[The Cherokee Nation vs. The State of Georgia.] SUPPLEMENTAL BILL. The complainants beg leave to state farther to this honourable court, that, since their bill, now submitted, was drawn, the following acts, demonstrative of the determination of the state of Georgia to enforce her assumed authority over the complainants and their territory, property, and jurisdiction, have taken place. The individual, called in that bill Corn Tassel, has been actually hung in defiance of a writ of error allowed by the chief justice of this court to the final sentence of the court of Georgia in his case. That writ of error having been received by the governor of the state, was, as your complainants are informed and believe, immediately communicated by him to the legislature of this state, then in session, who promptly resolved, in substance, that the supreme court of the United States had no jurisdiction over the subject, and advised the immediate execution of the prisoner, under the sentence of the state court, which accordingly took place. The complainants beg leave farther to state, that the legislature of the state of Georgia, at the same session, passed the following laws, which have received the sanction of the governor of the state. "An act to authorize the survey and disposition of lands within the limits of Georgia, in the occupancy of the Cherokee tribe of Indians, and all other unlocated lands within the limits of the said state, claimed as Creek land; and to authorize the governor to call out the military force to protect surveyors in the discharge of their duties: and to provide for the punishment of persons who may prevent, or attempt to prevent any surveyor from performing his duties, as pointed out by this act, or who shall wilfully cut down or deface any marked trees, or remove any land-marks which may be made in pursuance of this act; and to protect the Indians in the peaceable possession of their improvements, and of the lots on which the same may be situate." This act received the assent of the governor of the state on the 21st of December 1830; and by its provisions surveyors are authorised to be appointed to go on the territory guar [The Cherokee Nation vs. The State of Georgia.] antied to your complainants by the existing treaties of the United States, and protected against such invasion by the intercourse act of congress of 1802, and to lay it off into districts and sections, which are to be distributed by lottery among the people of Georgia, reserving to your complainants only the present occupancy of such improvements as the individuals of their nation may now be residing on, with the lots on which such improvements may stand, and excepting from such reservations such improvements as your complainants may have recently made near their own gold mines. Thus the territory, which the faith and honour of the United States stand pledged by treaty, and for good and valuable consideration, to guaranty to them, is authorized to be taken from them by force, by a law of one of the states, herself a party to those treaties, and having reaped the fruits of the cessions made under their authority. At the same session the legislature of Georgia passed another act, entitled, "an act to declare void all contracts hereafter made with the Cherokee Indians, so far as the Indians are concerned;" which act received the assent of the governor of the state on the 23d of December 1830. By this act it is declared that no Cherokee shall be bound by any contract thereafter to be entered into with a white person or persons, nor be liable to be sued in any of the courts of law or equity of the state on such contract. And, as by a former law of the state of Georgia, the courts of the Cherokee territory are abolished; the practical result of this law will be, that as your complainants were by a former law disfranchised of the right of bearing evidence in the court of Georgia, they are now disabled to make a valid or obligatory contract with a white man; and this at a time when, by the permanent laws of the United States, white traders are authorised to come among them, to settle in their country, and trade with them, under the license of the president of the United States. The legislature of Georgia, at its same session, passed another law, entitled, "an act to provide for the temporary disposal of the improvements and possessions purchased from certain Cherokee Indians and residents;" which act received the assent of the governor of the state on the 22d of December 1830. By this act the governor of the state is authorised to take VOL. V.-E [The Cherokee Nation vs. The State of Georgia.] possession of improvements under a treaty of the 6th of May 1828, to which these complainants were not parties, but which was made between the Cherokee Indians west of the Mississippi and the United States, which improvements were never ceded or sold by these complainants to the United States, and by the laws and usages of the Cherokee country could not be ceded or sold by the individual emigrant Cherokees, and were not even intended by the treaty in question to be so ceded or sold: since by these laws and usages there is no individual property in lands among the Cherokees, but the whole belongs to the nation as a nation, the individual settler having no other right to his settlements and improvements than a right to occupy and use them so long as he pleases; and, when he is disposed to remove, a right to sell his right of occupancy and use in his improvements to some other Cherokee, and to no other person of any other nation. By the same act the governor is authorised to take possession of other improvements claimed by Georgia under any other treaty. Under these words the state of Georgia alludes to a claim which she sets up under the treaty of 1817, by which the rights to certain improvements of emigrant Cherokees were held in suspense until it should