Chief John Ross and other leaders of the Cherokee nation wrote a letter to Congress to protest the 1835 Treaty of New Echota. This treaty, signed by a group of Cherokees claiming to represent ...

Facing the near-certain loss of his tribe’s land, Ridge signed the Treaty of New Echota in 1835, which sold all the Cherokee’s tribal land to the United States in exchange for land in Oklahoma.

In 1835, the Treaty of New Echota was signed, forcing the Cherokee people off their ancestral land in the southeast United States and along a 1,200-mile march that became known as the Trail of Tears.