History of the Cherokee Nation by Ivan Allen

The Cherokee Nation

Fort Mountain

Vann House

Chester Inns

New Echota

By Ivan Allen

Author of Atlanta from the Ashes, Rotary in Atlanta, County Consolidation, Fulton County Centennial, The Atlanta Spirit.

Published by Ivan Allen Company

Printers, Lithographers, Office Outfitters

Atlanta, Georgia

My friends often ask me why I am so interested in the Cherokee Indian Nation, Fort Mountain, Sequoyah, New Echota, Cherokee Phoenix Newspaper, The Vann House and Chester Inn.

I was born in Dalton, Georgia, March 1, 1876, and since childhood have been interested in everything pertaining to the Cherokee Indians. My grandmother, Mary Chester Harris, was married in the Chester Inn at Spring Place as the Cherokees were being moved West. Many times she entertained the neighborhood children with stories of the wild life of the Cherokees and her annual round trip to the North to school on horseback accompanied by her colored maid and in the saddle bags were her trousseau, books, etc., for the full term at school. On horseback she followed the stagecoach and slept each night at the stagecoach inns. She described the life of the Indians and the wild life of that territory on those long: horseback rides in a most interesting way to us children.

The neighbors of the Chesters were the Vanns, and the Vann House is probably the only substantial building left of a nation of people who occupied this vast Indian Territory 120 odd years ago.

She first told me the story of Fort Mountain--this high mountain rising out of the valley in Murray County 2,832 feet and higher than Lookout Mountain in Tennessee. Here on this mountain is a rock wall 800 feet, the most ancient semblance of civilization in this country, and this rock wall or fort is supposed to have been built by De Soto when he passed through this part of Georgia in 1540. As I listened to the stories of Fort Mountain and how in its caves much Spanish gold might be, I had a great desire to climb this mountain to the fort. The sides of the mountain are precipice and it was only after I became a successful businessman in Atlanta that I had an opportunity to buy several hundred acres on top of this mountain on which was the Spanish Fort. I deeded it to the State of Georgia and they have developed it as a place of great interest, Fort Mountain State Park.

I was also interested in the Vann House and the restoration of it because the Vanns were the neighbors of my Grandmother Chester's family and I was instrumental in raising the funds to buy the Vann House which has now been turned over to the State of Georgia and they are restoring it and it will be a great place of interest and a memorial to the Cherokee Indians. Now, the citizens through the efforts of a committee at Calhoun, Georgia, have purchased the land which was the last capital of the Cherokee Nation, New Echota, and it was there that Sequoyah designed the Cherokee alphabet and it was there that the Cherokee Phoenix, an Indian newspaper, was published and it is there that the new Echota Marker National Memorial is located.

These are some of the reasons that I am interested in the Cherokees and I am republishing much of the data that has been collected by the National Park Service of the Department of the Interior.

The Cherokee Indians lived here in this picturesque and salubrious region for a thousand years as a savage race. They left no monuments, buildings or landmarks in memory of their habitation. Only the Vann House is an exception, and Vann had more white blood in him than Indian. The Fort on Fort Mountain was built by the Spaniards.

“Cherokee Means” “Upland Field.” Thus, the camp homes encircled by the blue hills rising beyond them, where the lofty peaks were kindled with the early light and then shadowed as night enveloped the valleys like a mass of clouds. There you could see the rocky cliffs rising out of this region in naked grandeur, defying the lightning and mocking the loudest peals of the thunderstorms. Gentle slopes were covered with magnolias and flowering forest trees decorated with running climbers. A perpetual note of the Whip-o-will could be heard, and the wholesome waters gusher profusely from the earth in transparent springs; snow white cascades glittered on the hillside, and the rivers--shallow, but pleasant to the eye-rush through the narrow vales where the crimson strawberries, delicate rhododendron and flaming azaleas adorn. The fertile soil teems with the luxuriant herbs on which the roebuck fattens, and the breeze is laden with fragrance. Daybreak is ever welcome by the shrill cry of the social night hawk and the liquid carols of the mockingbirds.

Such was the ancient inheritance of the Cherokees, and we can wonder that in later years they saw their wonderful land in its noonday glory or bathed in the living fire of the sunset, they attempted to adopt the ways of the whiteman and organize a government of their own in order to hold the lands they cherished those many years, but had used only to hunt and fish while the women did all the work. A nomad savage existence--living off the land and leaving nothing to posterity. A majority of the 15,000 Cherokees lived in hovels, and the poor were getting poorer and the rich, richer.

Their young men had constantly poured forth to battle and many came back no more. Another cause was infant mortality. These helpless and dependent babies could not withstand the wretchedly, unsanitary conditions of the Indian village home. The Indians did not escape diseases and there was neither healing medicine nor efficient nursing. Sanitation was an unknown invention and squalor prevailed.

A pestilence of Smallpox broke not in the year 1783 that reduced the population one half. They knew nothing about this disease and many of them resorted to the ancient method of treating a violent disease by plunging into a cold stream of water. As late as 1918, when the influenza epidemic swept over the United States, some of the Indians in the West resorted to the same fatal treatment.

December, 1835, at New Echota, in Gordon County, a treaty was made with the Cherokees to give them five million dollars, pay for all visible equipment, and move them free of charge, and give them more land in the West than they had in Georgia.

In 1838, General Winfield Scott was dispatched to Spring Place with the Presidential command to remove the Indians to the West. General Scott stopped at the Chester Inn at Spring Place, Georgia. From this residence, he directed the removal of the Cherokees to the West. Many of these Indians had already moved West, and about one-third of those remaining were willing to go.

General Scott built forts over the Cherokee Nation; one in North Carolina, one in Tennessee, one in Alabama and five in Georgia.

Virginia, in 1760 moved the Cherokees from her State. That was seventy years before they were removed from Georgia. General Rutherford moved them from North Carolina in 1776 and General Sevier moved them from Tennessee during 1776. But the Cherokees were not moved from Georgia until 1838.

The removal of the Cherokees from Georgia took thirty-six years from the time the Presidential command was agreed upon. Both the National government and the State of Georgia were criticized and denounced because of the long and bitter controversy with the Indians.

There is strong testimony, on the contrary, to the effect that the removal of the Cherokees from Georgia to an equal area of rich land west of the Mississippi where they would be free to develop in their own way, without encroachment by the whites, and relieved of the constant turmoil in which they lived in Georgia, was a humane measure and the only way to give them tranquility and protect their race from destruction.

