to colonize these families at some point convenient to the provision market of Texas. Some arrangement will have to be made to provide them with shelter and clothing. The Cherokees have, by an ordinance recently adopted by their convention, undertaken to provide for their own destitute people. Their agents, appointed

for this purpose, can accomplish but little good without money. I suggest that the annuities due the Cherokees be burned over as soon as possible. There can be no question that such annuities are due from the State of the Confederacy. The difficulty of collecting them is another matter. The Confederate States have promised us full protection against our enemies. I have ever made due allowance for the many embarrassments and difficulties the Government has experienced in maintaining her own rights and fulfilling her engagements with the Indians, but I have always discouraged those who complain of neglect, and have done all in my power to maintain confidence in the ability and certainty in the intentions of the Government. Shall I continue to encourage them, or shall I at once unveil to them the dread truth that our country is to be hopelessly abandoned, and that they are to receive the reward of poverty and ruin for their unswerving fidelity to the Southern cause?

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

STAND WATIE,

Principal Chief of the Cherokees.

[Inclosure No. 2.]

EXECUTIVE OFFICE, CHEROKEE NATION,

August 9, 1863.

His Excellency the Governor of the Creek Nation:

SIR: The condition of affairs in the Indian country inclines me to address you upon the subject of paramount importance to Creeks as well as Cherokees, viz, the prospect of adequate assistance from the Confederate States against our enemies, and the ability of the Indians, until scarcely a Southern family is left east and north of the Arkansas River. The friends of the South have almost as one man taken up arms in the Southern cause, and have, with their brothers of the other Nations, struck many blows upon their enemies. The promised protection of the Confederate Government, owing, I am compelled to say, to the glaring inefficiency of its subordinate agents has accomplished nothing; it has been a useless and expensive pageant; an object for the success of our enemies and the shame of our friends. I fear we can reasonably look for no change for the better, but that the Indians will have at last to rely upon themselves alone in the defense of their country. I believe it is in the power of the Indians unassisted, but united and determined, to hold their country. We cannot expect to do this without serious losses and many trials and privations; but if we possess the spirit of our fathers, and are resolved never to be enslaved by an inferior race, and trodden under the feet of an ignorant and insolent foe we, the Creeks, Choctaws, Chickasaws, Seminoles, and Cherokees, never can be conquered by the Kansas jayhawkers, renegade Indians, and runaway negroes. It requires at this time, and will as long as the war shall last, all the Yankee forces of Missouri to hold that State against the friends of the South within her limits. The multitude of soldiers that the North has now, or may yet bring into the field, will have abundant occupation

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