Briefly stated, by this treaty of New Echota, Georgia, the Cherokee
Nation ceded to the United States its whole remaining territory east of
the Mississippi for the sum of five million dollars and a common joint
interest in the territory already occupied by the western Cherokee,
in what is now Indian Territory, with an additional smaller tract
adjoining on the northeast, in what is now Kansas. Improvements were
to be paid for, and the Indians were to be removed at the expense of
the United States and subsisted at the expense of the Government for
one year after their arrival in the new country. The removal was to
take place within two years from the ratification of the treaty.
On the strong representations of the Cherokee signers, who would
probably not have signed otherwise even then, it was agreed that a
limited number of Cherokee who should desire to remain behind in North
Carolina, Tennessee, and Alabama, and become citizens, having first
been adjudged "qualified or calculated to become useful citizens,"
might so remain, together with a few holding individual reservations
under former treaties. This provision was allowed by the commissioners,
but was afterward struck out on the announcement by President Jackson
of his determination "not to allow any preemptions or reservations, his
desire being that the whole Cherokee people should remove together."
Provision was made also for the payment of debts due by the Indians out
of any moneys coming to them under the treaty; for the reestablishment
of the missions in the West; for pensions to Cherokee wounded in the
service of the government in the war of 1812 and the Creek war; for
permission to establish in the new country such military posts and
roads for the use of the United States as should be deemed necessary;
for satisfying Osage claims in the western territory and for bringing
about a friendly understanding between the two tribes; and for the
commutation of all annuities and other sums due from the United
States into a permanent national fund, the interest to be placed
at the disposal of the officers of the Cherokee Nation and by them
disbursed, according to the will of their own people, for the care
of schools and orphans, and for general national purposes.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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