Tensions between Georgia and the Cherokee Nation were brought to a crisis by the discovery of gold near Dahlonega, Georgia, in 1829, resulting in the Georgia Gold Rush, the first gold rush in U.S. history. Hopeful gold speculators began trespassing on Cherokee lands, and pressure began to mount on the Georgia government to fulfill the promises of the Compact of 1802.

(Left) Cherokee Trail of Tears Historical Marker in northwest Arkansas.

When Georgia moved to extend state laws over Cherokee tribal lands in 1830, the matter went to the U.S. Supreme Court. In Cherokee Nation v. Georgia (1831), the Marshall court ruled that the Cherokees were not a sovereign and independent nation, and therefore refused to hear the case. However, in Worcester v. State of Georgia (1832), the Court ruled that Georgia could not impose laws in Cherokee territory, since only the national government — not state governments — had authority in Indian affairs.

"John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it! ... Build a fire under them. When it gets hot enough, they'll go." —-Andrew Jackson, 1832, The Trail of Tears Across Missouri. 

(This map shows the routes followed by the Cherokee Nation to reach "Indian Territory," now the state of Oklahoma, in the 1830s.)

President Andrew Jackson was fully committed to the Indian Removal policy and he had no desire to use the power of the national government to protect the Cherokees from Georgia, since he was already entangled with states’ rights issues in what became known as the Nullification Crisis. With the Indian Removal Act of 1830, the U.S. Congress had given Jackson authority to negotiate removal treaties, exchanging Indian land in the East for land west of the Mississippi River. Jackson used the dispute with Georgia to put pressure on the Cherokees to sign a removal treaty.

With the landslide reelection of Andrew Jackson in 1832, some of the most strident Cherokee opponents of removal began to rethink their positions. Led by Major Ridge, his son John Ridge, and nephews Elias Boudinot and Stand Watie, they became known as the “Ridge Party”, or the “Treaty Party” (see Indian Removal: Ridge v. Ross). The Ridge Party believed that it was in the best interest of the Cherokees to get favorable terms from the U.S. government, before white squatters, state governments, and violence made matters worse.

(Right) This monument at the New Echota Historic Site honors Cherokees who died on the Trail of Tears.

John Ridge began unauthorized talks with the Jackson administration in the late 1820s. Meanwhile, in anticipation of the Cherokee removal, the state of Georgia began holding lotteries in order to divide up the Cherokee tribal lands among white Georgians. However, Principal Chief John Ross and the majority of the Cherokee people, also known as the Ross Party, remained adamantly opposed to removal.

The 1835 Treaty of New Echota relinquished all the Cherokee land east of the Mississippi in return for five million dollars to be disbursed on a per capita basis, an additional half-million dollars for educational funds, title in perpetuity to an amount of land in Indian Territory equal to that given up, and full compensation for all property left in the East. There was also a clause in the treaty as signed allowing Cherokee who so desired to remain and become citizens of the states in which they resided on 160 acres of land, but that was later stricken out by President Jackson.

In the fall of 1835, a census was taken by civilian officials of the War Department to enumerate Cherokees residing in Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, and Tennessee: The 1835 Census of the Cherokee Nation, East (not including the Oconaluftee Cherokee under Chief Yonaguska in Haywood County, North Carolina, who were considered citizens of that state) showed—Georgia: 8946 "Indians", 776 slaves, 68 whites; North Carolina: 3644 "Indians", 37 slaves, 22 whites; Tennessee: 2528 "Indians", 480 slaves, 79 whites; and Alabama: 1424 "Indians", 299 slaves, 32 whites. This made a total of 16,542 "Indians", 1592 slaves, and 201 inter-married whites living in the Cherokee Nation East, for a grand total of 18,335 persons overall. This total includes 376 Muscogee living in the Cherokee Nation East, since the Creek War. The estimated number of Cherokee in the West was about 5000.

