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particular incident in the life of this fearless pioneer and his associates, let us recall what is known as the Quapaw Treaty between the United States and the Indians. After that treaty, John Stiles and quite a number of white men located on the western border and, as they thought, within the proposed territory of Arkansas; and, after having cleared their farms and erected their homes, they were all at once confronted with a United States surveying party who had with them a small squad of United States soldiers to run a line that would cut them off from the State of Arkansas and put them into Indian territory. John Stiles and his men armed themselves and went out and
met the surveyors, ordered them to cease running the line in
the course they were going, and stated that they did not propose
to be cut off into any Indian territory. The engineer in charge
of the survey replied to Mr. Stiles, "Sir, we have orders
from General Jackson to run this line due north to the Missouri
line." Mr. Stiles replied, "It makes no difference
to us, sir, from whom you got your orders; we have plenty of
guns and ammunition and we are going to kill the last one of
you before we will submit to our homes being cut off." The
surveyor at once replied, "This, then, makes it impossible
for us at this time to continue the survey." He then asked
permission of Stiles and his men to be allowed to camp until
they could get word to General Jackson for further instructions.
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