Year: 1872

From the missouri hepuOuc6ns Lee. l.


An intelligent correspondent from
the Cherokee Nation gives very
gloomy account ofthe condition of the
nation and its prospects. He says
that education Is doing absolutely
nothing for the full-blOOd Cherokees.
In the first place the educational fund
amounting to S35. 900 year, lsentire-
IL inadequate to the work to be done,
and also that it is chiefly swallowed
up by other more pressing demands
for money. Teachers with no know
ledge of Cherokee attempt to teach
children English, and they learn
few expressions of conversation and
to read in q simp reader without
aLy understanding Of the subject
matter. ThE ir instruction in English
does not begin right and it cannot
reach the right spot to be digested,
assimilafed with their mental eonsti-
tuition and thought, and made availa-
BILE. The memory only is taxed. 1t
soon rejects the burden, and all this
wrong-end foremost instruction is lost.


Eo be Of any benefit to these wild
tribes, instruction must come through
their own language, and there are no
teachers to give it.


According to this correspondent, the
educators of the Cherokee Nation are
throwing away their labor and doing
absolutely no good. The Cherokee
dialect is spoken by only about ten
thousand. The majority Of these
think it sufficient for their needs of
business and communication. They
can not be reached by the press; they
pay little regard to the hslf-breeds,
and still less to the whites. No full
blooded Indian can be found who
dares to 90 among them and tell them
plainly of their condition aud i'm
pending doom. They dread change
they scOrn innovation. They want
to be let alone, and depend on the
treaty Of 1928 to secure their laads to
them forever. In the mean time the
whites are making inrOads and de-
manding that the territory shall be
opened. The locomotive is dashing
past their doors, and there they sit
without 9 particle Of understanding
of what is going on around them
They are entirely unpTepared for the
battle Of races which is pressing closer
and closer upon them.


The great difficulty, and one that
=.
task Of dissipating the prejudices Of
the full blood element. They are a
solid mass of inert matter, and the
activities of the age do not reach
them. In their legislative assemblies
they vote solid against anything that
threatens t. disturb them with change.
They are Indians in instinct; wish to
have no relations with the whites, and
hold to their native Cherokee with the
force of patriotic devotion. 1t may
be demonstrated to them that, where
two races meet, the stronger will alb
sOFb or exterminate the weaker; but
the teachings of history do not reach
this people. They hold themselves
rs the wards Of the government.


Repeated promises have been made
to them that, in the distant land west
of the Mississippi, they have secured
to them "a permanent home, which
shall, under the most solemn guaranty
OF the United States, be and remain
theirs forever; q home that shall new
er in all future time be embarrassed
by having extended around it the
lines, or placed over it the jurisdie-
ton of q Territory or State, nor be
pressed upon by the extension in any
way Of the limits Of any existing Ter
ritory or State" Treaty of May 6,
1921 To their simple minds a bar
gain is bargain. They have given
their lands in Tennessee and Georgia
and Alabama in exchange for this
country, and here they have been
promised security from the intrusion
Of the whites. They rely upon the
good faith of the Government, hold
ing a solemn treaty good against Acts
of Congress, the law Ofraees, CONNER
eial extension, and the moral atmos-
phere difflsed by locomotive.


And here are these 10000 Indians
profoundly ignorant Of all that sur
rounds them; destiny advancing upon
them in the shape of territorial bills,
conditional land grants to railroads
professional land grabbers, and the
Obliteration Of their tribal relations,
and nobody can be found willing TO
tell them the truth and urge them to
prepare themselves for the emergency. /
An English education, which would
be their only armOr for the strife of
races, they cannot get, and apparently
do not want. They are peaceable In
dians, but unless they are reused into
life enough to mingls with lie around
they will soon be swept away by the
surging current Of the civilization hat !
is now beating and dashing at their
doors.