In October of that year Principal Chief John Ross and an Eastern visitor, John Howard Payne, were kidnapped from Ross' Tennessee home by a renegade group of the Georgia militia. Released, Ross and a delegation of tribal leaders traveled to Washington, D.C., to protest this high-handed action, and to lobby against the removal policy of President Andrew Jackson. In this power vacuum, U.S. Agent John F. Schermerhorn gathered a group of dissident Cherokees in the home of Elias Boudinot at the tribal capitol, New Echota, GA. There, on December 29, 1835, this rump group signed the unauthorized Treaty of New Echota, which exchanged Cherokee land in the East for lands west of the Mississippi River in Indian Territory. This agreement was never accepted by the elected tribal leadership or a majority of the Cherokee people. In February 1836, two Councils convened at Red Clay, TN., and at Valley Town, N.C., (now Murphy, N.C.) and produced two lists totaling some 13,000 names, written in the Sequoyah writing script, of Cherokees opposed to the Treaty. The lists were dispatched to Washington, D.C., and presented by Chief Ross to Congress. Nevertheless, a slightly modified version of the Treaty was ratified by the U.S. Senate by a single vote in March 1836, and signed into law by President Andrew Jackson. The Treaty provided a grace period until May 1838 for the tribe to voluntarily remove themselves to Indian Territory.

(Right) John Ross House. This log house is located in Rossville, Georgia, on the Georgia-Tennessee border near Chattanooga. It consists of two rooms on each floor separated by a central breezeway, now enclosed, and was built in the 1790s by John Ross's grandfather. Ross lived here with his grandparents as a boy and the house later served as a headquarters for the enterprises that made him a rich man. The property also included a large farm, worked by slaves. Ross also owned a supply depot and warehouse at Ross's Landing (now in Chattanooga).

Despite the protests by the Cherokee National Council and Principal Chief Ross that the document was a fraud, Congress ratified the treaty on May 23, 1836, by just one vote. Many white Americans were outraged by the dubious legality of the New Echota Treaty and called on the government not to force the Cherokees to move. For example, on April 23, 1838, Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote a letter to Jackson’s successor, President Martin Van Buren, urging him not to inflict “so vast an outrage upon the Cherokee Nation.”

The New Echota Treaty, which passed Congress by a single vote, and signed into law by President Andrew Jackson, was imposed by his successor President Martin Van Buren who allowed Georgia, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Alabama an armed force of 7,000 comprised of militia, regular army, and volunteers under General Winfield Scott to round up approximately 13,000 Cherokees into concentration camps at the U.S. Indian Agency near Cleveland, Tennessee, before being sent to the West. (General Winfield Scott's Address to the Cherokee Nation and General Winfield Scott's Cherokee Indian Removal Enforcement Orders (The Trail of Tears). Most of the deaths occurred from disease, starvation and cold in these camps. Their homes were burned and their property destroyed and plundered. Farms belonging to the Cherokees for generations were won by white settlers in a lottery. After the initial roundup, the U.S. military still oversaw the emigration until they met the forced destination. Private John G. Burnett later wrote "Future generations will read and condemn the act and I do hope posterity will remember that private soldiers like myself, and like the four Cherokees who were forced by General Scott to shoot an Indian Chief and his children, had to execute the orders of our superiors. We had no choice in the matter." (Autobiography of General Winfield Scott: Civilization of the Cherokees: A History.)

(Major Ridge House) The Ridge House is located in Rome, Georgia, near New Echota, the Cherokee national capital. The two windows to the left of the front door were part of the earliest part of this house, a log cabin of two rooms separated by an open breezeway. By the time of the relocation, Major Ridge had enlarged the cabin into a fine house, with eight rooms, 30 glass windows, four brick fireplaces, and paneling in the parlor. The two one-story wings were added in the 20th century.

In the winter of 1838 the Cherokee began the thousand mile march with scant clothing and most on foot without shoes or moccasins. (Cherokee Removal Routes Map and Trail of Tears Mapped Routes.) The march began in Red Clay, Tennessee, the location of the last Eastern capital of the Cherokee Nation (Red Clay Council and Red Clay Council Grounds).

