Native Americans: 22 Books on History, Mythology, Culture & Linguistic Studies. James Mooney

      Boundary Between Cherokees, Creeks, Choctaws, and Chickasaws

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The lines of demarkation between the respective possessions of the Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, and Chickasaw Nations had long been a subject of dispute between them. People living in a state of barbarism and principally dependent upon the chase for a livelihood, necessarily roam over a vast amount of territory within which no permanent habitations have been established by themselves. An accurate definition of the boundaries between them and their nearest neighbors pursuing a similar mode of life is unnecessary so long as no disturbing factor is brought into the case. But contact with an ever-encroaching tide of civilization renders essential an accurate definition of limits. The United States, in several of its numerous treaties for the acquisition of territory from these four tribes, had been met with conflicting claims as to its ownership. In order that future disputes and embarrassments of this character should be avoided, the authorities of the United States entertained the idea of causing a boundary line to be run and marked between the adjoining territory of these tribes. The Indian agents were advised by the Secretary of War202 that the subject was under consideration, the plan being to constitute a commission, consisting of two representatives selected by each tribe and of the United States agents for those tribes, who should, after full examination of the country and the subject, agree upon and fix their respective boundaries. Owing, however, to the complicated state of our foreign relations and the feverish condition of mind manifested by the border tribes, soon followed by war with England and with the Creek Indians, it became necessary to drop further negotiations on the subject, and the matter was not again revived in this form.

After the treaty of 1814 with the Creeks, however, whereby General Jackson exacted from them, as indemnity for the expenses of the war, the cession of an immense tract of country in Alabama and Georgia,203 the question of the proper limits of this cession on the north and west became a subject of controversy between the United States and the Cherokees, Choctaws, and Chickasaws.

The United States authorities at Washington were anxious that nothing should occur in the adjustment of these boundaries which should cause a feeling of irritation among those tribes. Commissioners had been appointed in the summer of 1815 to survey and mark the boundaries of this Creek cession, and in August of that year we find the Secretary of War giving instructions to Agent Meigs, of the Cherokees, to meet the boundary commissioners, with a few of the principal Cherokee chiefs, at the point on Coosa River where the south boundary of the Cherokee Nation crossed the same, in order that the Cherokees should be satisfied that the commissioners began at the proper point. Several additional reminders were given the agent, during the progress of the survey, that the matter of boundary was a question of fact to be ascertained and determined from the best attainable evidence, and that care must be taken that no injustice should be done the Cherokees.204 In the following spring205 a delegation of Cherokees was brought to Washington, by direction of the War Department, and, pending the completion of treaty negotiations with them, the boundary commissioners were instructed not to mark the line between the Cherokees and the Creek cession until further orders.

These negotiations resulted in a second treaty of March 22, 1816206 (the one for the cession of the tract in South Carolina bears the same date), wherein it was declared that the northern boundary line of the Creek cession of 1814 should be established by the running of a line from a point on the west bank of Coosa River opposite to the lower end of the Ten Islands, above Fort Strother, directly to the Flat Rock or Stone on Bear Creek, said Flat Rock being the southwest corner of the Cherokee possessions, as defined by the treaty with them concluded January 7, 1806.

This boundary brought forth a vigorous though unavailing protest from General Jackson, who argued that the Cherokees never had any right to territory south of the Tennessee and west of Coosa River, but that it belonged to the Creeks and was properly within the limits of their cession of 1814.207

All efforts were fruitless in securing any further cession of lands, either north or south of the Tennessee.208

Previous to the visit of the Cherokee delegation to Washington and to the instructions given, as referred to above, to the boundary commissioners to suspend the running of the boundary line between the Creek cession and the Cherokees pending negotiations with the latter, General Coffee had been engaged in surveying the line from Coosa River to the Tennessee River.209 As a result of the negotiations with the Cherokees, additional instructions were given the boundary commissioners210 (accompanying which was a copy of the Cherokee treaty concluded on the 22d of March preceding) to run and mark the boundary line therein agreed upon from the lower end of the Ten Islands, on Coosa River, to the Flat Rock, on Bear Creek. They were advised that the surveys already made by General Coffee might be of advantage to them, though from an examination of his report it did not appear he had taken any notice of the point at which this line was to terminate, notwithstanding he seemed to have had in view the treaty made with the Cherokees in the year 1806, which proposed Caney Creek and a line from its source to the Flat Rock as the boundary between the Cherokees and Chickasaws. Coffee's line had already excited the jealousy and opposition of the Chickasaws, and on the same day final instructions were given the commissioners to run the line from Coosa River to Flat Rock, Major Cocke, the Chickasaw agent, was directed to advise the Chickasaws that in agreeing upon this line with the Cherokees the United States had in no degree interfered with the conflicting claims of the Chickasaws south of that line and east of Coffee's line; that from an examination of the treaties with the Chickasaws and Cherokees, and especially that of 1786 with the former tribe, it appeared that a point called the Flat Rock was considered a corner of the lands belonging to them, and had since been considered as the corner to the Cherokee, Creek, and Chickasaw hunting grounds. It is proper to state in this connection that for many years an uncertainty had existed in the minds of both the Indians and the United States authorities as to the exact location of this Flat Rock,211 and whether it was on Bear Creek or on the headwaters of the Long Leaf Pine, a branch of the Black Warrior River. The line as finally run by the commissioners from Flat Rock, on Bear Creek, to Ten Islands, pursued a course bearing S. 67° 56' 27" E. 118 miles and 40 perches.212 It may be interesting also to quote from a letter213 from William Barnett, one of the United States boundary commissioners, to his co-commissioner, General Coffee, in which, he states that he has just returned from the council at Turkeytown, at which the Cherokees, Choctaws, Chickasaws, and Creeks were represented, and that the principal purpose of the council was to agree upon and adjust their several boundaries. He notes the fact that the Creeks and Cherokees had agreed to make a joint stock of their lands, with a privilege to each nation to settle where they pleased. The Creeks and Choctaws had fixed on the ridge dividing the waters of the Black Warrior and the Cahawba as their former boundary. The Chickasaws and Cherokees could come to no understanding as to their divisional line, the former alleging that they had no knowledge of any lands held by the latter on the south side