The Caledonian., April 10, 1838
From the Boston Atlas.
THE CHEROKEE MEMORIAL REJECTED!
The petition of the fifteen thousand Cherokees, to which we directed the attention of our readers a few days since, has been laid on the table in the House by a vote of 103 to 76. Thus both Houses have refused to give a hearing to the humble and respectful prayer of this deeply wronged people—and they are to be driven from the valuable domain of their ancestors without the color of law, of reason or of right. On the pretences that a fraudulent treaty got up between the agent of our government and one hundred renegade Cherokees, wholly irresponsible and unauthorized, as binding upon the fifteen thousand Cherokees, who have remonstrated against it, the United States are preparing to resort to force for the removal of this unhappy tribe, in order that their valuable lands may be given up to the harpy speculators, who have been laying in wait for them.
We begin to think that the individual was neither a fool nor a fanatic, who recently petitioned Congress to be relieved from his allegiance as an American citizen, so that no portion of the hoarded vengeance of Heaven for the unparalleled wrongs and cruelties of this government against the Indians might fall upon his head. If in the administration of a just Providence, retribution is ever inflicted on a nation for the iniquities and outrages of their rulers, then let those who have acquiesced in the infamous policy toward the Cherokees, forbear to complain should the poisoned chalice be returned to their own lips. Let no one impugn the justice of Heaven, should the spoiler yet be spoiled, and the trampler trampled!
The plunder of the Cherokees, and the forcible ejection of them from their cultivated lands, is an atrocity unsurpassed in turpitude by the deeds of the bloodiest tyrant that ever robbed the poor or scourged the weak. And the people of this country look tamely on, and hardly lift a voice against the horrible wrong!
But the course of our government toward the Cherokees is not only in violation of all principles of justice and humanity; it is unwise, impolitic and inexpedient. The policy of collecting all the vanquished and banished tribes of Indians on our Western frontier—some bearing the scars of our stripes and wounds—some entrapped by means of a flag of truce, and some subdued by a worse than savage barbarity—all torn from the homes that were dear to them, and all bound together by a sympathy and a common sentiment of revenge—the policy of concentrating these tribes, experienced in war, and justly indignant at their wrongs, in one body upon our frontier, may be very reasonably questioned. It is very certain, that the expenditures of our government must either be increased some thirty or forty millions, or the frontier inhabitants must be subjected to the constant liability of a sanguinary Indian invasion. The following testimony of Mr Yell of Arkansas, in the House of Representatives on Wednesday, is confirmatory of the views we have taken:
Mr Yell said he could tell gentlemen that if they did not speedily do something to protect the West, the scalps of half his constituents would shortly be on the pole. The Executive knew this. He had been distinctly told it by officers of the army; he had been warned of it from day to day. Was the administration waiting for the grass to grow? Was that the energy which they exhibited in defending a frontier immediately exposed to the Indians? If so, he was against this mode of administering the Government. The people of Arkansas would not stand it. They had asked for troops to whip these Indians; if the Government did not give them, they would whip them themselves; but at least let them have arms in their hands. Were they to come here, and pretend that a delay of two years was necessary to remove a few trees and to begin to build an arsenal? Was that their energy? How long would it be before Arkansas was protected, if it took two years to begin? He supposed in ten years they might begin to build a fort, and in about fifteen to send some troops. But he declared there in his place, THAT IN TWO YEARS THERE WOULD BE A WAR ON THE FRONTIER.
You have sent these Indians (said Mr Y.) on our border CHAINED. They have hell in their hearts, and every man acquainted with the nature of Indians well knows that they will never be satisfied until they get our scalps. You have sent us the Creeks in chains; now you are sending us the Cherokees; and then you will send the Seminoles; but you have got them to whip first, and I have very little fear as to such of them as are in Florida, the way you have been going on for some time past. But the Creeks and Osages are there already, and I warn you that they will commence a war within two years.
The gentleman has made excuses for the head of the ordnance Bureau. I know nothing about him; I will know nothing about any subordinate. I know the head of the Government, and I know the head of the Department, and the People of Arkansas will look to them, and to none others.
So much for what Mr Cass used to term the “philanthropic” policy of our Government toward the Indians! If war, pestilence and whiskey continue to make the havoc among them they have made the last ten years, hardly a specimen of the race will be left by the close of this century.
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MEMORIAL OF 3,000 BACHELORS.
To the most beautiful—the most lovely—the most accomplished and fairest of the fair: alias, the 3,000 young ladies of Boston, who signed a petition to the Congress of the United States, against the annexation of Texas to the Union of the North.
YOUNG LADIES:—We, your petitioners, bachelors, residing in the republic of Texas, deeply aware of the important control which your sex have over our destinies, have witnessed with humiliation and regret, your recent memorial to the Congress of the United States, against the annexation of Texas to your happy Union. We are the most mortified from the consideration that in thus frankly expressing your disapprobation of a national union, you show a disposition to oppose a union of a more domestic nature, by which happiness would be more immediately connected. We will not, however, shut out all comfort and consolation from our bosoms, by supposing that you cannot be persuaded to change your opinion, but still hope, that a proper representation will induce you to change the position you have assumed, and adopt as a rule of action, a course calculated to promote your own and our felicity.
We would, then, humbly represent, that we have a country larger in extent than the kingdom of France and Spain; with a sky as bright, and a climate as mild as the South of Italy; our soil is equal in fertility to the Delta of Egypt, with an atmosphere pure and healthful as the mountains of Circassia. Our population is composed of the chivalrous of all nations, who rallied to the standard of the single star of the west, to oppose the oppression of a semi-barbarous race, and wrest from tyranny and oppression the fairest portions of the habitable globe. The battle has been fought and won; justice and chivalry have triumphed; and the gods of battle have given into our hands a country so supremely beautiful, that it would be invaluable, could we call from our fathers land that “last best gift of heaven,” without which Eden itself was a desert.
We are here, dear objects of our affection, without wives; we have not one woman to a hundred men, and it is this reflection which more sensibly embitters the course you have adopted towards us. We are aware that the refinements of the age will not allow us to adopt the precedent set by the youths of Rome, in seizing upon the fair daughters of their Sabine neighbors; that now females have attained their proper sphere in society; they are no longer looked upon as the slaves of the stern sex but as the companions equal in mind and capacity, and superior in all the milder virtues which ennoble the human heart. It is this reflection which renders your course painful in the extreme; but we would approach you with due reverence, humbly throwing ourselves on your mercy, hoping to find your bosoms glowing with a different sentiment from the one expressed in your memorial to the Congress of the United States.
We would farther add, that ours is, perhaps, the only country on the face of the globe where a proper estimate is placed upon the ladies. Even before the declaration of independence a woman was considered equal in value to three men, for a single man received from the government as a settlement right, but one fourth of a league of land; whereas if he had a wife, he obtained four times that amount. And such is the anxiety of our government officers to promote an emigration of the fair from other countries, with a probability of securing to themselves happiness in domestic life, (being nearly all bachelors,) they have granted [to each lady] two-thirds of a league of land, (as a dower to her husband,) who shall marry in the next twelve months. These considerations should prevent you from forming a hasty opinion against us.
In conclusion, if you will emigrate to our fair land, we [will] bind ourselves individually and collectively, to furnish you with good husbands, within from eight to ten months after your arrival upon our coast, and thus furnish you with a better employment than meddling with political questions, which should interest you much less than your own domestic felicity.
All of which is respectfully submitted.
HOUSTON, Texas, Jan. 18, 1838.
[Signed by 3,000 bachelors, whose names are omitted for want of room.]
———— Also, in the Texas Chronicle. February 28, 1838