During the late 18th and throughout the 19th century, the Cherokee lands, located in the south-eastern portion of the United States, became extremely desirable to the federal and local governments. Their fertile lands proved ideal for growing cotton, and their value increased dramatically when gold was discovered in portions of Georgia's Cherokee territory. By the end of the Revolutionary War, the Cherokee Indians had ceded more than half of their original territory to state and federal governments. The government pushed both to assimilate Cherokees into Western culture and to eradicate them from their ancestral lands. The Louisiana Purchase of 1803 provided the federal government, under the presidency of Thomas Jefferson, with a place to which they could relocate the Cherokee Nation, freeing their lands for state and federal use. In Georgia, many politicians, including Wilson Lumpkin and George Troup, pressured the federal government to enforce the Compact of 1802, an agreement to extinguish the Native American's land titles and remove the Cherokee tribe from the state. In response, Cherokee leaders insisted on the upholding of the Treaty of Hopewell (1785) which established borders between the United States and affirmed the Cherokee Nation as a separate entity with a separate government from the United States. Cherokee leaders, such as Major Ridge (ca. 1771-1839) worked to negotiate treaties and protect the Cherokee lands and people. In 1825, the Cherokee capital of New Echota was established near present-day Calhoun, Georgia. The Cherokee National Council stated it would no longer accommodate land cession requests; two years later, the Cherokee Nation adopted a written constitution. With the presidential election of Andrew Jackson in 1828, the advances made by these efforts were reversed. Jackson declared the removal of the Cherokee tribes as a national objective; two years later the Indian Removal Act passed through Congress, authorizing the president to negotiate removal treaties. Many of the leaders who had fought the federal and state governments eventually signed removal treaties. In 1835, the Treaty of New Echota gave the United States the land of the Cherokee Nation in exchange for $5 million, as well as building, relocation, and acclimation costs. For three years, Cherokees fought the treaty, turning on the leaders, including John Ross and Major Ridge, who had signed the treaty. In 1838, U.S. President Martin Van Buren ordered the U.S. Army to gather the Cherokee people into stockades and marches them west to the Indian Territories of Oklahoma. This march, subsequently known as the "Trail of Tears," resulted in the death of 4,000-5,000 Cherokee Indians. Upon arrival in the territory, a group of the displaced men killed Major Ridge and two other leaders for their betrayal of the Cherokees and for breaking their law prohibiting the sale of Cherokee lands.
From the description of Cherokee Indians relocation papers, 1815-1838. (Georgia Historical Society). WorldCat record id: 157010748
