Cherokee Indians

[Return Jonathon Meigs, Esq. agent of the United States for the Cherokee Indians, and father of the present PostMaster General, gives the following account of the Cherokees in a letter to Dr. Mitchell of New York.  The letter is dated May 4, 1816.  The account will be peculiarly interesting to those who are seeking information respecting the Indians with a view of introducing Christianity among them.]

In the year 1809, I had a census taken of the number of the Cherokee nation, which amounted to 12,357.  The number of males and females were nearly equal, they have considerably increased since that period,so that, including a col-ony of Cherokees who went to settle on the river Arkansas, their number is about 14,500 souls, those who emigrated to Arkansas, as well as those on their ancient grounds, have made considerable advances in acquiring the useful arts, particularly in the manufacture of cotton and woolen cloth.  They raise the cotton and the indigo for dying their yarn; they are good weavers, and have at this time upwards of 500 looms: most of the looms are made by themselves; they have more than 500 ploughs, this greatly increased the tillage of their lands; they have large stocks of black cattle and horses, swine, and some sheep; they have domesticated poultry in plenty; and having now an abundance of the necessaries of life, their population proportionally increases.

By means of some schools, many of their young people read and write.  A great part of the men have adopted our modes of dress; and the females without exception dress in the habits of the white people.  Some of them who are wealthy are richly dressed.  They are remarkably clean and neat in their persons; this may be accounted for by their universal practice of bathing in their numerous transparent streams of water which in almost every direction run through their country.  Men, women, and children practice bathing, which undoubtedly contributes to their health.  All can swim, and this is often of great convenience, as no river can impede their way in traveling.  When the females bathe, they are never exposed: any improper conduct towards them would be held in detestation by all.  Since I have been first in that nation, a young white man solicited the hand of a young Cherokee woman.  She refused his offer, and objected, as a principal reason, that he was not clean in his appearance; that he did not as the Cherokees do, bathe himself in the rivers.  Ablution with these people was formerly a religious rite.  It is not now viewed by them in this light, but it is nearly allied to a moral virtue.

I have not been an inattentive spectator in viewing these people in various situations; in their forests, in their houses, in their schools, and in their public councils.  The progress of their children in their schools, has been as great as that of any other children, in acquiring the knowledge of letters and of figures.

Nature has given them the finest forms; and can we presume that God has withheld from them correspondent intellectual powers of mind.  No man who has had public business to transact with them, can have a doubt of the capacity of their minds.  Their hospitality in their houses is every where acknowledged; their bravery in the field is also acknowledged by those who acted with them in the late war against the hostile Creeks.  It will he acknowledged, that where hospitality and bravery reside, they are not solitary virtues.  If a statuary should want models for the human figure, he will find the most perfect amongst the southern Indian tribes south of the Ohio river. About one half of the Cherokee nation are of mixed blood by intermarriages with the white people. Many of these are as white as any of our citizens.  There arc some of the aboriginal Cherokees, who have never used any particular care to guard their faces from the action of the sun, who have good complexions. ,

I have frequently attended at the schools for the instruction of the Indian children, seen them by classes go through their exercises.  On these occasions I have seen tears of joy steal down the cheeks of benevolent men, men who rejoice at the diffusion of knowledge amongst this long-lost part of the human race.

The Cherokees universally believe in the being of God, they call him the Great Spirit; they mention him with reverence; with them, his attributes are power and goodness.  They never profane the name of God in their own language.  They have no words that they can combine to profane the name of God.

There is no doubt of these people being capable of receiving the highest improvement.  Shall we consign some hundred thousands of these people, whom Providence has placed under our care, to eternal night and oblivion, without an effort to preserve them!  If Americans could see these people as I have done in the course of fifteen years, he would not consider them as unworthy of cultivation, and in a few years of being blended and incorporated with us as part of our rising empire; he would say, these are our long-lost brothers—we will have patience with them—when they go a-stray we will bring them back, and point out to them the road, and show them the value of civilization.