1. Pickering enclosed an undated printed talk: [1] “Beloved Cherokees, I HAVE been long thinking how I could better your condition, and enable you to procure more good things for yourselves; and now, I believe, I have discovered the right way, and that it may be done by degrees, if you will follow my advice.

[2] “Don’t you know, that when you are hungry and cannot find a Deer to kill, that you must fast. Don’t you know, that when you can get no skins by hunting and trapping, that the traders will neither give you powder nor cloth. And don’t you know, also, that corn will not grow, wherewith to make you bread, unless it has been first planted.

[3] “If then every beloved Cherokee chief, and father of children, had plenty of sheep, and hogs, and cows, of which he could kill at any time, and a net to catch fish with, he would always have plenty of meat, for himself and his wife and children, whenever he disliked to hunt, or could find nothing to kill. If, besides, his wife and daughters could raise cotton, or flax; and spin and weave it, which they might soon learn to do, he would always have wherewithal to make nets, to catch fish, and to clothe himself and them, though there were no traders in the world. And, lastly, if he should plant corn and wheat, he would always have plenty of bread to eat, and grain to sell to the whites, as often as they should want it.

[4] “To better your condition, then, you see, is no very difficult matter; no more being necessary, than that each of you should get as large a flock of sheep, hogs, and cattle as possible; that you should raise cotton and flax, and have your wives and daughters taught to spin it up into thread, and weave it into cloth; and that you should plant more corn, and learn to grow wheat, which makes excellent bread.

[5] “Beloved Cherokees, When you do these things, you will no longer have to depend upon hunting and trapping for your subsistence; nor upon the sale of skins, to procure you a little clothing; because you will have plenty of provisions, in your sheep, hogs and cattle; plenty of bread from your corn and wheat; and plenty of cloth from your cotton and flax; and may either hunt or let it alone as you think proper.

[6] “But can you have all these things without help? No, you cannot. You must have help to make you strong, and I will give it. You will remember, however, that I can only assist you; that I can only shew you the right way; which it rests with you to follow. The trees, you know, would never form dams for the beaver, if he did not cut them into pieces, and fix them in the ground; nor would the flowers furnish honey to eat, unless it was collected by the bees. I will therefore give you certain thing, necessary to increase your stock of cattle; to raise corn; and make cloth; but when you get them, you must do like the bee and beaver, otherwise you can neither expect to have cattle, cloth nor corn.

[7] “How are you to obtain these things in abundance? Listen to me and I will tell you. In the first place, I shall give orders to have you supplied with such kinds of stock, as you are without; or with a better breed than what you may have. In the mean while, I desire that such of you as have sheep, hogs, or cows, should endeavor to increase them. To accomplish this you should keep them near your towns, or in places where the wolves cannot get at them to kill them, and where they will find plenty of food. I desire next, that you may lend to your brothers, who may have no flocks or cattle, some young ones of each kind, as you can spare them; for your brothers, if they are good men, will soon repay you with an equal number. By these means, my beloved Cherokees, your flocks will multiply exceedingly ’till your country be covered with them.

[8] “Well, my beloved Cherokees, when you have large flocks of cattle, and sheep, and hogs, how will it be with you? Will not these furnish you with plenty of meat, at all seasons of the year, and with plenty besides to sell to the white people, for which you may get money or goods, as you please, in exchange.

[9] “In the second place, my beloved Cherokees, to enable your women to make cloth, I have directed my beloved agent, Mr. Dinsmoor, to procure for them cotton seed and flax seed; cards to card the cotton and flax with; wheels to spin it; reels to wind it; and looms to weave it into cloth. But this is not all. I have directed him to hire a woman to teach your women to raise the flax and cotton, and to card, spin and weave it.

[10] “Among the whites a woman will lean to spin and weave in less than six months; I hope my beloved Cherokee women will learn quite as soon; and that my beloved Cherokee men will, like good white men of the United States, encourage their women to spin and weave to clothe their families.

[11] “In the third place, my beloved Cherokees, I have directed my beloved agent, Mr. Dinsmoor, to provide for your use, some plows and hoes, and other implements for working your fields, so as to raise you large crops of corn, wheat and grass. I have also commanded him to talk with you often on these subjects; and to instruct you in whatever you ought to know, with respect to your flocks, corn-fields, or making cloth. You will therefore listen to him seriously, and remember what he says; for unless you would incur my displeasure, and the displeasure of all the beloved men of the United States, you must follow in all these things his advice, because he knows how such things are to be managed, and, as yet, you do not.

[12] “My Beloved Cherokees, I am grown old, and will soon retire to my farm, where I shall employ part of my time in attending to the means of increasing my sheep, hogs and cattle; in raising of corn and wheat; and rewarding the women who spin and weave best for my family. This is just what I want you to do, and then you will be as happy as I am going to be.

[13] “I say that I have grown old, my beloved Cherokees, and am desirous to spend the remainder of my life on my own farm, free from the cares of government; but nothwithstanding this, I shall be glad to learn that you have taken my advice, and covered your whole country with cattle, and corn, and filled your houses with cloth.

[14] “I shall know from the great man who is to succeed me, whether you have followed this advice. I shall also, before I go, speak to my beloved man, the Secretary of War, to have a set of medals prepared, to be in readiness to bestow upon such of my beloved Cherokees as shall follow it, and best deserve them.

[15] “I shall direct him to give the largest of these medals, to those who shall raise the largest flocks of cattle; the largest crops of grain; and whose wives shall spin and weave the largest quantities of cloth. As to those who will do nothing for themselves, they cannot expect any. I do not love Idlers. The beloved men of the United States do not love Idlers; the Great Spirit does not love them; because idlers are generally bad and mischievous men; thieves, or promoters of war. Such men therefore can get no medals.

