for thousands of years these mountains

were home to the Cherokee but they were

just a small piece of their vast nation

which covered 40 thousand square miles

here in the Appalachian Mountains in

1819 as more and more Americans started

encroaching on Indian land

the US government signed a treaty that

guaranteed that Cherokee land would be

off-limits to white settlers forever it

clearly stated all white people who have

intruded or may hereafter intrude on the

lands reserved for the Cherokees shall

be removed by the United States

confident that the US government now

recognized its sovereignty over its own

lands the Cherokee Nation proceeded to

build itself a new Capitol in 1825 here

in what's known as New Echota Georgia it

had its own courthouse council house and

post office and even space for the first

Indian language newspaper office in the

nation

in 1829 Andrew Jackson was elected US

president he believed that Native

Americans were savages and had no rights

to their land and began proceedings to

remove the Cherokee from the southern

states to clear the way for white

settlement the next year he signed the

1830 Indian Removal Act which set in

motion one of the most brutal actions

ever taken by the US government

thousands of Native Americans were

pulled from their homes in Georgia and

other states across the south many were

shackled in Chains and forced to walk at

gunpoint more than 1,000 miles west on a

series of routes that all led to

Oklahoma up to a third of a 15,000

Cherokee who were forced to make the

journey died on the way which is one

reason that journey came to be known as

the Trail of Tears their descendants are

known today as the Eastern Band of

Cherokee Indians and live here on

sovereign Indian land in Cherokee North

Carolina

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today young Cherokee here at the local

high school learn the language of their

forebearers a vast stretch of their

tribes former land right next to town is

now the Great Smoky Mountains National

Park the most visited national park in

the nation

Oh

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