A CONVENTION BETWEEN THE UNITED STATES, AND THE CHEROKEE NATION OF INDIANS, CONCLUDED AT THE CITY OF WASHINGTON, ON THE SEVENTH DAY OF JANUARY, 1806.
[Cherokee Indians]:
Washington: Duane & Son, Printers, 1806. 7pp. Printed self-wrappers. Dampstain in upper margin near fold, affecting all leaves but no text; small closed tear in lower margin of first leaf. Else near fine, unopened and untrimmed. In a half morocco box. The very rare first printing of a critical treaty between the U.S. and the Cherokees, made at Washington by a delegation of Cherokee chiefs from the Cherokee Lower Towns and the government, signed in print by Secretary of War Henry Dearborn and Chief Doublehead. The treaty is an important step in stripping the Cherokees of most of the lands which had been guaranteed to them by the United States in earlier treaties, handing over to the government all of the Cherokee hunting grounds in the state of Tennessee and Alabama (the latter area including some land disputed with the Chickasaws. Because of this the treaty also promises that the U.S. will prevent conflicts regarding the new boundaries with the neighboring Chickasaws. The treaty was arrived at by duplicitous means on the part of the U.S. agent, Return J. Meigs, and the government. The principal chiefs of the Cherokee Lower Towns, led by Doublehead, were bribed with money, grants of property which they could take over, and grants of land made personally to the chiefs who arranged the treaty. The treaty was so unpopular with the Cherokees that it led to a revolution within the tribe, and Doublehead was assassinated the following year as a direct result. However, it was too late and the Cherokees had lost their hunting grounds. This document is quite rare, with two copies located between Sabin, Shaw & Shoemaker, and OCLC, at the Library of Congress and Boston Public Library. The true first printings of virtually all of the Indian treaties prior to 1820 (as opposed to later appearances in the U.S. law volumes), are notoriously rare. SABIN 96628. SHAW & SHOEMAKER 11549. DAB II, pp.575-76. DAH II, pp.85-86. William McLoughlin, CHEROKEE RENASCENCE IN THE NEW REPUBLIC (Princeton, 1986), pp.92-121.
(Item ID: WRCAM38604) $9,500.00