While wise and humane men sought to lead these Indians from savagery into the ways of civilized life, there was deep-seated feeling that Georgia would never have peace and real progress while the Indians remained.

Fort Mountain in the Cohutta range of North Georgia is the site of one of the new state parks. It is through the generosity of Ivan Allen, a businessman of Atlanta, that the state came into possession of this beautiful and interesting property. It is beautiful for scenic value in itself, and beautiful for sweeping views that its crest provides. It will be interesting because of the stone fort constructed by someone and for some purpose of which history bears no record.

Fort Mountain Park is near the scenic mountain highway connecting Chatsworth and Ellijay, being 12 miles from Chatsworth and about 20 miles from Ellijay. It is reached from the highway by a road 2 ½ miles in length.

In 1934, at Fort Mountain, a table marked the culmination of a life-long dream:

This Ancient Stone Fortification 885 Feet In Length and the Land on The Crest of This Mountain, 2382 Feet Above Sea Level Was Given to the State of Georgia For the Establishment of Fort Mountain State Park

The area donated by Mr. Ivan Allen embraces 219 ½ acres on the crest of Fort Mountain in which is located the prehistoric stone fortification about 885 feet in length made of loose stone and designed with military skill. While the wall of the fort now is not more than two feet high, it has a base of about 12 feet. At fairly regular intervals in the walls are 29 pits, the purpose of which is not clear. The wall zigzags and bends irregularly and reaches from one precipice- on very steep terrain, to another. At one point is a gateway where the masonry was heavier, but is closed by fallen stones. This gate led to a spring 1277 feet south. The remains of what were apparently two lookout towers are to be found.

This strange and unaccounted for fort has started historians and archaeologists into various speculations. A theory was advanced that De Soto may have erected the fortress during his famous exploration in 1540. The Indians were friendly and brought baskets of mulberries and nuts to De Soto in a spirit of hospitality.

Dr. Warren K. Moorehead, eminent archaeologist, who has made a study of the fortifications and surroundings, gives as his opinion that a large force of Indians, hard pressed by enemies, hastily built a stone fort for defense, but he thinks that the expected assault never took place since no arrowheads are found to witness a battle.

Another theory, and one held by Mr. Allen to be the most plausible, is that it was built by Spaniards who, while still holding Georgia, sent out mining parties with authority of the Governor at St. Augustine, Florida, to follow up clues that De Soto's party brought back. One of the leaders was Juan Paedo, who came direct from Fort San Filipe, South Carolina. He, it is thought, erected a fort as a defense against the Cherokee Indians in whose domain the Spaniards were seeking gold and silver.

At any rate, the old fort remains an intriguing mystery. The state park, therefore, does not commemorate any historic event in a strict sense, but an event, if not prehistoric, then of lost history.

The donor of this park site, Mr. Ivan Allen, is a native of Dalton, Georgia, situated in a county adjoining that in which Fort Mountain is located. In his youth Mr. Allen developed a desire to own Fort Mountain. It was in 1926 that he found his dream realized, with the crest of the mountain and the strange fort his very own. His first thought was to bring the world to his beautiful mountain by constructing a hotel and making a beautiful resort. But that dream did not materialize, though his desire to draw people to the mountain top persisted. Happily, this desire is to materialize, but only through sacrifice. He has given his mountain to the state that it may become a public park, and after all become the glorified mountain of his dreams.

The ruins of an ancient fortification on a spur and Peak of Cohutta Mountains in Murray County, Georgia, have long been a subject of speculation, conjecture and theories. The name of Fort Mountain was given to the ruins in remote days, and around them have been woven fancies connected with De Soto, Juan Pardo and other Spanish explorers--of early French adventurers, coming up from Mobile in the days of the founding of New Orleans;--or still earlier people: the Norsemen or of aboriginal natives predating for centuries the historical discovery of America.

Notwithstanding its apparent mystery; its silent majesty; its location in the old Cherokee county, so rich in legends and myths (and it being a notable landmark in the state), there is a definite, actual and thrilling history of the old ruins.

Prior to, and during the period of De Soto's expedition and immediately after there were not any fortifications on this mountain, which are so emphatically marked today. At that time this lofty and somewhat isolated peak looked peacefully down upon the rich enfoliaged mountains and valleys,--far and near, where the purling streams ran ever to the sea; where the Cherokees had their villages, their gardens, their fishing sites;--the grounds for their dances and sportive games; and where their trails extended in every direction,--these primitive commercial routes and highways of barter and trade, sometimes converted into war-paths.

To tell the story of Fort Mountain it is necessary to briefly review De Soto's expedition through Georgia.

In 1540, De Soto, within a few days after leaving Cutitachiqui (Silver Bluff, on the Savannah river below Augusta) entered the borders of the Cherokee country, thence proceeded up the river valley to Broad river and then over the watershed ridges to Xualla (near Nacoochee). In this route he was traveling in the established trails from the sea-coast to Xualla.

From Xualla he turned westerly to Gausili (about 70 or 80 miles distant), following the Augaloosa-Coosa trail Gausili was situated upon the Coosawattee River, practically where the Indian village of Coosawattee Old Town was later located, and where today nestles the little town of Carters. From this point he proceeded almost due west, crossed the Connasuaga river, thence over the mountain where the expedition camped. From Xualla to this encampment was a distance of about 90 miles, consuming six days,--making it impossible for him to have penetrated the valley from Gausili up to Fort Mountain, build a fort there and then reach the camp within that period of time. He was in a hurry to reach Chiaha, yet many miles away, for food supplies and rest.

So rapid had been his movements through this territory that no religious services had even been held. All along the route to this point the Spaniards had been merciless to the Indians. De Soto's dreams of golden cities had faded into nightmares of disappointments; his chagrin had turned into bitterness, and he revenged himself upon the Indians,-cruelty, torture and avarice marked the trails.

At the same time the Indians found that these self-styled “Sun Gods” were extremely mortal and brutally: human, also, that they could he wounded, and blood would flow; could become hungry, tired, footsore, and discouraged; could become sick and die; were not physically any better than they were, in fact were inferior; that their armor and firearms alone made them superior.

After resting at Chiaha De Soto proceeded to Mauilla. At this place the Indians had built a large palisade village, and had prepared a trap for De Soto, by which they hoped to destroy the invaders, or rout them beyond a possibility of reorganization and effectiveness. The plan was to entertain De Soto, his officers and some of the soldiers within this enclosure where they were to be massacred: hoping that this act would carry terror to those on the outside who would flee, become lost, or else would surrender, or even might join in with them.

