Some of our beloved men who signed the treaties are

Some of our beloved men who signed the treaties are still leaving, and their testimony tends to
the same conclusion. We have always supposed that this understanding of the treaties was in
accordance with the views of the government; nor have we ever imagined that any body would
interpret them otherwise. In what light shall we view the conduct of the United States and
Georgia, in their intercourse with us, in urging us to enter into treaties, and cede lands? If we
were but tenants at will, why was it necessary that our consent must be obtained before these
governments could take lawful possession of our lands? The answer is obvious. These
governments perfectly understood our rights our right to the country, and our right to self
government. Our understanding of the treaties is further supported by the intercourse law of the
United States, which prohibits all encroachments upon our territory. The undersigned
memorialists humbly represent, that if their interpretation of the treaties has been different from
that of the government, then they have ever been deceived as to how the government regarded
them, and what she asked and promised. Moreover, they have uniformly misunderstood their
own acts….
Letter from John Ross, et al, delegates from the Cherokee Nation, to the Hon. Lewis Cass,
Sec. of War, Feb. 14, 1833. Public Documents of the Twenty-Third Congress, Vol. III,
(Washington: Duff-Green, 1834), pp.32-35
We cannot subscribe to the correctness of the idea which has so frequently been recurred to by
the advocates of Indian removal, that the evils which have befallen and swept away the
numerous tribes that once inhabited the old States are to be traced to the mere circumstance of
their contiguity to a white population; but we humbly conceive that the true causes of their

extinction are to be found in the catalogue of wrongs which have been heaped upon their
ignorance and credulity by the superior policies of the white man, when dictated by avarice and
cupidity. You appeal to our better feelings in regard to the situation of our people, and suggest
that, under existing circumstances, some sacrifices may well be encountered in removing from
contact with a white population in order to escape the fate which hat swept away so many Indian
tribes. Should the doctrine that Indian tribes cannot exist contiguously to a white population
prevail, and they be compelled to remove west of the States and Territories of this republic, what
is to prevent a similar removal of them from there for the same reason? We can only plead, let
equal justice be done between the red and the white man; and that so long as the faith of
contracts is preserved inviolate, there will be no just cause for complaint, much less for
aggressions on the right…
The North American Review. Volume 31, Issue 69, October 1830, pp. 396-442
On the subject of the rights of the American aborigines, there has been much loose reasoning,
and some quite as loose morality. It will be found, however, that respectable writers have more