settlement treaty. Cherokee leaders explained their point of view in the following statement, which appeared on August 21, 1830 in the NILES WEEKLY REGISTER: “We wish to remain on the land of our fathers. We have a perfect and original right to remain without interruption...If we are compelled to leave our country we see nothing but ruin before us. The country west of the Arkansas territory is unknown to us. From what we can learn...the inviting parts of it ...are preoccupied by various Indian nations, to which it has been assigned. They would regard us as intruders, and look upon us with an evil eye. The far greater part of that region is, beyond all controversy, badly supplied with wood and water; and no Indian tribe can live as agriculturists without these articles. All our neighbors, in case of our removal, though crowded into our near vicinity, would speak a language totally different from ours, and practice different customs. The original possessors of that region are now wandering savages lurking for prey in the neighborhood. They have always been at war, and would be easily tempted to turn their arms against peaceful emigrants. Were the country to which we are urged much better than it is represented to be, and were it free from the objections we have made to it, still it is not the land of our birth, nor of our affections. It contains neither the scenes of our childhood, nor the graves of our fathers” (Forman, 339).During this period of Indian resettlement, the question of whether Indians had a fight to their land came to a head in the case of Worcester v. Georgia (1832). The federal government had signed treaties with many Indian tribes including the Cherokees of Georgia, which recognized tribes as sovereign nations and granted them the right to keep their ancestral lands. However, states like Georgia granted to control Indian lands and supported Indian resettlement. In 1831 Samuel Worcester, a Presbyterian minist...
