.MTA2NA.NzIzMTA
may illustrate the transaction at New Echota: then, to offer a few short explanations of certain matters which we conceive to be erroneously stated. The writer represents the efforts of his party preparatory to the compact concluded at New Echota, as a declaration of war against "the established habits of thinking, peculiar to the aborigenes:" as coming "in contact with settled prejudices, -- with deep-rooted attachment for the soil of our forefathers." And again: "they had to bear no small share of obliquy, arising from their very principles: from their opposition to the views & measures of what is called the constituted authorities of the nation." These representations of the writer need no comment they clearly show, the unqualified opposition of the people. The same truth is confirmed by the following complaint of having been represented as "a disaffected faction", -- "a small minority, opposed to the will of the people; having ceded their lands without their authority & against their expressed injunctions." We ask, with submission, what evidence is here adduced., to warrant the usurpation of the powers of the Cherokee people? "But these are matters", the writer asserts, "which concern the Cherokees themselves." That "these are matters which concern the Cherokees themselves" is most true; but that they may concern the Cherokees alone, we can by no means admit. They concern the United States also: and it is therefore a matter of vital importance to us, to make it appear to your honorable assemblies, that these individuals were destitute of authority to represent us before your Government, or, to enter into any contract, on our behalf. And we cherish the belief that it will appear, to the satisfaction of your honorable bodies, that the admissions of this writer himself, divest the pretended treaty of New Echota, of every element of a valid compact.