be seen by the final adjustment of the boundary line. between the Cherokees and the United States, on which side of that line these improvements should fall. This boundary line was finally adjusted by the treaty of 1819; yet the state of Georgia still claims the improvements which fell on the Cherokee side of this boundary; and these are the improvements of which the governor of Georgia is authorized to take possession. Thus the state of Georgia presents the spectacle of a state asserting rights under the treaties made by the United States with the Cherokee Indians, under her own,arbitrary construction of these treaties, while, by the whole course of her legislation, deliberations, and actions, she disclaims the obligation of these treaties, setting them at open defiance, and acting as if there were no treaties in the case. At its same session the legislature of Georgia passed another law, entitled," an act to prevent the exercise of assumed and arbitrary power by all persons under pretext of authority from the Cherokee Indians and their laws, and to prevent white persons from residing within that part of the chartered limits of Georgia, occupied by the Cherokee Indians, and to [The Cherokee Nation vs. The State of Georgia.] provide a guard for the protection of the gold mines, and to enforce the laws of the state within the aforesaid territory." This act received the assent of the governor of the state on the 22d December 1830. By this act it is made a high misdemeanour punishable by imprisonment in the penitentiary, at hard labour, for four years, for your complainants to call a council or legislative assembly in their own territory, under their own constitution and laws, framed under the patronage and encouragement of the United States, or to hold such council or assembly, or to hold any court or tribunal whatever, or to serve process or execute the judgments of their own courts, with various other provisions of a like character. White persons are excluded from the territory, unless they go under a license from the governor of the state, and take the oath of allegiance to the state of Georgia, when they are authorized to reside within the limits of these complainants. The turnpike roads and toll bridges erected by your complainants at their own expense, and under the authority of their own laws, are abolished. And the governor is authorized to station an armed military force in the territory to guard the gold mines which belong to your complainants, but to which the state of Georgia now asserts an exclusive right, and to enforce the laws of Georgia upon them. At the same session of its legislature, the state of Georgia passed another act, entitled "an act to authorize the governor to take possession of the gold, silver, and other mines, lying and being in that section of the chartered limits of Georgia, commonly called the Cherokee country, and those upon all other unappropriated lands of the state, and for punishing any person or persons who may hereafter be found trespassing upon the mines." This act received the assent of the governor of the state on the 2d of December 1830. By the preamble to this act the title to the mines belonging to your complainants is asserted to be in the state of Georgia. By its provisions twenty thousand dollars are appropriated, and placed at the disposal of the governor, to enable him to take possession of these mines; and it is made a crime in your complainants, punishable by imprisonment in the penitentiary of Georgia, at hard labour, for four years, to work their own mines. [The Cherokee Nation vs. The State of Georgia.] Your complainants have not had it in their power to procure an authenticated copy of these several laws. Until they can do so, they beg leave to refer to them at present, as they have been published in a newspaper called the Georgia Journal, edited at Milledgeville, the seat of government of the state of Georgia, which newspaper is herewith exhibited; and they pray that they may be considered as a part of this bill. Your complainants further show unto your honours, that, under these laws, in relation to the mines within the territory belonging to your complainants, and guarantied to them by the treaties of the United States, the governor of Georgia has proceeded to levy an armed force of the citizens of that state, who are now stationed at those mines, and who are employed according to the laws under which they have been raised, in restraining your complainants in their rights and liberties in regard to their mines, and in enforcing the laws of Georgia upon them. And your complainants beg leave to state, as a specimen of the outrages practised upon them by this armed band, that a party of them, about twenty-five in number, having passed the night of the 9th of the last month at the house of Mr John Martin, a Cherokee citizen, and the treasurer of the Cherokee nation, and having been received and entertained in the best manner in his power, at his house at Cossewatey, within the territory, near New Echota, the capital thereof, informed him on the next morning that he was their prisoner; and, without showing any warrant, or alleging any offence committed by him against the state of Georgia, marched him off from his home and family, as a prisoner, a distance of fortyfive miles, to their head quarters. There, after various unfounded reproaches and indignities, they released him and suffered him to return home. The same party, at the time of this arrest, broke and cut down a toll gate on the federal road, leading from Georgia to Tennessee, through the Cherokee nation, which toll gate was erected under a law of the nation, and in conformity with the provisions of a treaty between them and the United States, which is now in manuscript in the nation, but not to be found among those which have been printed. These latter transactions, with regard to the arrest of the |