by Randy Golden

Early Woodland Indians inhabited the Valley and Ridge section of present-day Georgia between Chatsworth and Dalton, building the wall atop Fort Mountain and eventually mingling with Georgia's first civilization, the Moundbuilders. The Creeks, who may have been their descendants, were first to control the land in the Snake Valley. From the east came the Cherokee, driving the Creek south of the Chattahoochee. By the mid-1700's the Cherokee claimed most of North Georgia.

Following the Treaty of 1819, the Cherokee Nation became more resolved in preventing land cessions to American settlers. Led by John Ross, Charles Hicks and Major Ridge, the Cherokee stood firm to their stated commitment. In 1823 the struggle to remove the Creek and the Cherokee became a major political campaign issue, and would continue to be one until The Creek and the Cherokee were gone. To fend off Georgia's demand for lands, the Cherokee Nation formed a government similar to the United States government: a republic with a bi-cameral legislature and a separate court system.

During the Sixth Land Lottery and the "Gold" land lottery, the state of Georgia gave away the Cherokee Nation to settlers at $4.00 for 160 acres. There was only one problem - the Cherokee had never ceded the land. In 1835 the federal government signed the corrupt Treaty of New Echota with a small band of Cherokee - probably no more than 500 out of an estimated 16,000 people. The treaty was approved in Congress by a margin of one vote, and all the members knew that the treaty had been signed illegally. President Andrew Jackson, whose Indian Removal Act of 1830 had been effectively declare unconstitutional in Worcester v. Georgia, was strongly behind the removal of the Cherokee and he swayed enough members votes to ratify the treaty.

Cherokee began to move west in 1836 as settlers began to build towns throughout Northwest Georgia. A small community known as Cross Plains was settled on the site of present-day Dalton. The final end of the Cherokee Nation came in 1838 when most of the tribe was forced to move west on a travesty known today as "The Trail of Tears."

Chieftains Trail - a guide to Native American Sites in Northwest Georgia.

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