The Cherokee were given used blankets from a hospital in Tennessee where an epidemic of small pox had broken out. Because of the diseases, the Indians were not allowed to go into any towns or villages along the way; many times this meant traveling much farther to go around them. After crossing Tennessee and Kentucky, they arrived in Southern Illinois at Golconda about the 3rd of December, 1838. Here, the starving Indians were charged a dollar a head to cross the river on "Berry's Ferry" which typically charged twelve cents. They were not allowed passage until the ferry had serviced all others wishing to cross and were forced to take shelter under "Mantle Rock," a shelter bluff on the Kentucky side, until "Berry had nothing better to do". Many, consequently, died huddled together at Mantle Rock waiting to cross.

Several Cherokee were also murdered by locals. The killers filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Government through the court house in Vienna, suing the government for $35 a head to bury the murdered Cherokee.

On December 26, Martin Davis, Commissary Agent for Moses Daniel's detachment, wrote: "There is the coldest weather in Illinois I ever experienced anywhere. The streams are all frozen over something like eight or twelve inches thick. We are compelled to cut through the ice to get water for ourselves and animals. It snows here every two or three days at the fartherest. We are now camped in Missippi [Mississippi] swamp four miles from the river, and there is no possible chance of crossing the river for the numerous quantity of ice that comes floating down the river every day. We have only traveled sixty-five miles on the last month, including the time spent at this place, which has been about three weeks. It is unknown when we shall cross the river...."

Removed Cherokees initially settled near Tahlequah, Oklahoma. The political turmoil resulting from the Treaty of New Echota and the Trail of Tears led to the assassinations of Major Ridge, John Ridge, and Elias Boudinot; of the leaders of the Treaty Party, only Stand Watie escaped his assassins. The population of the Cherokee Nation eventually rebounded, and today the Cherokees are the largest American Indian group in the United States.

The rare and sought after "Trail of Tears" variety of bean is very productive and was grown by the Cherokee before the resettlement. The Cherokee were able to preserve this heirloom variety of bean during the upheaval.

The Trail of Tears is generally considered to be one of the most regrettable episodes in American history. To commemorate the event, the U.S. Congress designated the Trail Of Tears National Historic Trail in 1987. It stretches for 2,200 miles (3,540 km) across nine states.

In 2004, Senator Sam Brownback (Republican from Kansas) introduced a joint resolution (Senate Joint Resolution 37) to “offer an apology to all Native Peoples on behalf of the United States” for past “ill-conceived policies” by the United States Government regarding Indian Tribes. The United States Senate has yet to take action on the measure.