The Indians had discovered that the soldiers were on the verge of mutiny; and that De Soto had to change his own plans of proceeding to the seacoast, when this became known to him.

De Soto having become aware of the Indian trap just in time to quickly guard the gates and turn the tables against the Indians, resulting in a terrible slaughter of 2,000 men, women and children by the deadly volleys of their firearms. The flaming story of this dreadful carnage was swiftly carried to all the Indian settlements through which the expedition had passed. There was weeping and lamentation, and with it the birth of a great hatred toward the white invaders.

Twenty years after this, 1559-60, Don Tristan de Luna, another Spanish explorer with an armed expedition, had penetrated from the port of Achuse (probably the mouth of the Apalachicola river), up into the direction of Manilla, bringing fear and consternation to the Indians, who now became convinced that all invaders were bent upon their destruction. However, De Luna returned to Achuse without any cruel treatment meted out to them.

This period of unrest had not quieted before another expedition traversed the Cherokee country. This was the military expedition of Juan Pardo from Fort San Filipe, at Santa Elena (now the coast of South Carolina, where the name of St. Helena still remains). This was in 1866 and explains the fortification of Fort Mountain. This expedition was one of the results arising from the founding of St. Augustine in 1565, by Menendez de Aviles. Menendez proceeded from St. Augustine up the coast (now Georgia) to a point which was settled at Fort San Philipe (or Filipe); and established other similar contacts along the coast between the places. Later on following out his purposes he sent Juan Pardo from San Filipe with an expedition to go up into the Indian country in the mountain region, establish forts along a route that would lead into Neura Espana (Mexico). This called for an elaborate scheme of military enterprises.

Pardo went out with his heavily armed troopers and evidently missionaries. He proceeded to the Savannah River, thence up its valley to Cutitachiqui,--the same Indian town from which De Soto had abducted the Indian Princess twenty-six years before, and from there he followed the same Indian trails upon which De Soto had previously traveled.

Pardo built a fort a Xualla (near Nacoochee); garrisoned it, leaving a Sergeant Mayano in charge. He gave Mayano instructions to continue on towards the west, establishing other forts and missions, while he returned to San Filipe, Mayano proceeded over De Soto's route to Gausili, thence to Chiaha, where he built forts, and waited for Pardo. Pardo arrived soon after and went farther into “the Indian country, but learning that the Indians were banding to oppose him, returned to Chiaha.

Leaving that point strongly garrisoned and in charge of a corporal with thirty men heavily armed, he proceeded east to Cauchi, on the headwaters of the Chattahoochee river, left a garrison there, then returned to San Filipe.

Historic old Vann house, at Spring Place near Chatsworth, Georgia has recently been restored by the state. It was once the home of a wealthy Cherokee Indian chief.

The Chief Vann House in its faded dignity and its romantic decay appealed to many minds and attracted not only historians but also those persons whose imagination loves to live in the past. While hobos and animals were seeking shelter in it, mystery stories of hidden treasure and legends about its origin were growing. The Georgia Historical Commission, approached from many sides, finally decided to save the historical landmark. In order to do so, it was first necessary to clear the historical background. Although much has been told and written about the Vann House, very little was actually known. It was therefore decided to look into its history. The only reliable source of information referring directly to Spring Place was the collection of Moravian diaries of the Spring Place Mission, which was founded soon after 1800. Those diaries are the simple and exact accounts of Moravian Brethren, and each of the missionaries was obliged to keep his diary. Those from Spring Place have never been published or even translated from the German original. It became our task to do this work, and we intend to publish parts of these diaries in the near future. The information that we found proved to be rather valuable. We read that the Moravians had already stayed at Tellico in 1800, long enough to plant potatoes to which they refer in 1801. They had accepted the invitation of James Vann, who had jurisdiction over this area, and who offered “Spring Place” (or “Brown's Place”) to them. At that time there were only two cabins there, and these belonged to Brown, a Cherokee, who was about to move away. Spring Place was 'two and a half miles from Vann's Trading-post, which must have been toward the north near the Mill Creek. The cultivated land at Spring Place amounted to forty acres and had been under cultivation for thirty years.

In the course of their first year here they built some better cabins, they cut boards, tested the clay and baked bricks with satisfying results. Much is said about their daily and their friendly contact with Varin, but most important for us were the exact data that we got about the Vann House. A builder named Vogt, who had promised to build a house for Vann, appeared in July 1803, and started to make preparations for its construction. Although it is not clearly stated what kind of preparations these were, it seems obvious that what is meant was the baking of bricks and cutting of lumber. We do not know from where Mr. Vogt came. His name is German, but the Moravians do not mention that he was German, which they certainly would have done, had it been so. Their communications seem all to have been in English, as with Chief Vann. On January 14, 1804, we read that “Brother Bayhan and Mr. Schneider are helping today with Mr. Varin's new house, which is being erected.” Not until August 13 does one find reference to Vann's house as completed. “The Head Chiefs lodged in Mr. Vann's new house close to us, where also a talk will be held when the Commissioners are here”. It was the conference on the projected Federal road. Vann was supporting this plan, which was also a factor in his choice of the situation of his house, since he knew that the road would pass just north of it. The house therefore was faced north; while on the south side was a garden. The fact that the house faced north is also indicated by the position of the famous stairway. This stairway is a very fine piece of construction, but it is not unique nor even as unusual as has often been stated. It is possible that the Moravians had something to do with this work, since they were excellent craftsmen. We have no doubt that the bricks used in the house were produced on the spot, because we found a place, east of house, and close to the first Moravian settlement, where a kiln had once stood. It seems almost unnecessary to mention that all the bricks show characteristics of the local clay. Southwest of Spring Place, we found some limestone deposits in which the stone had been broken ostensibly to provide mortar.

If we look at the house as it stands today, we must imagine that on its east side was attached a kitchen building, and at the northeast corner of the kitchen, stood a neat square office building (or perhaps a guest house) with a fire place. Thus there was formed a court yard enclosed on three sides and paved with bricks. The whole ensemble of buildings constituted an architectural unit that was much more balanced and harmonious than it now looks. We do not wish to make exaggerated claims as to the magnificence of the place. We could even criticize some of the proportions, or some structural details such as the rather poorly constructed arches. But one thing we must admit, and that is that the Vann House was the first (twenty one years before New Echota) solid architectural creation in the manner of an evolved architecture, to appear in the Indian Country, where heretofore had existed only log buildings. It was, in comparison with its surroundings more than a Palais de Versailles in France.

