John Ross and the Cherokee Indians (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from John Ross and the Cherokee IndiansThere is no more tragic history than that of the Cherokee Indians. The steady growth and development of this group of aborigines living among the mountains of Georgia, North Carolina and Tennessee is interesting as showing their capacity for building a culture of their own. Landowners, masters of negro slaves, inventors of an alphabet of their own and organizers of an adequate civil government, they offered from the close of the American revolution to the advent of Andrew Jackson, a unique example of Indian life. And what is more important to the student of the politics of the United States the Cherokees proposed to form a state of their own after the manner of the other states of the Union. This bold proposition raised many problems: What would the people of Georgia do if the United States refused to guarantee the integrity of her boundaries. What would the Federal Supreme Court answer to a petition under the treaties with the national government for local authority and self-government inside the bounds of one of the original thirteen states. And if the Georgians and the Indians came to blows what would be the effect of Federal intervention?Thus we see that the history of the Cherokee Nation offers a good opportunity to any student who has sympathy for the natives and a proper sense for the realities of the American national development. Mrs. Eaton in her Life of John Ross, about whose career centers most of the story of the Cherokee exploitation and sorrowful removal to Oklahoma, has touched upon or answered most of these questions, and her story is presented clearly and in most interesting manner. The book ought to find many readers.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.