New Echota – Cherokee Nation Capital

For a brief moment in history the Cherokee Nation had a capital city in north Georgia.  New Echota is the town that disappeared.

In northern Georgia, there’s a historical park and museum that tells the tale of a lost town. New Echota was once the capital of the mighty Cherokee Nation.

The Cherokees assimilated to white culture ahead of many other first peoples. They owned farms and businesses, and easily intermingled with settlers.

The Cherokee’s original territory stretched from Georgia to Kentucky.

Cherokees gave up 90% of their land through treaties made by individual tribal chiefs, reducing their territory to the top of Georgia. That land was officially deeded to the Cherokees by federal grant.

Around the turn of the 1800’s, individual chiefdoms were abandoned.  A central tribal government was patterned after the US constitution and the Cherokees were recognized as a sovereign nation. New Echota was built as their capital city and seat of government.

The Cherokee Supreme Court held office in the autumn, and New Echota swelled with visitors as a meeting place.

But then … gold was found in Georgia on Cherokee land. White prospectors flooded in, encroached on Indian territory and dislodged established homesteads.

The Cherokees sued, won a US Supreme Court case, but got booted off their land anyway because President Andrew Jackson decided to ignore the ruling. He forcibly removed all Cherokees to Oklahoma in a brutal deportation known as the Trail of Tears.

The capital city of New Echota was abandoned.

It’s a rotten story of ‘Might Makes Right’ and something for us all to remember: Even if you play by the rules, you can still get steamrolled.