CHEROKEE PHOENIX

NEW ECHOTA; MAY 4, 1833

PROGRESS OF THE GEORGIA LAWS.

It will be recollected the Legislature of Georgia passed an act for dividing the Cherokee country into ten counties to be named Forsyth, Lumpkin, Union, Cobb, Gilmer, Cass, Murray, Floyd and _aulding, providing for the organization of said counties and the election of officers, 'c. Pursuant to this act of usurpation on the 4th of March last, a general election for officers was held throughout the said counties, when there were elected fifty judges to the inferior courts, ten sheriffs, twenty clerks for the inferior and superior courts, ten tax collectors, ten country surveyors, ten coroners all residents on the lands taken from the Cherokees, all commissioned by the Governor and now exercising the functions of their respective offices.

The ascendent party in Georgia, or the party in power deny that their measures over the Cherokees to be an exercise of nullification. But we ask, what have become of our sixteen solemn treaties which guaranteed forever to the Cherokees the integrity of their territory. They have been destroyed; and put under foot by the same rule that one man should murder another, and rob him, without having made a previous declaration. In the meantime the President has moved his finger against Carolina for the same offence of infringing on the supreme law of the land, and did not the dormant cannot awake from his slumbers and command Carolina to desist from the intended act of usurpation! If the State of Georgia has not rode the named nullification horse to destroy our treaties and rob us of our lands, she has undoubtedly that of a wolf in sheep's clothing in the presence of the President with her laws over the Cherokees set aside as void by the Supreme Court, legislated for the Cherokees; deprived them of their right of testimony; robbed them of their lands, and superseded the operation of our constitutional treaties. If this is not nullification, and something worth putting to right by the American people, this reprehensible and grossly inconsistent proceedings of the President and Georgia, the Cherokees can never hope for tranquility, until they shall have descended to the tomb and joined their fathers.

____________________

The Southern Recorder in a prelude to an article copied from the Cherokee Phoenix into that print, tells his readers that the Phoenix is under the revision of Ross. The labors of the former Editor of this paper were also claimed by some prints to be the work of the Rev. S. A. Worcester, but the design to make him out incapable utterly failed-as will the Recorder, so long as is the case, absolutely impossible for a Georgia paper to tell one truth on the affairs of the Cherokees.

________________________

ERROR CORRECTED

The 4th number of the New York Spectators, says, that we had taken exceptions to the publication in that paper of some murders alleged against the Cherokees. We are sure that we have not said a word against the honorable course that print has taken in relation to Indian affairs, our cotemporances(sic) have mistaken our remarks, they were intended for the National Intelligencer.

For the Cherokee Phoenix.

MURDER OF CHRISTIAN INDIANS ON THE MUSKINGUM.

A little more than half a century ago there was a Guadenhutten on the Muskingum, a settlement of Christian Moravian Indians, who took no part in the prevailing wars, and were so peaceable they

Lived unknown

Till persecution dragged them into fame

And chased them up to heaven.

Many persons who adopted the sentiments long before advanced in a sermon by a worthy clergyman of Boston, that Indians were Canaanites and should be completely exterminated, were indignant because the Governor of Pittsburgh had released several friendly Indians that had been unjustly imprisoned. One hundred and sixty met at Wheeling and Buffalo and proceeded to Guadenhutten with more than the malice of Satan when he entered Eden. Upon their arrival they professed much sympathy and friendship and easily for the unsuspecting Indians whom they said, they had come to escort to Pittsburgh where they should be protected from their enemies. They possessed themselves of their guns and hatches, which they promised to return at Pittsburgh. In this the brethren acquiesced ' thought they saw in it the protecting hand of God.

