THE CANE TREATY

Many years ago, the Forefathers of the Cherokees departed from this land to a home beyond the Great Mountains.  They made a treaty with the people of Kentucky.  They honored and kept that treaty.  While in Kentucky, the Forefathers of the Cherokees made baskets from the cane that grew along the banks of the Cumberland.  Today, the sons of the Cherokees come in friendship to visit their friends in Kentucky.  Kentucky bids them welcome and hopes that their visits in the future may outnumber the hairs upon their heads.  The Kentuckians wish to make a new treaty with the Cherokees.  It shall be known forever as the Cherokee Cane Treaty and shall read:

We the people of the Cherokee Nation and the people of Kentucky, in
friendly council here assembled, do make this solemn compact, to last
until such time as the sun shall no longer rise in the East, the birds
no longer sing, and green things no longer grow upon the earth.

Article One

We the people of the Cherokee Nation do agree to send a delegation of
one or more, to Barbourville, Kentucky, to visit our Kentucky friends.

Article Two

We the people of Kentucky do agree to repay the kindness of the
Cherokees with gifts of cane. We the people of Kentucky affirm and
believe that Kentucky cane, woven with Cherokee skill and artistry, will
make baskets strong and filled with friendship.

WITNESS our hands, this twenty-first day of May,
Nineteen hundred and Forty-eight A.D.,
Barbourville, Kentucky.

McKinley Ross, Vice Chief

Lawrence Wetherby, Acting Governor of Kentucky