Cherokee Mythology (Illustrated Edition). James Mooney

      After prefacing that the government of the United States seems determined to break up the tribal autonomy of the five civilized tribes and to divide their lands, thus bringing about conditions under which the Cherokee could not exist, he continues:

      Then for a remedy that will lead us out of it, away from it, and one that promises our preservation as a distinct race of people in the enjoyment of customs, social and political, that have been handed down to us from remote generations of the past. My plan is for the Cherokees to sell their entire landed possessions to the United States, divide the proceeds thereof per capita, then such as desire to do so unite in the formation of an Indian colony, and with their funds jointly purchase in Mexico or South America a body of land sufficient for all their purposes, to be forever their joint home.... I believe also that for such Indians as did not desire to join the colony and leave the country provision should be made for them to repurchase their old homes, or such other lands in the country here as they might desire, and they could remain here and meet such fate as awaits them. I believe this presents the most feasible and equitable solution of the questions that we must decide in the near future, and will prove absolutely just and fair to all classes and conditions of our citizens. I also believe that the same could be acted upon by any or all of the five civilized tribes....402

      The final chapter is nearly written. By successive enactments within the last ten years the jurisdiction of the Indian courts has been steadily narrowed and the authority of the Federal courts proportionately extended; the right to determine Indian citizenship has been taken from the Indians and vested in a Government commission; the lands of the five tribes have been surveyed and sectionized by Government surveyors; and by the sweeping provisions of the Curtis act of June 28, 1898, “for the protection of the people of the Indian Territory,” the entire control of tribal revenues is taken from the five Indian tribes and vested with a resident supervising inspector, the tribal courts are abolished, allotments are made compulsory, and authority is given to incorporate white men’s towns in the Indian tribes.403 By this act the five civilized tribes are reduced to the condition of ordinary reservation tribes under government agents with white communities planted in their midst. In the meantime the Dawes commission, continued up to the present, has by unremitting effort broken down the opposition of the Choctaw and Chickasaw, who have consented to allotment, while the Creeks and the Seminole are now wavering.404 The Cherokee still hold out, the Ketoowah secret society (47) especially being strong in its resistance, and when the end comes it is possible that the protest will take shape in a wholesale emigration to Mexico. Late in 1897 the agent for the five tribes reports that “there seems a determined purpose on the part of many fullbloods ... to emigrate to either Mexico or South America and there purchase new homes for themselves and families. Such individual action may grow to the proportion of a colony, and it is understood that liberal grants of land can be secured from the countries mentioned.405 Mexican agents are now (1901) among the Cherokee advocating the scheme, which may develop to include a large proportion of the five civilized tribes.406

      By the census of 1898, the most recent taken, as reported by Agent Wisdom, the Cherokee Nation numbered 34,461 persons, as follows: Cherokee by blood (including all degrees of admixture), 26,500; intermarried whites, 2,300; negro freedmen, 4,000; Delaware, 871; Shawnee, 790. The total acreage of the Nation was 5,031,351 acres, which, if divided per capita under the provisions of the Curtis bill, after deducting 60,000 acres reserved for town-site and other purposes, would give to each Cherokee citizen 144 acres.407 It must be noted that the official rolls include a large number of persons whose claims are disputed by the Cherokee authorities.