There has developed a theory according to which the attic rooms of the Vann house were used as council chambers and were indeed built for this purpose. This theory is based on the fact that both these rooms have curved walls on the side where one enters. We do not feel able to subscribe to such a theory for the following reasons. The basic form of a Cherokee council house is a windowless, circular structure embodying the idea of an uninterrupted circle, and having therefore its entrance at a slant in order to conceal the actual door. Furthermore, it was always necessary for a council house to have a large seating capacity, as for example the town house at Estanelly (which is by far not the largest) which could accommodate one thousand persons. The long, narrow attic rooms in the Vann House with windows has space enough for barely twenty people, and is thus out of the question. It was probably another source of misunderstanding that the above mentioned Meeting in August 1804 took place at the Vann House. As far as we know, it was the only meeting ever held there, and besides it was not a regular meeting anyway. The little Town Chief Vann, although influential, had not the authority to decide matters which were based on rank and traditions. That Vann succeeded in assembling some of the principle chiefs and the United States Government representatives, is due partly to the fact that his new mansion was attracting general curiosity, and moreover that the distribution of government money in support of the Federal road provided further inducement, and last but not least Vann's new Still was now in operation, and whiskey was lavishly dispensed. Small wonder that the Meeting was well attended!

From March to May 1953 we made our archeological investigation of the Vann House. In the course of this were found the foundations of the kitchen building, and those of the “office”, Brick pavements and paths were also uncovered. The brick foundations of the kitchen were rather unsubstantial so that we are led to believe that the upper structure was of wood. Indeed we find it mentioned as such in the appraisal made in 1835. Other outlines of small wooden buildings were found, and some refuse pits which yielded pieces of fine, early 19th century china and glass, as well as various household utensils. We succeeded in finding Vann's mill, which, after an abortive start in 1803, was definitely in operation in 1804. It was one of the earliest mills in the territory. We have not as yet been able to locate the Trading Post. All sites reported as such, proved to be pre-Cherokee sites about six hundred years too old.

With reference to the kitchen, the opinion has been expressed that the building adjacent to the house was not the kitchen. We do not know the basis for this opinion, but we do know that it does not accord with the facts established by archeological investigation. Moreover, the plan of the lay-out shows an arrangement of buildings entirely different from, and characteristic of an earlier date than, the typical Georgia arrangement.

The reconstruction of the Vann House is now well under way. The Georgia Historical Commission put the task into the hands of a specialist in historical reconstructions, Dr. H. Chanlee Forman. We hope that when the work is completed the Vann House will serve as a museum dealing with the history of Indian trade.

We do not know very much about the Vann family and their origins. Many different stories have been told about them, but their Scotch origin is generally accepted, al though somebody expressed the opinion that Vann was German. We see no reason to believe this since nothing indicates such a thing and besides the name is not German. Some persons wanted to see in Clement Varin, a descendant of Scotch nobility, while others thought that he was a fugitive from justice. We only know that Clement Vann entered the Cherokee territory at some time during the second half of the 18th century and that he came from Charleston, South Carolina. We are inclined to believe that the trading post south of Gainesville, Georgia, at the border line of Hall County, may have been his first establishment. Its exact location is not known, but was very likely on the Chestnut Hill Road. The area between there and the Chattahoochee was for a long time a disputed territory, until the Chattahoochee River itself was designated as the border. One should expect that it was after Clement Vann established friendly contact with the Indians that he went into their territory beyond the mountains, an adventurous and not necessarily lucrative undertaking in as much as he took as his spouse a chieftain's daughter, thus making him, according to Cherokee law, a member of his wife's clan and therefore her tribe, he had good reason for settling in his wife's town, founding a trading post there, and finally becoming Town Chief. His son James must have been born about 1770, and he became the most important figure in the Vann family. He had several wives, as polygamy was generally accepted among the Cherokees, but on the other hand he supported our Christian civilization as a means of progress for the Cherokees. He is described as good-natured but violent and a heavy drinker, but a shrewd trader with a very enterprising mind. In 1808 he shot his brother-in-law in a political duel that was fought with pistols. In 1809 he was killed by some relative in accordance with old tribal law, and probably as the result of some secret condemnation. His will was the object of a decree of the Council of Chiefs and Warriors, which annulled its provisions. These precious documents are herewith cited.

About James' son Joseph Vann, known as “Rich Joe”, there is available much fuller information. He was born on February 11, 1798. His Cherokee name was Teaultle. He seems to have taken good care of his inherited property and to have increased his wealth. When he was expelled from his house and land early in 1834, he did not join any other group of Cherokees. He and his family had to spend the winter in a poor log cabin, but he did succeed in saving some of his wealth. Later he received at least some compensation for his lost property.

He settled in Webbers Falls on the Arkansas River, and became a great enthusiast for racing his steamboat the “Lucy Walker”, on the rivers. Once too often he overheated its boiler, and he died in the ensuing explosion, on October 26, 1844 near Louisville, Kentucky.

We do not doubt that more facts about the Vann family will be obtained. At a brief visit at the Archives of South Carolina in Columbia, we had an opportunity to look through some records, and thanks to the kind help of the staff we found that the name of Vann occurs in South Carolina already early in the 18th century. One Vann (not Clement) obtained together with a McNair and another man, a license to trade with the Choctaws in the middle of the 18th century. A Mrs. Vann bequeathed a field to some heir. And finally, in the latter part of the same century, a Vann was pardoned for horse stealing! This means that he must have been a fairly influential citizen, because horse stealing at that time was usually a very severely punished crime!

This prayer was found on the walls of an old cathedral, in the little town of Chester, Avon, England. My Grandmother was Mary Chester and taught me this philosophy.

The first string of hotels in this part of the country was the Chester Inns. The Chester Family came over from the town of Chester, Avon, England and settled in Chester County Pennsylvania and later a county in Tennessee was named Chester. William Patterson Chester built the first deluxe inn on the stagecoach line through the Cherokee nation at Jonesboro, Tennessee, the oldest town in Tennessee and the capital of the short lived state of Franklin, organized in 1784.

On the north side of Main Street, just west of the public square, he erected what was then the largest building in the town and one of the largest in the western country. There was a lower story of brick at the street level, occupied as shops, with two frame stories above. The entire eastern end of the second floor was the office or public room, around whose great open fireplace guests and townspeople could mingle. The remainder of the frame portion was divided into guest rooms. Two halls ran across the building, from front to back, with a stairway in each leading to the upper story. On the front were two small roofless porches projecting over the sidewalk, connected by a narrow catwalk and reached at either end by a' flight of steps from the street level. Upon these porches the lower halls opened. A two-story brick and frame addition, used as a kitchen and dining room with guests’ rooms above, stood at the rear.

