Treaty of New Echota
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Treaty of New Echota was a removal treaty signed in New Echota, Georgia by officials of the United States government and several members of a faction within the Cherokee nation on December 29, 1835. In the treaty, the United States agreed to pay the Cherokee people $4.5 million, cover the costs of relocation, and give them land in Indian Territory (modern Oklahoma) in exchange for the Cherokee reservation land in Georgia and Alabama. While the treaty was ratified by the United States Senate and enforced upon the Cherokee people, it was never signed by any official representative of the Cherokee nation, and the Cherokee nation refused to recognize the validity of the treaty.
[edit] Objections from the Cherokee
After news of the treaty became public, the officials of the Cherokee nation instantly objected that they had not approved any treaty, and that the document was invalid. John Ross and the Cherokee tribal council begged the Senate not to ratify the treaty (failure to ratify would thereby invalidate it), but the measure passed in May of 1836 by one vote, thanks in part to President Andrew Jackson's support. Ross later drew up a petition asking Congress to void the treaty--a petition he delivered to Congress in the spring of 1838 with more than 15,000 signatures attached.
[edit] The result
The petition was ignored by President Martin Van Buren, who soon thereafter directed General Winfield Scott to forcibly move those Cherokee who had not yet complied with the treaty and moved west. Scott's action is now commonly referred to as the Trail of Tears. After the Treaty of New Echota was enforced, the Cherokee people were almost entirely removed west of the Mississippi (a few purchased farmland in the area in order to remain near their ancestral lands). Upon arrival in Indian Territory, many of those who had been forcibly removed took their anger out on the Ridge Party--several signers of the treaty were killed, and the Cherokee nation endured 15 years of civil war.
