- Collection:
- Southeastern Native American Documents, 1730-1842
- Title:
- [Letter], 1835[?] Oct. 7, Executive Department to the National Committee / Jo[h]n Ross of an image
- Creator:
- Cherokee Nation, Oklahoma. Principal Chief (1828-1866 : Ross)
- Publisher:
- Manuscript held by the The Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville, TN, State Library Cherokee Collection, box 3, folder 4, document ch062.
- Date of Original:
- 1835-10-07
- Subject:
- Mining and mineral resources
- Location:
- United States, Southern States, 33.346678, -84.119434
- Medium:
- letters (correspondence)
- Type:
- Text
- Format:
- text/html
image/jpeg - Description:
- Letter dated October 7, (1835 ?) from John Ross, Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation, to the (Cherokee ?) National Committee in regard to mining. Ross believes that the proposed bill, allowing prospectors to mine within the country would be detrimental to the Nation.
Digital image and encoded transcription of an original manuscript, scanned, transcribed and encoded by the University of Tennessee, Knoxville Libraries in 2000, as part of GALILEO, funded in part by a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. - Local Identifier:
- ch062
- External Identifiers:
- Metadata URL:
- https://dlg.usg.edu/record/dlg_zlna_ch062
- Digital Object URL:
- https://dlg.usg.edu/record/dlg_zlna_ch062#item
- IIIF manifest:
- https://dlg.usg.edu/record/dlg_zlna_ch062/presentation/manifest.json
- Language:
- eng
- Bibliographic Citation (Cite As):
- Cite as: [title of item], State Library Cherokee Collection, The Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville, TN, presented in the Digital Library of Georgia
- Extent:
- 2 pages/leaves
- Holding Institution:
- Tennessee State Library and Archives
- Rights:
-
Page: [1]
Executive Department
Octr [October] 7th 183 [unclear text: 5 ]
To The National Committee,
[deleted text: Gentlemen ]
I return herewith the Bill "relative to mines" which originated in your house and passed the National Council near the close of the last session -- The preamble to the Bill as well as [deleted text: the ] [added text: its ] provisions bears evidence of haste and it is open to objections, in my opinion, both as to principle and detail. Believing that the General welfare of the Country would not be promoted by the opening of mines of valuable minerals which would serve the purpose of attracting a large number of persons to the Country not responsible to its laws or amenable to its authorities, I am opposed to entering upon the subject at all at this time. Nor do I think that we are possessed of sufficient information [deleted text: upon in regard ] as to the existence of minerals in our Country [deleted text: to legislate wisely or ] either as to their Kind, extent or richness to legislate wisely in regard to them. If mines of ordinary richness exist in the Country the privileges [deleted text: proposed ] [unclear text: conferred ] by the Bill are enormous and greater than should be conferred upon a company -- The second section of the Bill confers a large jurisdiction upon the District Courts, a wide discretion upon [deleted text: its ] the Judges of those Courts and confines its powers in [deleted text: to ] determining [deleted text: the ] question of priority in the
Page: [2]
"registration" of a mine without providing for the settlement of Controversies arising as to the priority of their discovery -- the only [deleted text: only ] one that could be productive of a [deleted text: [illegible text] ] controversy that would not be settled by a simple reference to the register in [deleted text: the ] the [unclear text: judges ] [deleted text: [illegible text] ] office -- [deleted text: And for [illegible text] ] The [illegible text] to be allowed the Nation, the Method of its collection and the compensation for of the Supervising Agents are not such as are calculated to avoid confusion and inefficiency.
For these reasons and others which will doubtless suggest themselves to your minds on more mature reflection, I respectfully withhold my signature from the Bill
[Signed] Jno [John] Ross