Sources: Anderson, William L., ed. Cherokee Removal: Before and After. Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press, 1991; Carter, Samuel. Cherokee Sunset: A Nation Betrayed. New York: Doubleday, 1976. ISBN 0-385-06735-6; Ehle, John. Trail of Tears: The Rise and Fall of the Cherokee Nation. New York: Doubleday, 1988. ISBN 0-385-23953-X; Fitzgerald, David G. and King, Duane E., The Cherokee Trail of Tears, Graphic Arts Books, Portland, OR, 2005; Foreman, Grant. Indian Removal: The Emigration of the Five Civilized Tribes of Indians. Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 1932, 11th printing 1989. ISBN 0-8061-1172-0; Prucha, Francis Paul. The Great Father: The United States Government and the American Indians. Volume I. Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 1984. ISBN 0-8032-3668-9; Remini, Robert V. Andrew Jackson and his Indian Wars. New York: Viking, 2001. ISBN 0-670-91025-2; Wallace, Anthony F.C. The Long, Bitter Trail: Andrew Jackson and the Indians. New York: Hill and Wang, 1993. ISBN 0-8090-1552-8 (paperback); ISBN 0-8090-6631-9 (hardback); Anderson, William L., ed. Cherokee Removal: Before and After. Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press, 1991; Carter, Samuel. Cherokee Sunset: A Nation Betrayed. New York: Doubleday, 1976. ISBN 0-385-06735-6; Foreman, Grant. Indian Removal: The Emigration of the Five Civilized Tribes of Indians. Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 1932, 11th printing 1989. ISBN 0-8061-1172-0; King, Duane and Fitzgerald, David G., The Cherokee Trail of Tears, Graphic Arts Center Publishing Company, Portland, OR, 2007. ISBN 1-55868-905-3; Wallace, Anthony F.C. The Long, Bitter Trail: Andrew Jackson and the Indians. New York: Hill and Wang, 1993. ISBN 0-8090-1552-8 (paperback); ISBN 0-8090-6631-9 (hardback); National Park Service; Library of Congress; 1835 Treaty of New Echota; 1830 Indian Removal Act; Winfield Scott's Address to the Cherokee Nation, May 10, 1838; Winfield Scott's Order to U.S. Troops assigned to the Cherokee Removal, May 17, 1838; Removal of the Indians, by Lewis Cass, January 1830; Cherokee Indian Removal Debate U.S. Senate, April 15-17, 1830; Elias Boudinot’s editorials in The Cherokee Phoenix, 1829-31; Trail Of Tears National Historic Trail; New Echota Historic Site; Trail of Tears Commemorative Park, Hopkinsville KY; Cherokee Nation, Oklahoma; Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, North Carolina; Burnett, John G. 1978 "The Cherokee Removal through the Eyes of a Private Soldier." Journal of Cherokee Studies 3 (Summer): 180-85; Buttrick, Daniel S. 1838-39 Diary. Houghton Library, Harvard University; Cannon, B. B. 1978 "An Overland Journey to the West (October-December 1837)." Journal of Cherokee Studies 3 (Summer): 166-73; Deas, Lt. Edward 1978 "Emigrating to the West by Boat (April-May 1838)." Journal of Cherokee Studies 3 (Summer): 158-63; Foreman, Grant 1932 Indian Removal -The Emigration of the Five Civilized Tribes of Indians. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press; _____. 1932 The Five Civilized Tribes: A Brief History and a Century of Progress. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press; Henegar, H. B. 1978 "Recollections of the Cherokee Removal." Journal of Cherokee Studies 3 (Summer): 177-79; Hudson, Charles 1976 The Southeastern Indians. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press; King, Duane H., and E. Raymond Evans, ed. 1978 "The Trail of Tears: Primary Documents of the Cherokee Removal." Journal of Cherokee Studies 3 (Summer): 131-90; King, Duane H. 1988 Cherokee Heritage: Official Guidebook to the Museum of the Cherokee Indian. Cherokee, NC: Cherokee Communications; Lightfoot, B. B. 1962 "The Cherokee Emigrants in Missouri, 1837 -1839." Missouri Historical Review 56 (January): 156-67; Morrow, W. I. I. 1839 Diary. Western Historical Manuscript Collection, University of Missouri, Columbia; Mooney, James 1975 Historical Sketch of the Cherokee. Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company; Moulton, Gary E. 1978 John Ross: Cherokee Chief. Athens: University of Georgia Press; Perdue, Theda 1989 The Cherokee. New York: Chelsea House Publishers. Prucha. Francis Paul 1969 "Andrew Jackson's Indian Removal Policy: A Reassessment." Journal of American History 56 (December): 527-39; Scott, Winfield 1978 "If Not Rejoicing at Least in Comfort." Journal of Cherokee Studies 3 (Summer): 138-42; Starr, Emmet 1921 History of the Cherokee Indians and Their Legends and Folk Lore. Oklahoma City: The Warden Company; Thornton, Russell 1984 "Cherokee Population Losses during the Trail of Tears: A New Perspective and a New Estimate." Ethnohistory 31 (4): 289-300. 1990 The Cherokees: A Population History. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press; Wilkins, Thurman 1986 Cherokee Tragedy: The Ridge Family and the Decimation of a People. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press; Woodward, Grace Steele 1963 The Cherokees. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.