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With more and more immigrants heading south, the Cherokee were driven deeper into the mountains. Acre-by-acre, treaty-by-treaty, white settlement steadily consumed the Smokies. The Cherokee held onto their homeland as long as they could, but the election of Andrew Jackson as president spelled doom for the Cherokee. Jackson, a long time Indian hater, defied treaties, ignored Supreme Court rulings, and jailed Cherokee activists. In 1835, Jackson convinced a handful of cooperative Cherokees to sign the infamous Treaty of New Echota, giving them $5,000,000 and 7,000,000 acres in Oklahoma in return for all Cherokee lands and a pledge to leave the mountains peacefully.
Although their ancient homeland was taken, many Cherokee refused to leave and a standoff ensued. In 1838, virtually the entire standing army of the United States occupied Cherokee Territory, rounding up families by gunpoint and forcing them into crowded stockades. A few Cherokee were sent on river barges, but most would be marched to Oklahoma, a journey known as the "Trail of Tears".
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They traveled without shelter or adequate supplies. Weary and defenseless, the natives became easy targets for bandits and disease. Of the 16,000 Cherokee who traveled the infamous Trail of Tears, 4,000 died before reaching Oklahoma.
The Chamber of Discord, at the Museum of the Cherokee Indian, is filled with bouncing sounds, dramatic sculpture and Sequoyah's syllabary illustrating three Cherokee political opinions concerning their removal from the Great Smokies.
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The Qualla Boundary & the Eastern Band
While 16,000 Cherokee were led west to Oklahoma, about 1,000 hid deep in the Smokies to elude military patrols. With the natives gone or in hiding, tribal lands were sold. Tillable land went to the highest bidder and the squatters took what they could.
The Cherokee tried to reclaim their homeland for 30 years. With the leadership and advocacy of Chief Will Thomas, they eventually succeeded in purchasing back 56,000 acres, referred to now as the Qualla Boundary.
Today, descendents of those 1,000 defiant natives are the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Indians, a sovereign nation, self-governed, with approximately half of the enrolled members living on the Qualla Boundary.
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