As such an establishment would occasion a considerable and certain
demand for corn and other provisions and necessaries, it seemed
probable that it would immediately draw around it a close settlement
of the Cherokees, would encourage them to enter on a regular life of
agriculture, familiarize them with the practice and value of the arts,
attach them to property, lead them of necessity and without delay to
the establishment of laws and government, and thus make a great and
important advance toward assimilating their condition to ours. At the
same time it offers considerable accommodation to the Government by
enabling it to obtain more conveniently than it now can the necessary
supplies of cast and wrought iron for all the Indians south of the
Tennessee, and for those also to whom St. Louis is a convenient deposit,
and will benefit such of our own citizens likewise as shall be within
its reach. Under these views the purchase has been made, with the
consent and desire of the great body of the nation, although not without
some dissenting members, as must be the case will all collections of
men. But it is represented that the dissentients are few, and under
the influence of one or two interested individuals. It is by no means
proposed that these works should be conducted on account of the United
States. It is understood that there are private individuals ready
to erect them, subject to such reasonable rent as may secure a
reimbursement to the United States, and to such other conditions as
shall secure to the Indians their rights and tranquillity.
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