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GEORGIA AND GEORGIANS 523
these lands had been acquired by direct purchase. The Creeks still
held 10,000,000 acres of land in Georgia, having ceded an equal amount,
while the Cherokees still retained 6,000,000 acres, having ceded only
1,000,000. These unceded lands lay north of the Chattahoochee and west
of the Ocmulgee.
General Clark had been an Indian fighter. His anxiety to rid the
state of these savage tribes was well known. At any rate, within a month
after his inauguration as governor a memorial was addressed to Con
gress by the State Legislature urging a removal of the Indian tribes to
lands west of the Mississippi River.
This memorial brought results. On January 8, 1821, a treaty was
negotiated with the Creeks at Indian Springs by two commissioners rep
resenting the United States Government: Daniel M. Fo'rney, of South
Carolina and David Meriwether, of Georgia.* Under the terms of this
treaty, all the remaining lands of the Creek Indians between the Ocmul
gee and the Flint rivers, extending as far north as the Chattahooehee,
were ceded by the Creeks for a stipulated sum, of which it was agreed
that $250,000 was to be used in compensating citizens of Georgia for
property taken from them by the Indians. The excepted parcels of land
still retained by the Creeks under this treaty were: (1) 1,000 acres of
land around the springs; (2) 640 acres on the Ocmulgee River, includ
ing the improvements of Mclntosh; and (3) a tract of land around the
agency, to be retained by the United States Government, however, until
the agency was discontinued. There were three commissioners present,
on the part of the State of Georgia, to wit: J. Mclntosh, David Adams,
and Daniel Newman, but none of these signed the agreement.
Some information in regard to this noted place of rendezvous for the
Creek Indians, afterwards a famous health resort for the whites, will
be of interest in this connection: f
During the year 1792, when this locality was a wilderness, Douglas
Watson, a scout employed by the United States Government to inspect
the frontier, came to Georgia, and, while passing through this neighbor
hood, happened upon a little spring in a dense cane brake. "What he
took to be the smell of gunpowder guided him to the spot; but when
he learned that it was from a fissue in the rocks that this peculiar odor
of brimstone proceeded he quickly left the neighborhood, in superstitious
dread of consequences. However, the magic waters were in time dis
covered by other travelers and soon there began to flock to Indian
Springs a multitude of health-seekers. It is said that the medicinal
virtues of Indian Springs were known to the savages from the earliest
times. In 1800, Gen. "William Mclntosh, the famous Creek Indian chief,
here erected a cottage, so it is said, where he usually spent the winter
months. Subsequently, according to local tradition, a Mr. Allison built
here a double log cabin. These were the earliest structures erected in
the neighborhood, and both were destroyed by fire. In 1823, General
Mclntosh and Joel Bailey, erected the first hotel. The building still
* "Indian Affairs," Vol. II, pp. 248-249.
t Our authority for these statements is an address delivered ,by Judge J. H.
Lumpkin, July 1, 1911, at Indian Springs, Georgia, on the occasion of a tablet unveil
ing by the D. A. E.