(Editor’s note: Second of three parts)
The late Dr. James Livingood, distinguished University of Tennessee at Chattanooga professor of history, discussed the Cherokee removal in excerpts from his “Chattanooga: Illustrated History”:
“The United States dispatched a commissioner to the Cherokee region to arrange for a removal treaty. The Reverend J.F. Schermerhorn undertook the assignment with an abundance of missionary zeal but little principle. He eventually called a meeting at New Echota in December 1835, selecting a site which Georgians had earlier ruled off limits to the Indians. Only about three percent of the men, women, and children of the Nation attended, according to the estimates of that day. But they did negotiate a document. It was endorsed by only 20 Cherokee; no representative of their government signed, and only two prominent men affixed their signatures.
“The so-called treaty of New Echota or the Removal Treaty ceded all eastern Cherokee lands for territory west of the Mississippi River and a bonus of $5,000,000. The government pledged to bear the cost of removal and of subsistence for one year. The Cherokee would relocate within two years.
“The Cherokee raised an almost unanimous cry of deception and fraud when they learned of the endorsement of the small minority to this document which surrendered their native lands. [John] Ross and other national delegates carried petitions to Washington signed by nearly 16,000 Indians, protesting the deal. Cherokee resolutions denounced the methods of Schermerhorn. A representative of the national government, sent to begin enrolling the natives, agreed and angrily exposed what he had discovered in a letter to the Secretary of War: