Sold – President Andrew Jackson Approves the Sale of Creek Land to a Notorious Speculator

Before 1830, the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole tribes (sometimes collectively referred to as the Five Civilized Tribes) were living as autonomous nations in the American South.  The process of cultural transformation was gaining ground and many felt they would be integrated in some way into American life. However, strong forces did not want acculturalization; they wanted the Indians’ land and wanted them to leave altogether. President Jackson was one of these, and after making an unsuccessful effort to get the Indians to leave their ancestral lands voluntarily, he secured passage by Congress of the Indian Removal Act. This gave the President power to negotiate removal treaties with Indian tribes living east of the Mississippi. Under these treaties, the Indians were to give up their lands in exchange for lands to the west. The removal was supposed to be voluntary, but when Native American nations resisted, Jackson forced them to leave. Hence the Trail of Tears.

In the Treaty of Washington that was signed on March 24, 1832, the Creek Indians ceded to the United States all of their land east of the Mississippi River. The treaty also provided that the Creeks would be allocated portions of the land they were giving up and allowed five years to sell it. It stated, “The United States engage to survey the said land…to allow ninety principal Chiefs of the Creek tribe to select one section each, and every other head of a Creek family to select one half section each, which tracts shall be reserved from sale for their use for the term of five years, unless sooner disposed of by them…These tracts may be conveyed by the persons selecting the same, to any other persons for a fair consideration, in such manner as the President may direct.” It specified that the sales “shall not be valid until the President approves the same.” Thus, if a Creek found a buyer for his land, President Jackson himself would have to approve the transaction.

Pursuant to this treaty, in 1833 a census was taken of Creek heads of families who were entitled to tracts of land. It reveals that quite a number of them had the family name of Harjo, including some chiefs. Document Signed, February 19, 1834, in which one of these men, Hillabee Harjo, agreed to sell his land to Daniel McDougald. The land made up one-half of Section 36 in Township 16, in Macon County, Alabama, and Harjo signed his name with an “X.” The sales price was $400 and the document stated that the transaction was subject to the President’s approval. Two days later McDougall signed the sales agreement, and on March 8, the Indian Agent gave his consent. One May 30, 1834, the document reached the President’s desk, and he wrote “Approved” and signed it in full with a huge signature. It has been about two decades since the last similar document reached the marketplace, according to a search of auction records.

That is not, alas, the end of the story. The government may have interposed itself into the transaction, but it did not protect the Indians from speculators, who quickly cheated them out of land and cash. McDougall was a notorious speculator whose name appears in the book, “Alleged Frauds on Creek Indians.” That book relates that it was admitted by McDougald and his cohorts that they had stolen the land in 170 cases and paid in just 40. This Harjo probably never saw his $400. By 1835, the despoiled Creeks were so destitute, they began stealing livestock and crops from white settlers. In 1836, the Secretary of War ordered the removal of the Creeks as a military necessity. By 1837, approximately 15,000 Creeks had been forced to migrate west.