Treaty of New Echota

The Treaty of New Echota was a treaty signed on December 29, 1835, in New Echota, Georgia, by officials of the United States government and representatives of a minority Cherokee political faction, the Treaty Party.

The treaty established terms for the Cherokee Nation to cede its territory in the southeast and move west to the Indian Territory. Although the treaty was not approved by the Cherokee National Council nor signed by Principal Chief John Ross, it was amended and ratified in March 1836, and became the legal basis for the forcible removal known as the Trail of Tears carried out in 1838-1839.

Background

Early discussions

By the late 1820s, the territory of the Cherokee Indian nation lay almost entirely in northwestern Georgia, with small parts in Tennessee, Alabama, and North Carolina. It extended across most of the northern border and all of the border with Tennessee. An estimated 16,000 Cherokee people lived in this territory. Others had emigrated west to present-day Texas and Arkansas. In 1826, the Georgia legislature asked President John Quincy Adams to negotiate a removal treaty.

Adams, a supporter of tribal sovereignty, initially refused, but when Georgia threatened to nullify the current treaty, he approached the Cherokee to negotiate. A year passed without any progress toward removal. Andrew Jackson, a Democrat and supporter of Indian removal, was elected president in 1828.

Georgia laws over Cherokee Indian territory

Shortly after the 1828 election, Georgia acted on its nullification threat. The legislature passed a series of laws abolishing the independent government of the Cherokee and extending state law over their territory. Cherokee officials were forbidden to meet for legislative purposes. White people (Including missionaries and those married to Cherokee) were forbidden to live in Cherokee country without a state permit, and Cherokee were forbidden to testify in court cases involving European Americans.

Soon after his inauguration, Jackson wrote an open letter to the Southeastern Indian nations, urging them to move west. After gold was discovered in Georgia in late 1829, the ensuing Georgia Gold Rush increased white residents' determination to see the Cherokee removed.

Negotiations

right|thumb|John Ridge

Jackson's initial proposal

Shortly after the Supreme Court's ruling, Jackson met with John Ridge, clerk of the Cherokee National Council, who headed a Cherokee delegation that went to Washington, DC, to meet with him. When asked whether he would use federal force against Georgia, Jackson said he would not and urged Ridge to persuade the Cherokee to accept removal. Ridge, until then a supporter of the National Council's position, left the White House in despair. John McLean, a Jackson appointee to the Supreme Court, likewise urged the Cherokee representatives in Washington to negotiate. Andrew Ross and other members signed a harsh treaty in June 1834 without the Ridge family's support.

The progress of separate negotiations finally moved John Ross to discuss terms. He made offers to cede all land except the borders of Georgia, and then to cede all land, on the condition that the Cherokee could remain in the east subject to state laws. Cass refused, saying that he would discuss only removal. Andrew Ross's treaty was submitted to the Senate, where it was rejected as not having the support of all Cherokees.

Division of the Cherokee Nation East

A division developed between Ross supporters (the "National Party") advocating resistance, and the Ridge supporters (the "Treaty Party"), who advocated negotiation to secure the best terms possible for the removal, which they considered inevitable, and later protection of Cherokee rights. The Treaty Party included John Ridge, Major Ridge, Elias Boudinot, David Watie, Stand Watie, Andrew Ross, Willam Coody (Ross's nephew), William Hicks (Ross's cousin), John Walker Jr., John Fields, John Gunter, David Vann, Charles Vann, Alexander McCoy, W. A. Davis, James A. Bell, Samuel Bell, John West, Ezekiel West, Archilla Smith, and James Starr.) The treaty included a clause to allow all Cherokees who so desired to remain and become citizens of the states in which they resided, on individual allotments of of land. With that clause, it was unanimously approved by the contingent at New Echota, then signed by the negotiating committee of twenty, but that clause later was struck out by President Jackson.

The committee reported the results to the full Council gathered at New Echota, which approved the treaty unanimously. In a lengthy preamble, the Ridge party laid out its claims to legitimacy, based on its willingness to negotiate in good faith the sort of removal terms for which Ross had expressed support. The treaty was signed by Major Ridge, Elias Boudinot, James Foster, Testaesky, Long Shell Turtle, John Fields, James Fields, George Welch, Andrew Ross, William Rogers, John Gunter, John A. Bell, Jos. A. Forman, Robert Sanders, Johnson Rogers, James Starr, James Rogers, John Smith. After Schermerhorn returned to Washington with the signed treaty, John Ridge and Stand Watie added their names.

Ratification

After news of the treaty became public, the officials of the Cherokee Nation from the National Party representing the large majority of Cherokee objected that they had not approved it and that the document was invalid. The large majority had not voted to approve the document and had not even been present, but the U.S. government's position was their absence amounted to acquiescence. John Ross and the Cherokee National Council begged the Senate not to ratify the treaty (and thereby invalidate it) due to it not being negotiated by the legal representatives of the Cherokee Nation. But the Senate passed the measure in May 1836 by a single vote. Ross drew up a petition asking Congress to void the treaty—a petition which he personally delivered to Congress in the spring of 1838 with almost 16,000 signatures attached. This was nearly as many persons as the Cherokee Nation East had within its territory, according to the 1835 Henderson Roll, including women and children, who had no vote. The Ross followers have continued to blame the Ridge followers to this day due to the negligence of Ross and the rest of the General Council.

Enforcement

Ross's petition was ignored by President Martin Van Buren, who directed General Winfield Scott to forcibly move all those Cherokee who had not yet complied with the treaty and moved west. The Cherokee people were almost entirely removed east of the Mississippi (except for the Oconaluftee Cherokee in North Carolina, the Nantahala Cherokee who joined them, and two or three hundred married to whites).

That summer (1839) a council to effect a union between the Old Settlers and the Late Immigrants convened at Double Springs in Indian Territory. It broke up sixteen days later without having reached an agreement when John Brown, Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation–West, became frustrated with Ross's intransigence. The latter insisted that the Old Settlers accept him as Principal Chief over the united Nation without an election and recognize his absolute authority. Ross was easily elected in the following elections. But the base of the tribe that had already formed was stepped on and ignored, in spite of the fact that the old settlers and the Treaty party were settling in together nicely.

Ross's partisans blamed Brown's actions on the Treaty Party, particularly those, such as the Ridge and Watie families, who had emigrated prior to the forced removal. They had settled with the Old Settlers. A group of these men targeted members of the Ridge faction for assassination, to enforce the Cherokee law (written by Major Ridge) making it a capital crime for any Cherokee to cede national land for private profit.

Letters from the Senate in concerns of the creation of the 1866 Cherokee Treaty confirm that the Treaty Party are the Ridge Party and Southern Cherokee.

Later developments

In 2019, Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr. cited a provision of the treaty that states that the Cherokee "shall be entitled to a delegate in the House of Representatives of the United States whenever Congress shall make provision for the same," in announcing that he intended to appoint, for the first time since Joseph Shorey Coody, a Cherokee delegate and an author of the first Cherokee constitution, a Congressional delegate from the Cherokee Nation. Pending a decision of the Cherokee National Council, Hoskin said he would nominate Kimberly Teehee, a member of the Cherokee Nation who formerly served as a policy advisor in the administration of President Barack Obama, to the post.

In 2021, the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians chose their own delegate—attorney Victoria Holland—arguing that they are successors to the Cherokee people who signed the treaty.

The Treaty Party/Ridge Party/ Southern Cherokee are also signatories of the 1835 Cherokee Treaty.