Paper 1

Lewis Ross et al.

Appeal of the Cherokee Nation (1830) [Abridged]

We are aware that some persons suppose it will be for our advantage to remove beyond the

Mississippi. We think otherwise. Our people universally think otherwise. Thinking that it would be

fatal to their interests, they have almost to a man sent their memorial to Congress, deprecating the

necessity of a removal. . . .

It is incredible that Georgia should ever have enacted the oppressive laws to which reference is

here made, unless she had supposed that something extremely terrific in its character was

necessary in order to make the Cherokees willing to remove. We are not willing to remove; and if

we could be brought to this extremity, it would be not by argument, nor because our judgment was

satisfied, not because our condition will be improved; but only because we cannot endure to be

deprived of our national and individual rights and subjected to a process of intolerable oppression.

We wish to remain on the land of our fathers. We have a perfect and original right to remain

without interruption or molestation. The treaties with us, and laws of the United States made in

pursuance of treaties, guaranty our residence and our privileges, and secure us against intruders.

Our only request is, that these treaties may be fulfilled, and these laws executed. But if we are

compelled to leave our country, we see nothing but ruin before us. The country west of the

Arkansas territory is unknown to us.

From what we can learn of it, we have no prepossessions in its favor. All the inviting parts of it, as

we believe, are preoccupied by various Indian nations, to which it has been assigned. They would

regard us as intruders. . . . The far greater part of that region is, beyond all controversy, badly

supplied with wood and water; and no Indian tribe can live as agriculturists without these articles.

All our neighbors . . . would speak a language totally different from ours, and practice different

customs. The original possessors of that region are now wandering savages lurking for prey in the

neighborhood. . . . Were the country to which we are urged much better than it is represented to be,

. . . still it is not the land of our birth, nor of our affections. It contains neither the scenes of our

childhood, nor the graves of our fathers. . . .

We have been called a poor, ignorant, and degraded people. We certainly are not rich; nor have we

ever boasted of our knowledge, or our moral or intellectual elevation. But there is not a man within

our limits so ignorant as not to know that he has a right to live on the land of his fathers, in the

possession of his immemorial privileges, and that this right has been acknowledged by the United

States; nor is there a man so degraded as not to feel a keen sense of injury, on being deprived of his

right and driven into exile. . . .

Source: Official Webpage of the Cherokee Nation

http://www.cherokee.org/AboutTheNation/History/TrailofTears/MemorialoftheCherokee.aspx