This treaty, signed by a minority Cherokee faction without tribal council approval, provided the legal basis for the forced removal known as the Trail of Tears.
Key Facts
- Date signed
- December 29, 1835
- Location
- New Echota, Georgia
- Ratified
- March 1836
- Signing faction
- Treaty Party (minority Cherokee faction)
- Removal carried out
- 1838–1839 (Trail of Tears)
By the Numbers
Location
Cause → Event → Consequence
The United States government sought to relocate the Cherokee Nation from its ancestral southeastern lands to Indian Territory west of the Mississippi. The elected Cherokee National Council and Principal Chief John Ross refused to negotiate removal terms, leading U.S. officials to negotiate instead with a minority political faction known as the Treaty Party, which lacked authority to speak for the nation.
On December 29, 1835, U.S. government officials and representatives of the minority Cherokee Treaty Party signed the Treaty of New Echota in Georgia. The agreement ceded all Cherokee territory in the southeast in exchange for land in Indian Territory. Principal Chief John Ross did not sign, and the Cherokee National Council never approved the treaty. The U.S. Senate nonetheless ratified it in March 1836.
The ratified treaty became the legal instrument used to justify the forced removal of approximately 16,000 Cherokee people. Between 1838 and 1839, U.S. military forces expelled the Cherokee from their homeland in what became known as the Trail of Tears, during which thousands died from exposure, disease, and starvation en route to Indian Territory.
Political Outcome
The Cherokee Nation ceded all southeastern territorial claims; the treaty was ratified by the U.S. Senate in March 1836 and served as the legal basis for forced removal in 1838–1839.
Cherokee Nation held sovereign territory in the southeastern United States
Cherokee Nation legally ceded all southeastern lands and was compelled to relocate to Indian Territory