The rooms were large, airy, and furnished with elegance and taste, and the hill of fare embraced every delicacy and substantial obtainable in the fine market, served in a manner calculated to please the most fastidious. Care and scrupulous cleanliness pervaded every department; and the servants were attentive and polite.

The landlord was ever regardful of the comfort and pleasure of his guests, and a sojourn at the Inn was as near an approach to an elegant house as a stranger could desire.

The rates of the Inn were in shillings and tavern keepers were ordered to take and receive the following prices and no more.

From the ancient guest registration guests of the Chester Inn in the early days were:

President Andrew Johnson, Sam Houston, President Martin Van Buren, George Bancroft, Historian, Sen. John C. Calhoun, John Sevier, Samuel Dook, President James K. Polk, James Silk Buckingham, Senator Alexander Anderson, Felix Grundy, Editor Henry Watterson, James H. Dasser, Felix Earnest, Gov. Bob and Al£ Taylor, Parson W. B. Brownlow, Lander C. Hays.

Now comes William P. Chester, Jr., another inn builder. Born May 4, 1801 on the Nolachucky River Plantation in Washington County Tennessee. He moved to Spring Place, Georgia, in the center of the Cherokee nation and built the second Chester Inn. A guest of the Chester Inn was General Winfield Scott who made his home there while moving the Cherokee Indians west.

The Chester family was close friends and neighbors of the Joseph Vann family and of the Moravian Churchman. John Howard Payne also tarried there. My great grandfather Chester then moved to New Echota, then capitol of the Cherokee nation, and there built a third Chester Inn. After the removal of the Cherokee Indians west he moved over to Dalton which was then called Cross Plains and built the fourth Chester Inn which was later almost destroyed by General Sherman during the Civil War.

He was appointed Postmaster in Dalton in 1858 and continued in office as postmaster by the Confederate authorities. William Patterson Chester died in April 1886 and is buried at the cemetery in Dalton, Georgia.

New Echota Marker National Memorial is one of the smallest and most obscure of the 162 areas administered by the National Park Service. Few travelers turn aside from the Dixie Highway (U. S. Route No. 41) onto the rural road that leads from the present town of Calhoun to a pastoral scene in the north Georgia hills where a modest stone chronicles briefly the rise and fall of a nation. The story seldom is told, yet merits constant and eloquent repetition; for it is the recital of an unparalleled human achievement. It is the record of a people raised in a scant decade, by its own intellectual bootstraps, from unlettered savagery to the refined estate of a government by published code and a literature by the printed word. It is the moving but tragic history of the Cherokee Indians.

American ethnologists, political economists, social and religious historians, and students in numerous allied fields may find at this abandoned eastern capital of the Cherokees the subjects for fruitful investigation into many questions of aboriginal culture. The present discussion is intended merely to suggest some of the little trod trails of inquiry which might lead to profitable discoveries in the realm of Indian journalism, a surprisingly prolific institution which had its origins 120 years ago at New Echota before it spread westward and gave the first periodical press to at least two of the young States beyond the Mississippi.

New Echota's unique page in the history of world journalism is an incidental gift of Sequoyah, that incredible genius whose career still awaits a comprehensive biography which overreaches academic quibble. Long recognized as “America's Cadmus,” that untutored linguist, who spoke no word of English or any other “civilized” tongue, endowed his fellow tribesmen with a written language which offered to the eye an easy and faithful transcript of their ancient speech.

Strange to tell, Sequoyah, hero of his nation, beneficiary of the only literary pension ever granted by the United States Government, recipient of a medal from Congress, commemorate in Statuary Hall at the National Capitol, official emissary in Washington, veteran of the War of 1812, subject of an oil portrait by a leading painter of the day, drunkard turned prohibitionist, artisan who developed silver craft to the highest point attained by North American Indians, inspiration for the name of a famous giant tree, and, above all, inventor of a remarkably efficient system of language signs, remains today, a century after his death, something of a man of mystery.

This fact becomes all the more astounding when it is considered that many inquiring visitors, including men of literary reputation, interviewed Sequoyah in his later years. Nevertheless, his paternity, the time and place of his birth, and even the details of his death are unproved questions which have tantalized numerous researchers. One of them, after a cautious review of the evidence, believes that “it may be enough to say that Sequoyah was born of a Cherokee mother, somewhere in the lower Appalachian region, between the years 1755 and 1775.”

Fortunately for those lay readers who are not disagreeably insistent upon microscopic substantiation of pleasantly plausible theories, most students of the Sequoyan saga concede, with varying degrees of reservation, that the gifted Indian was born about 1760 at Fort Loudon, near the original Echota in east Tennessee, the son of a white man. The somewhat uninspiring etymological thesis has been advanced that the hero's name is derived from Sikwa, suggesting “pig pen.” Another explanation, which perhaps could not withstand the dissolving acids of philological scrutiny, is that the Indian mother, forsaken by her itinerant spouse before the arrival of their child, chose the name Sequoia, meaning “he guessed it.” Happily, such discussions are but academic bypaths which stern from the high road of achievement blazed by the man himself.

Divested of split-hair carpisms, the essential story starts, with Sequoyah's recognition of the superior power that written speech, “talk on paper,' conferred upon the men who understood it, in contradistinction to those who could transmit their ideas only by mouth. He began in 1809 to devise a system of symbols for words and ideas which developed gradually into an elaborate, laborious, and inflexible pictography similar in basic principle to Chinese. Aware of his error, he made a new start; and there was his stroke of genius. He noted carefully every sound in the Cherokee language and designated each by an arbitrary character. After a decade of experimentation, while enduring patiently the jeers of relatives and friends, he perfected a system of 85 fundamental symbols, plus one recurrent prefix, and evolved, not precisely an alphabet, but a syllabary a phonetic transcription of the entire Cherokee vocabulary with its bewildering 9 modes, 15 tenses, and 3 numbers (singular, dual, and plural).

The prime significance of Sequoyah's invention, however, was not his own mastery of a complex lingual problem. It was the amazing facility with which others could learn the system. A considerable number of the Cherokee Indians, some of them cultured ,land wealthy, commanded polished English, and a few perhaps were scornful of the syllabary. The unschooled tribesmen, however, found it a linguistic open sesame which unfolded magnificent new vistas of knowledge and vicarious experience. Scoffers were quieted by a successful public demonstration of the system in 1821, and thousands of Indians were conversant with it by the following year. It was adopted officially in 1825 by the general council of the Cherokee Nation.

