How Did The Cherokee Indians

H. David Williams' article explains how the Cherokee's, the last Indian tribe remaining in Georgia, lost the land they called home at the hands of the State of Georgia, the Executive branch of the United States of America and finally their own tribesman. Despite the Cherokees attempts to assimilate, peacefully negotiate, and successfully gain the legal title to their lands from the US Supreme Court, the Cherokees were ultimately relocated to Oklahoma on what is now known as the Trail of Tears.
Before gold was discovered in the northern mountains of Georgia in the 1820s (519), the Creek and Cherokee Indian tribes had been pushed out of the state and west of the Mississippi river by the colonists. The settlers had arrived in 1733 and piece
They built towns and created trade networks within the Cherokee Nation and with the European settlers (520). They were no longer hunters and gathers who were nomadic in nature. The tribesman had jobs that included farmers, merchants, blacksmiths and carpenters (520). The first known multilingual newspaper was also created by the Cherokee Nation, George Guess (his white name) created the first written form of the Cherokee language (520). They created churches and schools for their community through the efforts of Christian missionaries sent in to assimilate the Indian tribes (520). Lastly, they created a constitution for their nation and voted for the capital to be New Echota
In total there was six lotteries that allocated land from the Creek Indians and the Cherokee Indians. There were requirements to register for the lottery, for example white males over 18, veterans of the wars, widows of veterans', and orphans of the war (528). Restriction were also placed on registrants for the lottery, for instance a person winning a previous land lottery was unable to register for future lotteries, or a person who lived in the Cherokee nation, or slaves and their decedents. The Cherokee land lottery was the last one conducted during 1832 (529). The lottery was held over the contested land, and the winners would come to claim their property even after being told they needed to wait for the tribe to move off the land (536). After continuously fighting to keep what was granted land by the United States, John Ridge, with only five hundred other Indians signed a treaty giving the Cherokee Nation five million dollars and a promise not to move them out of the new territory without their consent (538). The government sent in troops totaling 5000 once this treaty was signed and the army rounded up all the Indians in the Cherokee Nation and sent them to the Trail of Tears destined for Oklahoma, where over 4000 Indians perished along the way