6                                   Thurman Wilkins

the Cherokee Phoenix. This is said to be the first newspaper ever
published by Indians.

Now in 1835 ths tribe was engaged in a grim three-cornered
struggle with the Federal Government and the State of Georgia,
the issue of which was Cherokee removal to the West. In 1802 the
United States had pledged to Georgia those Indian lands within her
chartered limits, as soon as the Indian title could be "peaceably
extinguished." The Creeks had been pushed from Georgia al¬
ready, and in 1832 they had signed a treaty for an eventual mass
migration beyond the Mississippi. But the Cherokees were famous
for an intense devotion to their hereditary lands. Wisdom might
counsel their withdrawal beyond the pressures of white encroach¬
ment, but thus far, other than those already in the West, only a
small faction, led by the distinguished war chief Major Ridge and
his educated son John Ridge, accepted removal as the last hope
of national salvation. Most Cherokees were rooted to the hills and
valleys of their birth, and John Ross temporized with the Federal
Government, hoping that the Cherokees might remain, but de¬
termined that, if removal must come, they should receive more
recompense for their lands than President Jackson's administration
aimed to pay. The President proposed five million dollars, for
roughly twice that many acres; John Ross put the price at twenty
million.

Meanwhile, Georgia had precipitatedly extended her laws over
that part of the Cherokee Nation within her chartered limits, had
outlawed the Cherokee government there, and, by a vast land
lottery, had reassigned choice Cherokee lands to her own citizens.
Impatient Georgians refused to wait for a treaty settlement before
taking possession of their claims. Cherokees were dispossessed
without recourse to Georgia courts. Even John Ross had lost his
spacious house at Head of Coosa to a "fortunate drawer", and had
moved to a cabin at Blue Spring, Tennessee, some eight miles
north of the Georgia line. Proscribed from meeting at New
Echota, the Cherokee Council was now preparing to hold its