Stirrings of powerful new intellectual interests among the Indians soon were observed by workers at Brainerd Mission, an institution near the present city of Chattanooga, which had been established in 1817 by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. The Missionary Herald of February 1826, reported:

A form of alphabetical writing, invented by a Cherokee named George Guess, who does not speak English, and was never taught to read English books, is attracting great notice among the people generally. The interest in this matter has been increasing for the last 2 years; till, at length, young Cherokees travela great distance to be instructed. In 3 days they are able to commence letter writing, and return home to their native villages prepared to teach others. Probably at least 20, perhaps 50, times as many would read a book printed with Guyst's character, as would read one printed with the English alphabet.

Dr. Samuel A. Worcester, a distinguished New England missionary who lived among the Cherokees for 34 years and served for a time as New Echota's postmaster, seized upon the Seyuoyan syllabary as a potent instrument for the diffusion of religious literature. He urged the immediate establishment of a press which would disseminate, by the new-found system, the message that he had sought to convey through the clumsy device of interpreted sermons and lectures. The Board of Commissioners had received an urgent plea as early as September 1825:

The Cherokees have for some time been very desirous to have a press of their own, that a newspaper may be published in their own language.. Already the four Gospels are translated and fairly copied; and if types and a press were ready, they could be immediately revised and printed and read.

The Missionary Herald of December 1827 contains several items of superlative significance in Cherokee history. One is the eleven-line reproduction (see illustration on p 46) of Dr. Worcester's translation of the first five verses of Genesis-the initial use, in printed form, of Sequoia’s phonetic symbols. Another is the announcement that a font of Cherokee type had been cast in Boston and “an iron press of improved construction” purchased. Reflecting the missionary group's interest in the venture, the note continues:

A Prospectus has also been issued for a newspaper, entitled the Cherokee Phoenix, to be printed partly in Cherokee and partly in English. All this had been done by order of the Cherokee Government, and at their expense.

Among the Cherokees, then, we are to see the first printing press ever owned and employed by any nation of the Aborigines of this Continent, the first effort at writing and printing in characters of their own; the first newspaper, and the first book printed among themselves; the first editor; and, the first well-organized system for securing a general diffusion of knowledge among the people. Among the Cherokees, also, we see established the first regularly elective government, with the legislative, judicial, and elective branches distinct; with the safeguards of a written Constitution and a trial by jury.

The Cherokee press and type were shipped by water from Boston in November 1827. They arrived at Augusta, Georgia via Savanna, and finally reached New Echota in January 1828, after an overland trip by wagon. Isaac H. Harris and John F. Wheeler, two printers who had waited at the Cherokee capital since December 23, 1827, greeted the equipment with professional enthusiasm. Wheeler, who went to Arkansas in 1834 and became a pioneer typographer in the new country of the West, designed the first Cherokee type case, probably while at New Echota, but never received a patent for it. He later recalled the arrival of the printing materials in north Georgia:

The Press, a small royal size, was like none I ever saw before or since. It was cast iron, with spiral springs to hold up the plates, at that time a new invention. We had to use balls of deerskin stuffed with wool for inking, as it was before the invention of the composition roller John Candy, a native half breed could speak the Cherokee language, and was of great help to me in giving me the words where they were not plainly written.

The absence of newsprint caused a delay in the publication of Volume I, No.1, of Tsalagi-twi-le-hisani-bi, the Cherokee Phoenix. A supply finally was obtained from Tennessee and, on February 21, 1828, there appeared the inaugural issue of the father of America's aboriginal newspapers. It was a journal of four five-columned pages measuring 21 by 14 inches. The vignette included a representation of the fabulous phoenix, the Egyptian bird which lived for 500 years, was consumed by a cleansing fire, and arose from its own ashes in all its youthful freshness. That first issue announced that the weekly Phoenix could be procured for $2.50 a year paid in advance, or $3.50 paid at the end of the year. Rates were reduced to $2 and $2.50 for non-English readers. Altogether, the paper justified the 1827 prospectus, already mentioned, which had said that it would contain:

(2) Accounts of the manners and customs of the Cherokees, and their progress in education, religion, and the arts of civilized life, with such notices of other Indian tribes as our limited means of information will allow.

(4) Miscellaneous articles, calculated to promote literature, civilization, and religion among the Cherokees.

Here an admirable and tragic character appears on the journalistic stage of the American Indians. He is Elias Boudinott, known also as Kub-Ie-ga-nah (and other spellings), meaning “The Buck,” a brilliant young part-breed who had been singled out at Brainerd Mission and sent to a higher church school at Cornwall, Conn. Among his scholarly achievements at an early age was the distinction of having calculated' a solar eclipse, “very neatly projected and the results stated in the usual form.” Boudinott, whose signature bore two “t,s,” although he had adopted the name of Elias Boudinot, Governor of New Jersey and President of the American Bible Society, created something of a social ferment when he married Harriet Ruggles Gold at Cornwall in 1822 and departed with his white bride for the wilderness of New Echota. Because of his superior mental powers and his excellent training, he was chosen clerk of the Cherokee National Council. With the issuance of the Phoenix he became America's first Indian editor.

Aware of the extraordinary handicaps imposed upon him by a pioneer publishing venture born in the wilds of Cherokee Georgia, young Boudinott was diplomatic but purposeful as he wrote .his first editorial. The newspaper was not undertaken for profit, he explained, but would depend largely on the liberality of his supporters. He continued:

We would now commit our feeble efforts to the good will and indulgence of the public hoping for that happy period when all the Indian tribes of America shall arise, Phoenix-like, from the ashes, and when the terms “Indian depredation; “warwhoop,” “scalping-knife,” and the like, shall become obsolete, and forever be buried “deep underground.”

Considering the objectives which it was created to serve and the unusual circumstances of time and place in which it was produced, the Cherokee Phoenix was a good newspaper. While it functioned, on the one hand, as the official organ of a nation, it also did duty, on the other, as something of a “local weekly:' That second office was subordinated entirely to the first, however, and the struggling little paper maintained a journalistic standard whose catholic tone and editorial technique merit the respectful attention of present-day students of the press.

