The Treaty of New Echota was a removal treaty signed in New Echota, Georgia by officials of the United States government and several members of a faction within the Cherokee nation on December 29, 1835. In the treaty, the United States agreed to pay the Cherokee people $5 million, cover the costs of relocation, and give them land in Indian Territory (modern Oklahoma) in exchange for the Cherokee reservation land in Georgia and Alabama. While the treaty was ratified by the United States Senate and enforced upon the Cherokee people, it was never signed by any official representative of the Cherokee nation, and the Cherokee nation refused to recognize the validity of the treaty.

The Ridge Party

By the 1830s, the Cherokee had withstood a steady erosion of their ancestral lands into the hands of white settlers, despite the Cherokee's attempts to organize themselves (they had an elected tribal government) and their treaties with the United States. When the elected leader of the Cherokee, John Ross, refused the U.S. government's offer of money and land in Oklahoma in exchange for the land previously guaranteed to the Cherokee, the federal government simply chose to deal with a group of Cherokee who were willing to move to Oklahoma for the offer price. "The Ridge Party", as this faction came to be called, was led by Major Ridge, his son John Ridge, and his nephews Elias Boudinot and Stand Watie. The federal government sent its designated agents, General William Carroll and the Reverend John Schermerhorn, to draw up a treaty and convince the Ridges to sign it. By signing the treaty even though they were not elected representatives of the tribe, the Ridge Party actually violated Cherokee law--a law that in fact had been proposed by John Ridge himself several years earlier. Once the deal was approved, the Ridge Party was paid, and they began their journey west.

Objections from the Cherokee
After news of the treaty became public, the elected officials of the Cherokee nation instantly objected that they had not approved any treaty, and that the document was invalid. John Ross and the Cherokee tribal council begged the Senate not to ratify the treaty (failure to ratify would thereby invalidate it), but the measure passed in May of 1836 by one vote, thanks in part to President Andrew Jackson's support. Ross later drew up a petition asking Congress to void the treaty--a petition he delivered to Congress in the spring of 1838 with more than 15,000 signatures attached.

The result
The petition was disregarded by President Martin Van Buren, who soon thereafter directed General Winfield Scott to forcibly move those Cherokee who had not yet complied with the treaty and moved west. Scott's action is now commonly referred to as the Trail of Tears. After the Treaty of New Echota was enforced, the Cherokee people were almost entirely removed west of the Mississippi (a few purchased farmland in the area in order to remain near their ancestral lands). Upon arrival in Indian Territory, many of those who had been forcibly removed took their anger out on the Ridge Party--several signers of the treaty were killed, and the Cherokee nation endured 15 years of civil war.