Letter from Chief John Ross, To the Senate and House of Representatives, 1836

(Modified Excerpts)

Source: John Ross was the Chief of the Cherokee Nation from 1828-1866. Ross wrote this letter on behalf of the
Cherokee Nation on September 28, 1836, to protest the Treaty of New Echota, which required the Cherokee Nation to
cede (give up) its land in the Southeast and move west to Indian Territory. The Cherokee Council did not approve the
treaty, but the U.S. Senate ratified it anyway. It became the basis for the Trail of Tears.

1 By the stipulations
1
of this instrument
2
, we are despoiled
3
of our private possessions We are stripped of
every attribute of freedom and eligibility for legal self-defense. Our property may be plundered
4
before our eyes; violence
may be committed on our persons; even our lives may be taken away, and there is none to regard our complaints. We are
denationalized
5
; we are disfranchised
6
. We are deprived of membership in the human family! We have neither land nor
home, nor resting place that can be called our own. And this is effected by the provisions of a compact
7
which assumes
the venerated
8
, the sacred appellation
9
of treaty.
2 We are overwhelmed! Our hearts are sickened, our utterance
10
is paralyzed, when we reflect on the condition in
which we are placed, by the audacious
11
practices of unprincipled men, who have managed their stratagems
12
with so
much dexterity
13
as to impose on the Government of the United States, in the face of our earnest, solemn, and reiterated
protestations
14
.
3 The instrument in question is not the act of our Nation; we are not parties to its covenants
15
; it has not received
the sanction
16
of our people.

4 And we are constrained solemnly to declare, that we cannot but contemplate the enforcement of the stipulations
of this instrument on us, against our consent, as an act of injustice and oppression, which, we are well persuaded, can
never knowingly be [allowed] by the Government and people of the United States; nor can we believe it to be the design
of these honorable and high-minded individuals, who stand at the head of the Government, to bind a whole Nation, by the
acts of a few unauthorized individuals.

5 And, therefore, we, the parties to be affected by the result, appeal with confidence to the justice, the
magnanimity
17
, the compassion, of your honorable bodies, against the enforcement, on us, of the provisions of a
compact, in the formation of which we have had no agency
18
.


1
Stipulations: conditions, terms
2
Instrument: tool (in this case, the Treaty of New Echota, that required Indian Removal)
3
Despoiled: ruined
4
Plundered: stolen, destroyed
5
Denationalized: stripped of a nation or country to belong to
6
Disfranchised: deprived of rights (especially the right to vote)
7
Compact: agreement
8
Venerated: respected
9
Appellation: name
10
Utterance: ability to speak
11
Audacious: bold in a risky way
12
Stratagems: tricks
13
Dexterity: skill
14
Reiterated protestations: repeated protests
15
Covenant: agreement
16
Sanction: permission
17
Magnanimity: goodness, generousness
18
Agency: assistance