The earliest issues contained many reprints (in English) of informational odds and ends from other newspapers. Some of them, such as those relating to the complexities of European politics, probably quickened few pulses among Cherokee readers; but the contents improved as editor and printers became better oriented and crystallized their “interest” formula. The paper was strongly educational, mainly, perhaps, because young Boudinott wished earnestly to convey to his more benighted tribesmen some of the knowledge that white men have gathered from the corners of the earth. There were carefully chosen articles on better farming and a series on natural history. Descriptions of Calcutta rubbed columnar elbows with excerpts from Robinson Crusoe, Washington Irving's Traits of Indian Character, and translations of The Parable of the Prodigal Son. An official duty was performed by the serial reproduction (in Cherokee and English) of the Cherokee Constitution and Laws, but there also were political announcements of district candidates for National Council seats, a poetry corner, lost and found column, and notices (printed bilingually) from husbands who foreswore responsibility for their wives' debts.

Resulting probably from the indirect sponsorship of missionary workers and from the fact that Editor Boudinott had been educated among them; the Phoenix had about it a distinct aura of proscriptive morality. There were frequent exhortations against· the evils of intemperance, and generous reprints describing the tragic fate of those unfortunates who fell victims to the insidious beguilements of the bowl. Nicotine, as well as alcohol, was clad in the wanton garments of iniquity, for the issue of July 2, 1828, reported under the heading, “Warning to Snuff-Takers,” the arresting case of an Englishwoman who, upon taking an overgenerous pinch, forthwith had sneezed her neck out of joint and died. An autopsy revealed “four and one-half pounds of snuff in the place where her brains should be.”

Most significant of all the contents of the Phoenix, however, were its political editorials: They inveighed against the abuses, some imaginary, others only too real, which the Cherokees suffered from white settlers and adventurers, and there were attacks but half restrained upon the Georgia government. More informative than carefully organized argumentation is the indignant note of February 19, 1831:

Let our patrons bear in mind that we are in the woods, and as it is said by many, in a savage country, where printers are not plenty, and therefore they must not expect to receive the Phoenix regularly for awhile, but we will do the best we can. This week, we present to our readers but half a sheet. The reason is, one of our printers has left us; and we expect another, who is a white man, to quit us soon, either to be dragged to the Georgia Penitentiary for a term of not less than four years, or for his personal safety to leave the Nation, to let us shift for ourselves as well as we can. Thus is the liberty of the press guaranteed.

It may have been similar utterances, but more probably it was the moral zealotry of the editor, which had led the National Council on November 19, 1828, to instruct him to withhold “scurrilous communications which have a tendency to excite and irritate personal controversies, also he shall not support or cherish ... anything on religious matters, that will savor sectarianism.”

Meanwhile, the fame of the Phoenix had spread afar. Mr. Duponceau, president of the American Philosophical Society, sent a copy of the first issue “to a learned society in France as a great curiosity!” William de Humboldt, a German philologist, wrote a commendatory letter to the editor, and The London Times exchanged on even terms with the Indian journal. The Georgia Government recognized it as an official organ and often sought to have notices inserted in it.

It must have become early apparent to Boudinott, however, that his publisher's duties were to be fraught with woes. In the issue of April 24, 1828, there was an announcement that, because of difficulties encountered in replenishing the supply of paper, no Phoenix would appear the next week. On June 18 he considered it desirable to inform his readers that the post office had promised better delivery service, and added ruefully:

Another complaint has reached us, and that is, our papers are not done up in a substantial manner. There we acknowledge the complaint is reasonable, but the fault is not designed, but altogether from necessity. Our readers probably know that we live in a wilderness, and of course cannot obtain paper without considerable expense. As soon as may be, we intend to supply ourselves with good wrapping paper.

Boudinott lamented in the issue of July 30, 1828, that the wealthiest and most influential tribesmen were not subscribers of the Phoenix. He announced his resignation on December 3, pleading ill health, but must have mended, or was dissuaded, for the next number to be found in the collection of the Library of Congress (February 4, 1829, Vol. I, No. 47), contains an explanation from the same editor that the Phoenix was placed in the mails in routine fashion on the preceding week and no reason could be established to indicate why no one ever received it.

A month later, March 4, 1829 (Vol. I, No. 51), he directed attention, with some pride, to the forthcoming final number of the first volume of the newspaper. He then cited the lack of an assistant wherefore “it is impossible to devote a large portion of the paper to the Cherokee language, as the whole must be original. To reassure those readers who might construe his linguistic preference as an evidence of disloyalty, he asserted:

The paper is sacred to the cause of the Indians, and the editor will feel himself especially bound, as far as his time, talents, and information will permit, to render it as instructive and entertaining as possible to his brethren, and endeavor to enlist the friendly feelings and sympathies of his subscribers abroad, in favor of the aborigines.

A tragicomic misfortune overtook that issue. An editorial notice of the following week (March 11, 1829, Vol. I, No. 52) described the calamity. Mail from the small post office at New Echota was transported to that at Spring Place by a post rider. With bundles of the Phoenix slung across his saddle, the messenger fell from his horse while crossing Holly Creek and dropped his load in the water. The papers remained submerged for 7 hours before they were recovered and taken to Spring Place. The postmaster notified Boudinott that all the papers were damaged and the addresses rendered barely legible. “In short,” he wrote to the editor, “the whole mail is in a miserable situation.” He proposed, however, to attempt to dry the papers as well as he could and to make the distribution as usual.

After Boudinott, because of illness, had omitted his editorial comments from the issue of April 1, 1829 (Vol. II, No .3), he explained apologetically in the next Phoenix: “The Editor of this paper regrets that, owing to indisposition, he is not able to render his present number as interesting as he would wish.” The issue of April 22 was skipped entirely for want of printer's ink, the editor announced in the following number (April 29, 1829, Vol. II, No.7). He published at the same time the news that Wheeler, one of his printers, had married Nancy Watie at New Echota on April 23. The paper then suspended entirely until May 27 (Vol. II, No.8), when it was explained that the shipment of ink had been delayed. The reader is left to wonder whether a bridal trip of the Wheelers might have been partly responsible for the hiatus of three consecutive issues.

The illness of “a hand” reduced the Phoenix of September 22, 1829 (Vol. II, No. 22) to two pages and, for the first time since its establishment, there was no Cherokee type in its columns. A study of the newspaper file reveals a diminishing quantity of material printed in the Sequoyan syllabary, an indication perhaps, that the poor health of Boudinott, who still was only about 26 years old, did not permit him to devote his entire time to editorial duties. Another explanation may be found in the fact that Boudinott and Dr. Worcester were busily engaged in preparing religious materials for publication on the Phoenix press. Portions of the Bible were translated from Greek into Cherokee, numerous tracts were issued, and an Indian hymn book, first printed in 1829 at New Echota, ran through new editions long after both co-authors had died. Worcester began a Cherokee geography, and a dictionary and grammar were in progress when he left Georgia for the West. One investigator estimated that the press produced 733,800 pages in Cherokee within 5 years after adoption of the syllabary.

