JAMES K. POLK | A scarce James K. Polk presidential land grant reassigning a tract originally deeded to a member of the Creek people

JAMES K. POLK

PRINTED DOCUMENT SIGNED ("JAMES K. POLK") AS ELEVENTH PRESIDENT, REASSIGNING A GRANT OF LAND ORIGINALLY MADE TO CHAR-CHE-YOHOLO OF THE CREEK INDIANS

Printed broadside (17 3/4 x 11 3/4 in.; 448 x 298 mm) on vellum, accomplished in a neat clerical hand, Washington, 15 April 1845, countersigned by the Recorder of the General Land Office ("S. H. Laughlin") and with embossed paper seal of that Office; minor soiling, a couple of pinholes at intersecting folds.

Char che Yoholo appears on the 1832 Alabama census of the Creek Nation as a resident of Tuskeega Town (Tuskegee). An article of the 1832 treaty by which the Creek people Indians ceded to the United States all of their land east of the Mississippi River, stipulated that heads of families were entitled to tracts of land. The present document signed by President Polk recognizes the transfer of Char che Yoholo's original grant.

"Whereas, Char-che-yoholo, one of the Creek Tribe of Indians, by virtue of a Treaty between the United States and the said Creek Tribe of Indians, made the 24th day of March 1832, became entitled, out of the Lands ceded to the United States by the said Treaty, to the North half of Section one, in Township sixteen, of Range twenty four East, in the Tallapoosa Land District Alabama, containing Three hundred and twenty acres according to the official plat of the survey of said Lands, … which said Tract, with the approbation of the President of the United States, has been duly sold and conveyed by the said Char-che-yoholo to 'Walker, Cary & Watson,' … and the said Cary & Watson [and executor of said Walker] having duly assigned the said tract to Joel Sistrunk; Now Know Ye, that the United States of AMerica, in consideration of premisesm and in conformity with the provisions of the said Treaty, Have Given And Granted, and by these presents Do Give And Grant, unto the said Joel Sistrunk and to his heirs, the said tract above described. …"