Published On: 12.29.17 | 

By: 9316

On this day in Alabama history: Treaty of New Echota was signed

Dec 29 feature

Sketch of the disputed territory between the State of Georgia and the Cherokee Nation. (National Archives and Records Administration)

December 29, 1835

The United States government signed the Treaty of New Echota with representatives of the Cherokee Treaty Party, a minority political faction of the Cherokee Nation. Signed in Georgia, the treaty ceded all Cherokee land east of the Mississippi River to the United States, including land that later became Cherokee, DeKalb and Marshall counties in Alabama. Neither the Cherokee National Council nor Principal Chief John Ross approved the treaty, but it was nevertheless ratified by the U.S. Congress and became the legal basis for the forced removal of the Cherokee to Indian Territory in the West along the Trail of Tears.

Read more at Cherokee Nation.

For more on Alabama’s Bicentennial, visit Alabama 200.