[16] “But further, that you may go on right, and always keep right, I shall order my beloved man Mr. Dinsmoor, to visit every town in the nation from time to time; to give instructions and advice to those who do not like to be idlers; to see how the flocks and grain fields look; to examine the plows and implements of husbandry; to mark the advances which the women make in spinning and weaving; and to report thereof to the President of the United States; that, should any thing be wanted to render my beloved Cherokees happier, it may be done for them, by the beloved men of the United States.

[17] “Besides this, my beloved Cherokees, it will be necessary and useful, that every town should choose two of its wisest men, to meet my beloved agent, Mr. Dinsmoor, at Oostinahli, where he resides, once every year, at such time as he and you may fix upon; there to hold a council, and talk over with him the state of things in the whole nation, that whatever is wrong may be known, and as far as possible righted.

[18] “At these meetings, the representatives of the town will have explained to them, which they will explain to their tribes when they return, what laws of the United States have been made to keep bad white people from doing them harm; and how these bad people are to be punished; and the means which are to be used by the Cherokees, to preserve a perpetual peace with the United States.

[19] “Beloved Cherokees, I recommend it to you to send wise men only to those meetings, where so many things may be talked over which concern the nation, and where you will always hear from the President and wise men of the United States.

[20] “And now, that this talk may be known to all the nation, and never forgotten by it; I have had it printed, and directed one to be lodged in every town, which I have signed with my own hand.

[21] “Beloved Cherokees, I have but one thing more to say to you. I have sent into your nation in consequence of having been informed that some of your chiefs wished to see me in Philadelphia, that I consented to be visited by a few of those whom the nation most esteemed; and that I would not expect to see them before November. I now repeat, that I shall be glad to see in Philadelphia, at that time, a few of your chiefs or wise men.

[22] “But I must mention one thing which must be attended to in fixing on the chiefs who shall visit me.

[23] “Send me no Cherokee who has killed a white person on the frontiers, by way of revenge, in time of peace; or who lives by plunder or pillage. I will only receive Chiefs or Warriors who fight bravely after an open declaration of war; not those who creep to the frontiers to kill or rob in time of peace, under pretext of revenge or retaliation. My beloved warriors of the United States never kill an Indian but in open war, nor destroy his property in time of peace. If Indians are murdered by bad whites, in time of peace, or their property stolen by such men, the United States disowns them, and will, whenever they can catch them, and prove the fact upon them, punish them; and where they cannot make them restore what they have stolen, they will pay for it, if the Indian does not attempt retaliation. Send to me, therefore, only good Cherokees, for I will take such only by the hand.

[24] “Lastly, beloved Cherokees, you will let me know by these good men, the names of the persons whom you wish to attend the running of the boundary line agreeably to the treaty of Holston. I shall let them know which of my beloved men are to run it, and the time and place where the running is to commence, that so the persons appointed by you may know when and where to attend.

[25] “I now send my best wishes to my beloved Cherokees, and pray the Great Spirit to have you in his keeping” (MHi: Pickering Papers; the numbers in square brackets represent editorial delineation of the paragraph sequence).

In addition to many smaller alterations, Pickering rewrote the last sentence of the second paragraph to read: “And you know, that without other instruments of tilling the ground than the hoe, you will continue to raise only scanty crops of corn.”

He commented in the margin to the left of the fifth paragraph: “This clause might be wholly omitted: it being but the repetition of the ideas expressed in the two preceeding clauses.”

He substituted for the first three sentences of the sixth paragraph “But how are you to get & to do these things? I will show you the way & give you such aid as I can. Thus assisted, you must exert yourselves.” Pickering also deleted the first part of the last sentence in the sixth paragraph and began that sentence: “Now you must do like the bees.”

He made several changes in the seventh paragraph, most notably replacing the sentence that began “I desire next” with the following text: “Those among you who have more stock than are neces⟨sar⟩y for their comfort, can ⟨mutilated⟩ to others who have none, until the borrowers can pay for or return them. You will know among your brothers who have industry & honesty to deserve such assistance & to make the payment sure.”

He deleted the first sentence of the eighth paragraph and revised the start of the next sentence: “Then you will have plenty of meat.”

In the eleventh paragraph, he replaced the text following “what he says” with “& follow his advice; for in so doing you will greatly benefit yourselves, & give much pleasure to me & to all the beloved men of the U.S.”

He suggested altering the twelfth and thirteen paragraphs to read: “I shall myself soon retire to my farm, where I shall attend to the means of increasing my sheep, hogs and cattle; to raising of corn and wheat; and employing the women at spinning & weaving. This is just what I wish you to do, that you may be as comfortable and happy as a plenty of these things can make you. I shall be glad to learn that you have taken my advice, and that all your families abound in cattle, corn & cloathing.”

He reduced the fifteenth paragraph to a single sentence: “I shall direct him to give the largest of these medals, to those who shall be most industrious & deserving in doing what I have recommended.”

Pickering commented in the margin to the right of the seventeenth paragraph: “Mr Dinsmoor must for this purpose be enabled to feed them & give them some drink: they will probably require both.”

In the twenty-third paragraph Pickering underlined the reference to any Cherokee “who lives by plunder or pillage” and wrote in the margin “are there any of this description?” He then added in the margin to the right of this paragraph: “I doubt the expediency of every part of this clause. To take revenge is the known law of the Indian Nations. To refuse to see those who have taken revenge, will go to the exclusion of perh⟨aps⟩ most of the Chiefs.”

2. For the final version of this talk, see GW to the Cherokee Nation, 29 Aug.; see also GW to Pickering, this date.