Later Life
After the war and some failed investments, Coffee began work as a surveyor, laying down the town of Florence, Alabama. In 1816 he surveyed the boundary line between Alabama and Mississippi. He later moved to near Florence, Alabama.
His friend and former business partner Jackson was elected President of the United States. Jackson worked toward removal of Southeast Indian tribes to territory west of the Mississippi River. Jackson appointed Coffee as his representative, along with Secretary of War John Eaton, to negotiate treaties with Southeast American Indian tribes to accomplish removal, a policy authorized by Congressional passage of the Indian Removal Act of 1830. Coffee negotiated the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek of 1830 with the Choctaw by which they ceded their lands in the Southeast. He started negotiations with the Chickasaw, but the US did not conclude a treaty with these people until after his death.
Coffee died in Florence.
Read more about this topic: John Coffee
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