New Echota: My painful judgment in the courts of a foreign country

I had never visited New Echota (former capital of the Cherokee Nation) until this past Saturday, which is ridiculous considering that it’s a mile from my sister’s and uncle’s houses (the family compound) where I visit at least once a month.

Let’s face it: With my relentless enthusiasm and hyper-curious nature, I could visit the World’s Largest Ketchup Bottle or the Corn Museum and come out raving about the historical treasures within. Still, it was pretty amazing how much I got for my $6.50 admission price.

A nation’s capital

The Cherokee Nation’s legislature established the capital city of New Echota in 1825 near present-day Calhoun, Ga., where the Conasauga and Coosawattee rivers meet to form the Oostanaula River. The citizens developed a written language, published a newspaper, managed thriving farms and businesses where they peaceably traded with English settlers, seated a bicameral legislature, and had a court system in which lower court decisions were appealed to the Supreme Court. (It should be noted, though—before we over-romanticize the Cherokee—that they didn’t believe in jails and simply fined, whipped, or hanged their guilty parties.)

All of this peace and prosperity came to a screeching halt when you-know-who got greedy and spoiled it all after the discovery of gold on Cherokee lands. Congress passed the Indian Removal Act in 1832, and the Georgia Guard began evicting Cherokee families from their homes. In 1835, Cherokee leaders—seeing no other alternative—signed the Treaty of New Echota, which swapped Cherokee lands east of the Mississippi for lands in present-day Oklahoma. In 1838, the U.S. Army began rounding up the remaining Cherokee into stockades, where they began their forced thousand-mile march west—now known as the Trail of Tears. Thousands died of disease, exposure, and abuse and murder at the hands of white settlers.

While I knew much of this history, I think it’s important to hear it again and again—as painful as it is (especially for this descendant of white settlers who was raised on not one but two land lots originally stolen from the Cherokee in a county originally stolen from the Cherokee).

After I was bashed on the head with this information in the form of a well-made 17-minute film, I was turned loose onto the grounds, which feature 12 original and reconstructed buildings and remnants of the town streets, farms, and ball fields.

I was particularly impressed with the town council house and the Supreme Court building, which are reproductions and therefore are open to the public. One can even climb up behind the bar and sit on the bench. I declined, because once you’re a member of any bar, you understand what that means. Plus, based on the shameful information I had just heard, I felt that it would have been grossly inappropriate for me to have done that.

A sovereign nation

As fascinated as I was by the Cherokee justice system, my curiosity was piqued by a case that was not heard in the Cherokee courts but in the U.S. Supreme Court: the case of Worcester v. Georgia, 31 U.S. 515 (1832).

New Echota postmaster and white missionary Samuel Worcester was cited under a new Georgia law (intended to pressure the Cherokee to vacate) that forbade white people to live in Indian territory without a state permit. Worcester and others refused and were sentenced to four years’ hard labor. Worcester appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court and won. 31 U.S. 515, 520.

The case is notable not for the holding (Worcester’s conviction was struck down) but for the dicta. Chief Justice John Marshall, writing the opinion, seemed frankly pro-Indian. He recognized the Cherokee as a sovereign nation, a “distinct community” over which the State of Georgia could have no authority. 31 U.S. 515, 520. In other words, under Article I of the U.S. Constitution, the Cherokee Nation was similarly situated to the United States, and could therefore only be dealt with by the federal government. Id. at 573, citing U.S. Const. art. I. States therefore had no jurisdiction over Indian lands.

So what?

Despite the noble pronouncements in Chief Justice Marshall’s opinion, the federal government (under President Andrew Jackson) dealt with the Cherokee and other Southeastern tribes as atrociously as the states did. Still, the opinion set a precedent for the complicated relationship between sovereign Indian nations and the federal government that persists today.

Today, the three federally-recognized Cherokee tribes have more than 316,000 enrolled members, while the 2000 U.S. Census showed 875,276 people self-reporting as Cherokee. Two tribes are headquartered in Oklahoma, while the Eastern band (whose forebears escaped the Trail of Tears) remains in western North Carolina. While that’s a large population, it’s fair to say that social problems persist on Indian reservations, and the two large Oklahoma tribes have an uneasy relationship.

I wish there were an uplifting end to this post, but even that statement seems hollow and insulting. The best we can do is visit places such as New Echota and consider whether we’re participating in similar injustices today. Our shared history appears to be the harshest judge of all.