George and Nancy rarely ever had disagreements, according to their daughter, Hannah.  Lately there were strange things happening, such as neighbors reporting seeing Spanish speaking men in the hills.  These men were living in the old log house that Margaret had left when she moved to Marshall.

John Depriest told how he was following the Spaniards one evening, when one of the strangers walked beside him and demanded to know where John was going.  He asked John if he wanted to see what they were doing.  They put a red bandana around his eyes and led him down in a cave.  In a room underground they removed the blindfold to show him a bar of silver and a pile of new silver coins.  John was returned to familiar grounds with the warning not to follow them again.

Mrs. Tabor told women that she could stand at her door and see the mouth of the cave where the silver mine was.  Ulis was looking for a stray calf on the hill when the stranger brought him home and told George not to send this kid on the hill anymore while they were there.  It was not Geroge’s nature to take orders from anyone, especially on his own land.  After about a month, the men left and so did a neighboring family.  They left all their goods and clothes, never to be seen again.  It is said that unknown persons killed the Avery couple.  Then their house was burned.  The rumors were the couple would not tell where their silver supply was.

Hannah had never heard her father say anything about silver mines when other people talked a great deal about them.  George was industrious and had too much business to take care of to let talk affect him.  He had his father’s forty acres by signed agreement with the state of Arkansas that after his death, if no children were to inherit the land, it would go back to the state.

If Hannah had been a student of history, she would have read the U.S. Government moved from a blanket policy to specific one concerning our Cherokee brethern.  The Cherokee tribe held all the land in south Alleghany in Southwest Virginia, North and South Carolina, Northern Geroggia, Eastern Tennessee, and Northern Alabama.  Their tribal name was Tsalagi, detached from the Iroquoian Family.

About 1794, the Cheroke settled near the Tennesee and Alabama line.  Here, missionaries worked to educate them.  In 1820, they adopted a form of governmnet patterned after the U.S. Governmnet.  Large groups of the Cherokee, who preferred being by themselves, moved across the Mississippi River to new homes in the wilderness of what is now Arkansas.  Here they were separated from the encroachments of the white man.  About 1802, Sequayah invented the Cherokee alphabet, and this quickly raised them to literate people.  In Georgia, gold was discovered in the early 1800’s and, at once, a powerful agitation began.  The Indian must go!  Gold!  The white man thought more of his yellow dust than principles of honor.