Lovely's Purchase (also Lovely's Donation), was part of the early nineteenth century

Missouri Missouri is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee): Iowa to the north, Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee to the east, Arkansas t ...

and Arkansaw territories. It was created in 1817, in order to give a haven to the

Cherokee The Cherokee (; chr, ᎠᏂᏴᏫᏯᎢ, translit=Aniyvwiyaʔi or Anigiduwagi, or chr, ᏣᎳᎩ, links=no, translit=Tsalagi) are one of the indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States. Prior to the 18th century, t ...

and other Native Americans who were steadily leaving the

southeastern United States The Southeastern United States, also referred to as the American Southeast or simply the Southeast, is a geographical region of the United States. It is located broadly on the eastern portion of the southern United States and the southern por ...

and moving west to

Indian Territory The Indian Territory and the Indian Territories are terms that generally described an evolving land area set aside by the United States Government for the relocation of Native Americans who held aboriginal title to their land as a sovereign ...

(modern Oklahoma) through territory then inhabited by sometimes hostile White settlers and several other Indian tribes, especially members of the Osage Indian Nation. Following years of political maneuvering and sometimes conflicting treaties, the Purchase was finally split between the Cherokee and White settlers, with the larger section going solely to the Cherokee Nation.

Background

President

James Monroe James Monroe ( ; April 28, 1758July 4, 1831) was an American statesman, lawyer, diplomat, and Founding Father who served as the fifth president of the United States from 1817 to 1825. A member of the Democratic-Republican Party, Monroe was ...

had promised an exclusive "gateway to the setting sun"—an area devoted to settlement for the members of the Cherokee Nation where they were not "...surrounded by the White man." Starting in 1809, members of the Cherokee Nation living west of the Appalachians in Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, and the Carolinas, had started migrating west to the lands set aside by the United States government for those tribal members willing to exchange their eastern property for homesteads in the recently set-aside Indian Territory.squatted Squatting is the action of occupying an abandoned or unoccupied area of land or a building, usually residential, that the squatter does not own, rent or otherwise have lawful permission to use. The United Nations estimated in 2003 that there ...

Military intervention

Fort Smith, and the federal government made it clear that Lovely's purchase would only house Native Americans from that time on. Another treaty between Osage and Cherokee was signed in 1818 at St. Louis, one that finally formalized the earlier Lovely's Purchase, and was this time endorsed by the U.S. federal government. In 1819 Arkansas was separated from the

Missouri Territory The Territory of Missouri was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from June 4, 1812, until August 10, 1821. In 1819, the Territory of Arkansas was created from a portion of its southern area. In 1821, a southea ...

, and became an official

organized territory Territories of the United States are sub-national administrative divisions overseen by the federal government of the United States. The various American territories differ from the U.S. states and tribal reservations as they are not sover ...

of the United States. Lovely's Purchase was made part of

Crawford County Crawford County is the name of eleven counties in the United States: * Crawford County, Arkansas * Crawford County, Georgia * Crawford County, Illinois * Crawford County, Indiana * Crawford County, Iowa * Crawford County, Kansas * Crawford Count ...

at that time. In 1822, due to requests by Territorial Governor James Miller, the U.S. government authorized another outpost and established

Fort Gibson Fort Gibson is a historic military site next to the modern city of Fort Gibson, in Muskogee County Oklahoma. It guarded the American frontier in Indian Territory from 1824 to 1888. When it was constructed, the fort was farther west than any ot ...

(finished in 1824). Fort Gibson was manned by the U.S. Seventh Infantry. The large area these forts oversaw was dubbed "Lovely's Donations" by later legislators. The area still remained contentious, with complaints to the legislators from both White settlers—who were continually being moved out of the ever expanding Lovely Purchase—and the Cherokee—who were being pressured to abandon the rich farmlands and salt mine tracts to the American frontiersmen.

Lovely County

A sutler by the name of John Nicks accompanied the Seventh Infantry to Ft. Gibson, and eventually settled in the area of the fort. In 1828, he founded Nicksville, the future capital of Lovely County. More than a decade after Lovely's 1817 death, the area—along with additional tracts of purchased and donated land—was incorporated by the Territory of Arkansas as the short-lived Lovely County. Lovely's Purchase was, without federal authorization, created a

county A county is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposes Chambers Dictionary, L. Brookes (ed.), 2005, Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh in certain modern nations. The term is derived from the Old French ...

by the Arkansas legislature in 1827 in an effort to keep the area part of the planned State of Arkansas, and American frontiersmen immediately started settling there.Treaty of Washington. Lovely County had included all or part of present-day Benton,

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...

, Crawford counties in Arkansas; plus all or part of present-day

Delaware Delaware ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Maryland to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and New Jersey and the Atlantic Ocean to its east. The state takes its name from the adjacent Del ...

, Sequoyah, Adair,

, Wagoner, Muskogee, and Mayes counties in Oklahoma. The new treaty authorized the western half of the land donations, accumulations, and homestead purchases that had created the 'Lovely Purchase' to became part of Indian Territory. The land was given entirely to the Cherokee Nation—West of the Mississippi, while the Osage were moved to the unorganized territory of

Kansas Kansas () is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its capital is Topeka, and its largest city is Wichita. Kansas is a landlocked state bordered by Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to th ...

—to finally put an end to the hostilities.

Notes

References

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External links