Note 311 — II—HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE CHEROKEE

The council had authorized the regular delegation, headed by John Ross, to conclude a treaty either there or at Washington, but, finding that Schermerhorn had no authority to treat on any other basis than the one rejected by the Nation, the delegates proceeded to Washington.311 Before their departure John Ross, who had removed to Tennessee to escape persecution in his own state, was arrested at his home by the Georgia guard, all his private papers and the proceedings of the council being taken at the same time, and conveyed across the line into Georgia, where he was held for some time without charge against him, and at last released without apology or explanation. The poet, John Howard Payne, who was then stopping with Ross, engaged in the work of collecting historical and ethnologic material relating to the Cherokee, was seized at the same time, with all his letters and scientific manuscripts. The national paper, the Cherokee Phœnix, had been suppressed and its office plant seized by the same guard a few days before.312 Thus in their greatest need the Cherokee were deprived of the help and counsel of their teachers, their national press, and their chief.