Untitled - the Digital Library of Georgia

536 GEORGIA AND GEORGIANS
Judge Lumpkin, of the Supreme Court of Georgia, thus narrates
what occurred at this eventful meeting: * " 0-poth-le-yoholo, as
speaker of the nation, on behalf of Big Warrior, head .chief, made an
impassioned speech in reply to the commissioners, declaring that no
treaty could be made for a cession of the lands, and inviting them to
meet at Broken Arrow (the seat of the general council) three months
later. He and his followers then went home. On February 12th a treaty
was signed by the Mclntosh party, dealing, however, only with the lands
in Georgia. The government agent for Indian affairs witnessed the
treaty and attested it, but the very next day wrote to the Secretary of
War a letter severely criticising it. Charges were freely made that he
was actuated by personal and political hostility to Governor Troup.
Nevertheless, the treaty was ratified. It provided for an exchange of
the remaining Creek lands in Georgia for a like quantity of land of
equal quality west of the Mississippi river, and that the time of the re
moval of the Indians should not 'extend beyond the first of September
of the next year.' Great excitement arose among the Indians opposed
to the treaty, and it was declared by them to be void, on the ground that
Mclntosh and his followers had no authority to make it. Charges and
counter-charges were made. Mclntosh and his party, were threatened
with death."
"As soon as the treaty was ratified, Governor Troup wrote a letter
to Mclntosh, as head chief of the Cowetas, asking permission to survey
the ceded territory. Mclntosh summoned his chiefs, and permission was.
given to make the survey. The Indians who opposed the sale were
greatly enraged. A general council condemned Mclntosh to death. A
body of men undertook to carry out the. sentence. They went to his
house, in what is now Carroll county, and about three o'clock in the
morning of April 30 (or some say May 1) 1825, set fire to it. They
shot him and another Indian (though he defended himself as best he
could), and dragged him and his comrade out and scalped them. The
scalp of Mclntosh was suspened on a pole in a public square of Ocfuskee.
They also killed his son-in-law Hawkins.
"Feeling ran high. The legislature ordered the survey of the ceded
territory to proceed. John Quincy Adams, who had become President,
directed Governor Troup to stop the survey, because of the hostile atti
tude of the Indians. Governor Troup refused, declaring that 'Georgia
owned the soil, and had a right to survey it.' The President threat
ened to have the surveyors arrested, but the governor ordered them to
proceed, indicating a purpose to protect them from interference.
Finally the President proposed to refer the treaty to Congress, and the
survey was suspended, not as admitting any right of the President or
Congress to stop it, but as a matter of comity, as Governor Troup said.
"In 1826 the Federal Government, desiring to pacify the Indians,
entered into a treaty with thirteen chiefs of the Creek nation, declaring
the treaty of 1825 canceled, and making a new treaty, the result of which
was to leave in possession of the Indians a large tract of the land
(amounting to about 300,000 acres) which had been ceded under the
* Extract from an address delivered at Indian Springs on February 12, 1912,
when a tablet was unveiled by Piedmont Continental Chapter, Daughters of the
Eevolution.