 1802, the territory of the complainants, consecrated by so many sanctions, has been violated, and the aforesaid laws of Georgia of 1828 and 1829 have been let loose upon them in all their terrors; and that State has declared its determination to continue to enforce them upon these complainants, and upon their territory, so long as these complainants shall continue to occupy that territory. But while these laws are enforced in a manner the most harassing and vexations to your complainants, the design seems to have been deliberately formed to carry no one of these cases to final decision in the State courts, with the view, as your complainants believe and therefore allege, to prevent any one of the Cherokee defendants from carrying these cases to the Supreme Court of the United States, by writ of error for review, under the 25th section of the Act of Congress of the United States, passed in the year 1789, and entitled 'An act to establish the Judicial Courts of the United States.' The constituted authorities of the State of Georgia seem to be under the impression that your complainants have no access to the jurisdiction of this honorable court, but by writ of error from the Supreme Court of the United States, to the final decision of the highest court of the State of Georgia, under the aforesaid section of the Judiciary Act of the United States. The plan adopted, therefore, to deprive these complainants of the benefit of this jurisdiction, seems to be, and these complainants so believe and charge it to be, to harass them by the constant institution of judicial proceedings in the State courts, without carrying any one of them to final adjudication. In proof of the fact, that the design has been formed to deprive these complainants of the benefit of the jurisdiction of this honorable court, they refer to a charge delivered on the ______ day of ______ last, to the Grand Jury of the ______ Co. in the State of Georgia by the Hon. Augustus S. Clayton, the Judge of the Western District of the State of Georgia; and to a message of his excellency George R. Gilmer, the Governor of the State of Georgia, delivered to the Legislature of that State, on the day ______ of last past, which are annexed hereto ' which your complainants pray may be taken and considered as part of this bill. In illustration of the unjust, illegal, and oppressive manner in which the said laws of Georgia are enforced upon them; and, at the same time, in illustration of the mode adopted to deprive these complainants and their people of the benefit of a writ of error to the final decision of the highest court of the State of Georgia, under the 25th section of the act of Congress of the United States, passed in the year 1789, and entitled 'An act to establish the Judicial Courts of the United States.' The constituted authorities of the State of Georgia seem to be under the impression that your complainants can have no access to the jurisdiction of this honorable court, but by writ of error from the Supreme Court of the United States, to the final decision of the highest court of the State of Georgia, under the aforesaid section of the Judiciary Act of the United States. The plan adopted, therefore, to deprive these complainants of the benefit of this jurisdiction, seems to be, and these complainants so believe and charge it to be, to harass them by the constant institution of judicial proceedings in the State courts, without carrying any one of them to final adjudication. In proof of the fact, that the design has been formed to deprive these complainants of the benefit of the jurisdiction of this honorable court, they refer to a charge delivered on the ____ day of _____ last, to the Grand Jury of ____ Co. in the State of Georgia by the Hon. Augustus S. Clayton, the Judge of the Western District of the State of Georgia; and to a message of his excellency George R. Gilmer, the Governor of the State of Georgia, delivered to the Legislature of that State, on the day _____ of last past, which are annexed hereto, ' which your complainants pray may be taken and considered as part of this bill. In illustration of the unjust, illegal, and oppressive manner in which the said laws of Georgia are enforced upon them, and, at the same time, in illustration of the mode adopted to deprive these complainants and their people of the benefit of a writ of error to the final decision of the highest court of the State of Georgia, under the 25th section of the Judiciary Act, aforesaid, these complainants beg leave to lay before your honors the following cases, which have actually occurred.

In the autumn of the year 1829, one Jesse Stansal, a white man, entered the Cherokee territory and stole a horse, the property of one of the Cherokee people; he was arrested within the Cherokee territory, tried for the offence before a regularly constituted court of the Cherokee Nation, found guilty by the jury, and, in strict conformity with the Cherokee laws, was sentenced by the court to be whipped; which sentence was carried into effect. For this act, done within their own territory according to their laws, the Cherokee judge and jury were indicted by the Grand Jury of Hall County, in the State of Georgia, at the March term last of that court, for trespass, battery, and false imprisonment, alleged to have been committed on the said Jesse Stansal, contrary to the laws of the state of Georgia, and the good order, peace and dignity thereof. On this indictment, a warrant was issued by judge Clayton, the judge of the court of Hall County against John Saunders, the Cherokee judge, and the Cherokee jury, who tried the case; under which warrant, the Georgia sheriff of Hall County entered the Cherokee territory, and there arrested the aforesaid John Saunders, the Cherokee judge, and George Saunders, one of the jury,* * * * * * * * * to away their trial under that indictment. The counsel retained by them filed pleas to the jurisdiction of the court, setting forth the facts of the case, and relying upon the aforesaid treaties and intercourse laws of Congress. The pleas were over ruled, and the prisoners tried and found guilty by the jury; whereupon, errors in arrest of judgment were filed by the prisoners counsel, and there the prosecution stopped; the judge having not, to this day, passed judgment on the errors in arrest, and the prisoners having been admitted to bail. A copy of the record, as perfect as these complainants have been able to procure, is hereto annexed, and prayed to be taken as part of this bill.

In another case, a white man, by the name of Ambrose Harnage, entered the Cherokee territory, some years ago, in indigent circumstances, took the protection of its government, married a Cherokee woman, and, under the fostering care of the laws of that nation, acquired property and a large family, whose interests are identified with those of the nation. This man having entered into a mercantile partnership with two Cherokee men, named Alexander McCoy and Leonard Hicks, fell out with them in a short time, and their controversy was, in due from (sic) submitted to the proper _____________ Cherokee country, and decided against Harnage. After this, he filed a bill in the Superior Court of Gwinett county, in Georgia, sitting in Chancery, of which the before named Augustine S. Clayton was judge, in which bill, among other things, he prayed for a writ of ne exeat against the said McCoy and Hicks. The bill, with its annexed affidavit, was presented to judge Clayton, who thereupon awarded the ne exeat, as prayed. This writ was served by the deputy sheriff of Gwinett County, on Alexander McCoy, a native Cherokee, at his dwelling house, in new Echota, a town of the Cherokee country, on the 20th day of August last, and under a guard of three men, he was carried about eighty miles to the common jail of Gwinett County, where he was kept in close confinement for ten days. He was then taken out under a writ of habeas corpus, and allowed the prison bounds until the sitting of the Superior Court of Gwinett County, on the second Monday of September, was then brought up for trial before his honor, judge Clayton, and discharged on the ground, that the affidavit of the plaintiff was not sufficient to have warranted the issuing of such a writ. Your complainants exhibit herewith as part of this bill the copy of the original process, under which McCoy was arrested, together with his affidavit.

The same deputy sheriff who arrested McCoy, as aforesaid, at the same time, arrested an elderly Cherokee woman, a married woman under process of the state of Georgia, in a plea of debt at the instance of the same Ambrose Harnage, and bore her off captive, from her husband and children, for Lawrenceville, in Georgia, a distance or eighty of ninety miles; but after having been carried about fifteen miles, she gave bail, and was permitted to return home.

In another case, a Cherokee man, named Corn Tassel, was arrested in the Cherokee territory, by process from the state of Georgia on a charge of murder alleged to have been committed by him on another Cherokee, within the Cherokee territory; having been taken to the prison of Hall County, your complainants are informed and believe that he has demanded his trial; but that the said judge Clayton refused to try him, and has remanded him to prison, for farther deliberation.

[TO BE CONCLUDED]