A number of the strangers expressing a desire to see Salem, another Christian settlement, they were accompanied by some of the brethren. There also, they possessed much friendship and easily prevailed upon the Indians to return with them. On the way, they entered into much spiritual conversation, for they pretended to be very religious. Suddenly they were seized, bound, and deprived of even their pocked knives ' when they arrived at Gaudenhutten, they found brethren there in the same condition. The murderers then held a council to determine how they should put them to death. Some wished to burn them alive, but it was resolved to scalp them; and a messenger was sent to tell them that as they were Christian Indians they might prepare themselves in a Christian manner, for they must all die the very next day.- In vain they appealed to God for their innocency. It was enough that they were Indians. Their doom was irrevocably fixed. Neither bloodless hands-nor sincere hearts-nor father entreaty, nor mothers tears nor the inoffensiveness of infancy moved the hearts of there determined to do the work of death.

The last night these pious natives spent on earth was employed in praying, and encouraging each other to remain faithful unto the end, and in confessions and expressions of forgiveness and love.

When the morning arrived the murderers expressed great impatience to commence the work of carnage. The brethren declared they 'were ready to die, having commended their immortal souls to God who had given them divine assurance in their hearts that they should be with him forever.'

Immediately after this the defenseless victims were bound two and two together with ropes, and led into two houses which their murderers had prepared and denominated slaughter houses; and there scalped and pierced with swords, so that the blood flowed in streams into the cellars. Thus sixty-two adults, and thirty-four children were butchered, in cold blood. Only two escaped one having been scalped lay among the corpses as dead, till the murderers retired, the other being concealed in the cellar of one of the slaughter houses.

How often do parents fill the minds of their children with recital of murders committed by Indians, and thus creating toward that unfortunate and much injured people an aversion as lusting as life. Let such think of Muskingum and be silent. While we tell of their cruelties, they can tell more deeds of one that much better befitting Turk than those who profess to have 'drunk the sigh of Calvary.'

______________________

CHEROKEE ANECDOTE

Last Sabbath a Georgian intruder attended a religious meeting, and requested a pious Cherokee who sometimes conducts meetings to appoint at his house. The Cherokee made him no direct answer. At the close of the exercises I observed the Georgian looking as though desirous to know if an appointment had been made stopping to the Cherokee I said 'did you appoint a meeting?' He replied in a low voice 'No, he smell whiskey.'

BRUCE

_________________________

A few days ago a missionary while instructing a Cherokee family remarked, that the wicked would be sent to a place of endless torment. A Cherokee with much gravity enquired-'The same as the Georgians?' When he was told that all the wicked would be confined to the same place of punishment, he appeared somewhat uneasy and said he would hate to live forever with Georgians.

BRUCE

__________

Two prisoners in the penitentiary at Milledgeville refused to partake in the lottery by which the Cherokee lands are disposed of. Would that Georgia would learn of honesty from some of her degraded citizens. There may it seems be honesty in prisons when it has none from legislative halls.

BRUCE

_______________________

For a certain lady's album.

Thy looks shall soon be as the dwellings

Of the lamented dead;

Each leaf like a cold marble telling

Of some bright spirit fled.

Oft as thine eye shall wander,

O'er its silent grave;

Sadly thy heart shall ponder,

Upon life's pilgrimage.

And thy full tide of feeling,

Shall turn to worlds above,

Whose ecstacies are stealing

The objects of thy love.

Should I before the slumber;

Then let this stanza tell,

I was of the number,

Who truly wished thee well;-

Wish'd God's mercy peace and grace

Might here thy portion be

And the vision of his face

Through all eternity.

Cherokee Nation, Feb. 1st. 1833.

______________________

MAGNANIMOUS CONDUCT OF GEORGIANS

TOWARDS THE CHEROKEES.

Georgians are continually passing among the Cherokees enquiring 'Have you any whiskey-where is such a district and such a section.' Two men supposed to be of this description called a few evenings ago at the house of one nearest Cherokee neighbor and requested entertainment because they were 'Methodist Brethren.' In the morning they refused to make the poor Cherokee any compensation and even threatened to whip him for telling them he knew they were not brethren because they cursed and swore.

BRUCE