Cherokee leaders and U.S. Secretary of War John C. Calhoun signed a treaty in Washington, D.C., ceding additional Cherokee land to the United States and creating provisions including an education-related “school fund” trust arrangement tied to ceded lands.
At New Echota, the Cherokee Nation adopted a written constitution with executive, legislative, and judicial branches, strengthening claims to self-government in the face of intensifying state and federal pressure.
The U.S. Congress authorized the president to negotiate land exchanges that facilitated the removal of Indigenous peoples from the Southeast to lands west of the Mississippi, setting the legislative framework used against the Cherokee and other nations.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled it lacked jurisdiction because the Cherokee Nation was not a “foreign nation” under Article III, characterizing tribes as “domestic dependent nations” and leaving Georgia’s actions largely unchecked in federal court.
The Court held that Georgia laws had no force within Cherokee territory and that regulation of relations with the Cherokee Nation rested with the federal government; Georgia and the Jackson administration did not effectively enforce the ruling.
U.S. officials and a minority Cherokee faction (“Treaty Party”) signed a removal treaty at New Echota, Georgia, agreeing to cede remaining Cherokee lands in exchange for money and land in the West—despite opposition from the elected Cherokee government.
Supplementary articles to the Treaty of New Echota were created, part of the documentary record that the U.S. used to finalize and administer the removal agreement.
The treaty became effective after U.S. ratification, triggering the two-year deadline after which the federal government moved to enforce removal against Cherokees who remained in the Southeast.
Major General Winfield Scott issued Orders No. 25, organizing military districts and directing troops to remove Cherokee people who remained after the deadline, while instructing soldiers to show “kindness” as removals were executed by force.
The first detachments of Cherokee removals departed from the Ross’s Landing area under military control; removal routes by water and overland expanded through 1838–1839 as thousands were transported toward Indian Territory.
The final Cherokee removal detachment arrived in Indian Territory, marking the end of the 1838–1839 forced removal operations commonly known as the Trail of Tears.
Major Ridge, John Ridge, and Elias Boudinot—prominent signers associated with the Treaty Party—were killed on the same day amid escalating political violence after removal, deepening internal divisions in the Cherokee Nation.
The United States negotiated a treaty in Washington, D.C., with multiple Cherokee factions (including representatives of the “Treaty Party”), aiming to settle factional disputes and stabilize governance in the post-removal Cherokee Nation.
During the Civil War-era division within the Cherokee Nation, the pro-Union Cherokee National Council passed an act providing for immediate abolition of slavery in the Cherokee Nation.
In Washington, D.C., Cherokee delegates signed a Reconstruction treaty with the United States. Among other provisions, it addressed postwar governance and required recognition of Cherokee Freedmen and free Africans residing in the Nation as having rights “of native Cherokees.”
Cherokee Removal (Trail of Tears) and Nation Reconstruction (1819–1866)
