United States History Student Edition

This reconstruction of a traditional Cherokee house is located in North Carolina.

In 1834, Congress established the Indian Territory to be the new home for the Native Americans of the Southeast. The territory was located west of the Mississippi River, mostly in what is now the state of Oklahoma. It was an area that many people at the time considered a wasteland where American settlers would never want to live. Most eastern Native American peoples felt forced to sell their land and move west. Choctaw leader George Hawkins shared his feelings about the move: “We could not recognize the right that the state of Mississippi had assumed, to legislate for us. . . . We as Choctaws rather chose to suffer and be free, than live under the degrading influence of laws, which our voice could not be heard in their formation.” The Cherokee, however, refused to move. In treaties of the 1790s, the federal government had recognized the Cherokee as a separate nation. However, the state of Georgia, in which many Cherokee lived, refused to accept the Cherokee’s status. In 1830, Georgia claimed Cherokee land as part of the state. It also began to enforce state laws in the Cherokee Nation.

The Cherokee turned to the U.S. Supreme Court in two cases. In Cherokee Nation v. Georgia (1831), the Court was sympathetic to the Cherokees’ plight, but ultimately decided that the particulars of the lawsuit was not in the Court’s area of authority. Therefore, the case remained unresolved. Finally, in Worcester v. Georgia (1832), Chief Justice John Marshall confirmed the force of the treaties and ruled that the state and the citizens of Georgia had no right to interfere with the Cherokee: “ The Cherokee Nation, then, is a distinct community occupying its own territory . . . in which the laws of Georgia can have no force, and which the citizens of Georgia have no right to enter but with the assent of the Cherokees themselves, or in conformity with treaties and with the acts of Congress. The whole intercourse between the United States and this Nation, is, by our Constitution and laws, vested in the Government of the United States. ” —John Marshall, Worcester v. Georgia (1832)

PHOTO: marek kasula/Alamy Stock Photo; TEXT: (1)Hawkins, George. Niles’ Weekly Register, Volume 41 (September 1831 to March 1832). Baltimore: H. Niles, 1832; (2) Marshall, John, and Supreme Court Of The United States. U.S. Reports: Worcester v. the State of Georgia, 31 U.S. 6 Pet. 515. 1832; (3)Jackson, Andrew. In Tim A. Garrison’s “Worcester v. Georgia (1832).” New Georgia Encyclopedia. Atlanta: Georgia Humanities and The University of Georgia Press, 2018.

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