Boudinott's bad health was noted again in the Phoenix of February 12, 1831 (Vol. III, No. 37), and issuance of the paper became increasingly irregular thereafter. Wheeler's name had disappeared by April 9, 1831 (Vol. III, No. 44) from its accustomed position in the masthead of John Canday’s took that place. Finally, on August 1, 1832, Boudinott laid down the editorial banner which he had borne so well through four and a half years of wilderness journalism. It was taken up by Elijah Hicks, a fellow tribesman who later became a leader in the Indian Territory and in 1839 and 1843 was a member of official missions in Washington.

A precise determination of subsequent events awaits a thorough sifting of the records by a patient student. Activities of the Phoenix were linked inextricably to the long and complex three sided controversy which raged between Washington, the Georgia Government, and the Cherokees concerning the removal of the Indians to the West. The New Echota newspaper, a strong voice for Cherokee independence, was marked as early as 1831 as a factor with which Georgia would have to contend, and it soon was assailed because it was a potent weapon against white encroachment. Dr. Worcester was imprisoned that year, won a decision from the United States Supreme Court in 1832, and was released at last in 1833.

Meanwhile, the Phoenix appeared more and more irregularly. It is conceded generally that the last issue was published May 31, 1834, and that the press and types were seized by Georgia authorities in October 1835. That was after Boudinott, still a resident of New Echota, had placed his signature sincerely but unadvisedly to a “treaty” providing for removal west of the Mississippi. He represented the views of only a small minority of the Nation and his act cost him his life 4 years later in the West a grim assassiation with knives and hatchets.

The Cherokee National Council resolved in 1836 to remove its press from Georgia and set it up across the border at Red Clay, Tenn. When a wagon was sent to transport it from New Echota, possession was refused. Chief John Ross and other leaders complained to the Secretary of War that the equipment was being “used by the agents of the United States in publishing slanderous communications against the constituted authorities of the Cherokee Nation.”

The tragic climax came in 1838. A few thousand Cherokees were taken West as prisoners on boats, but the majority, some' 13,000, was sent in 13 overland parties on the journey of 3 to 5 months down the harrowing “Trail of Tears” to the West which, only by bitter irony, could be called “that happy land beyond the setting sun.” About 4,000 died en route.

What became of the pioneer Indian printing press and its novel Sequoyan type? The National Park Service, or any public agency or private organization, could make a noteworthy contribution to the history of Indian journalism if, circumstances permitting, it might devote the required study to a determination of the fate of the mechanical apparatus which gave to an extraordinary people the printed pages that lifted thousands of common tribesmen from the illiteracy of the forest to the lettered realm of higher citizenship.

Dr. Grant Foreman, a leading historian of the Cherokee removal, writes: “In spite of my research and the examination of every scrap of evidence I could get my hands on, what happened to the Cherokee Phoenix press is still a mystery to me.” John P. Brown, a Chattanooga investigator cited above (Old Frontier’s), is “of the opinion that the Georgia Guard demolished the printing press, as that would be the natural thing for them to do with the feeling then raging. Dr. Worcester took a press to the West with him and issued the .first pages printed in what now is Oklahoma, but the claim that it was the same machinery used at New Echota appears to be open to serious doubt. Dr. Foreman is “persuaded that Dr. Worcester obtained a new press which he brought out with him and set up at Union Mission in 1835.”

A font of Cherokee type, 4 type cases, and 140 matrices were received by the United States National Museum in 1911 by transfer from the Office of Indian Affairs, but those materials were transmitted in 1915 to the Cherokee Orphan Training School, at Park Hill, Oklahoma (now the Sequoyah Orphan Training School, of Tahlequah, Oklahoma. Although it had been believed by some students that the type was a part of the font' used at New Echota, the archivist of the Oklahoma Historical Society reveals the existence of official records which show that the metal had belonged to the Cherokee Advocate, established at Tahlequah in 1844 as the western successor of the Phoenix and published there as the official national organ until the disintegration of the tribal government in 1906.

E. D. Hicks, a grandson of Elijah Hicks (mentioned above as the second editor of the Phoenix), who has lived in Tahlequah since birth, discloses that the press and some of the other equipment of the defunct Advocate were sold to J. S. Holden, who tried to run a paper in Fort Gibson (Oklahoma), but he died and what became of the old outfit I do not know.” It appears improbable, in any case, that either the Advocate type, or that now· to be found in a mixed case of English and Cherokee type stored in an attic of the school at Tahlequah, ever served in producing the New Echota Phoenix.

Nevertheless, even though the historic physical equipment of publication be lost forever, there still must remain at New Echota Marker National emorial the material for an exceptional volume of stories yet untold concerning the Phoenix and its monumental work. Those stories well may deserve public recital.

Credit is due the National Park Service by Hugh A. Autrey for this historical data

1742: The Battle of Bloody Marsh-General Oglethorpe defeated the Spaniards and kept Georgia for Georgians and an English speaking people.

1782: The Treaty of Peace was signed at Versailles and the Revolutionary War with England was over, keeping Georgia for Georgians.

1836: The Treaty of New Echota moved the Cherokee Indians West leaving Georgia for Georgians.

1865: The Civil War was over. Georgia was prostrated, Atlanta was in ashes. The Negroes were free, taken from the plantation homes, untrained for other kinds of work, promised they thought, “forty acres and a mule.” Their emancipators left them to the tender mercies of the former owners. This has been Georgia's heaviest load-providing employment and almost equal educational advantages to the Negroes, nearly one-third of Georgia's population, without assets and paying no taxes.

1958: Georgia by the Supreme Court Ruling has a problem with the Negroes, who were savages when brought over here as slaves and taught plantation work. They are very different from the Indians. The Negro as a colored race is generally friendly, peaceable, industrious, and their development in the South is unmatched anywhere else in the world. Therefore, Georgia has struggled through wars and four races of people--British, Spaniards, Indians and Negroes. The question now arises, would it have been better after the Civil War to move all the Negroes to a Western state, if not to Africa, and let them develop themselves. Would they have made the progress that they have made in Georgia? Have the Indians made the progress by themselves that was expected?