What is the Treaty of New Echota?
December 29, 1835 — The Treaty of New Echota is signed today, ceding all the lands of the Cherokee east of the Mississippi River to the US.
Although the treaty was not approved by the Cherokee National Council nor signed by Principal Chief John Ross, it was amended and ratified by the U.S. Senate in March 1836.
It became the legal basis for the forcible removal known as the Trail of Tears — the forced relocation 1836-1839 of the Cherokee Nation from their lands in Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Alabama to the Indian Territory (present day Oklahoma).
As a result, an estimated 4,000 Cherokee died.
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Words of Wisdom
We, the great mass of the people think only of the love we have to our land for...we do love the land where we were brought up. We will never let our hold to this land go to let it go it will be like throwing away our mother that gave us birth.
Inclination to remove from this land has no abiding place in our hearts, and when we move we shall move by the course of nature to sleep under this ground which the Great Spirit gave to our ancestors and which now covers them in their undisturbed peace.
