Cherokee Phoenix

From the Cincinnati American

Published July, 23, 1831

Page 2 Column 3b

From the Cincinnati American.

HIGH HANDED OPPRESSION.

In one of our late numbers we stated, that the Rev. Samuel Worcester had been removed from the Post Office at New Echota, in the Cherokee country. We learn from the last Cherokee Phoenix, that the removal was to make way for the arrest of Mr. Worcester. Governor Gilmer addressed a letter to him, stating that his dismissal from office divested him of the protection of the General Government, and required him to withdraw from the country.- A similar letter was addressed to another missionary. Shortly after, a Georgia Guard entered the country and arrested two white men, citizens of the Nation by intermarriage, one young Cherokee, charged with the crime of having used insolent language to the Guard, and the Rev. Mr. Trott, who is a Methodist Itinerant Missionary, under the direction of the Tennessee Conference. These four were chained in pairs, and fastened with locks, like slaves on board a trader. Messrs. Joseph and David Vann, the latter a member of the Cherokee Senate, Mr. Woodward, Mr. M'Coy, and Mr. Clauder a Moravian Missionary, were also arrested. Mr. M'Coy and Mr. Woodward were arrested because they had dared to preside at public meetings. The others had no knowledge of the causes of their arrest. Mr. Clauder, after being detained about two hours and a half, was discharged.

The crimes charged by Governor Gilmer, in his letters to the two Missionaries, were

'opposition to the humane policy which the General Government has adopted for the civilization of the Indians' and 'efforts to prevent their submission to the laws of Georgia.'

Well may the poor Cherokees exclaim, in the language of one not very dissimilarly situated, 'they boast they come but to improve our state, enlarge our minds, and free us from the yoke of error!-Yes:-they will give enlightened freedom to our minds, who are themselves the slaves of passion, avarice and pride. They offer us their protection-Yes, such protection as the vultures give to lambs-covering and devouring them!'