Lovely's Purchase

President James Monroe 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.

[a][4] A route was planned by the U.S. government with the purpose to insulate newly arriving Cherokee to the area from interference and harassment by hostile American settlers and warriors from other Indigenous nations.

[4] The Osage Nation had given-up exclusive hunting rights to the area that would become a large part of Lovely's Purchase in the Treaty of Fort Clark (1808).

The next year saw the arrival from the east of a strong Cherokee leader, John Jolly, and these incidents grew less frequent, although they still occasionally occurred.

[2][1][5][8] At this time, and on his own authority, Lovely agreed to buy an additional three million hunting acres of Osage land that was located between the Verdigris and White River on behalf of the Cherokee.

[4] Due to the buffer area not living up to expectations, in 1817 the U.S. Army built Fort Smith,[d] and the U.S. government made it clear that Lovely's Purchase would only house Native Americans from that time on.

[9][2] In 1822, due to requests by territorial governor James Miller, the U.S. authorized another outpost and established Fort Gibson[f] (finished in 1824).

The land was given entirely to the Cherokee Nation—West of the Mississippi,[7][3] while the Osage were moved to the unorganized territory of Kansas—to finally put an end to the hostilities.

of tobacco when he agreed to move..." while any displaced frontier settler was awarded with: "...up to 320 acres of public domain land in Arkansas Territory for every head of household over the age of 21 years.