Jesse Benton to Thos.

Hart, April 3, 1786.] Violation of the Treaty.
As the settlers declined to pay any heed to the treaty the Indians naturally became as discontented with it as the whites.

In the following summer the Cherokee chiefs made solemn complaint that, instead of retiring from the disputed ground, the settlers had encroached yet farther upon it, and had come to within five miles of the beloved town of Chota.

The chiefs added that they had now made several such treaties, each of which established boundaries that were immediately broken, and that indeed it had been their experience that after a treaty the whites settled even faster on their lands than before.

[Footnote: State Department MSS., No.56.Address of Corn Tassel and Hanging Maw, Sept.
5, 1786.] Just before this complaint was sent to Congress the same chiefs had been engaged in negotiations with the settlers themselves, who advanced radically different claims.