Image: New Echota historic site - georgia.gov

New Echota, Georgia was the early 19th century capital of the Cherokee Indian nation, and the site of the signing of the Treaty of New Echota, a supposed agreement between the Cherokee nation and the U.S. government in which much of Georgia and Alabama were ceded to the United States. The treaty, however, was never signed by any Cherokee Indian.

In 1838, American forces began the forced removal of Indians from the land, in what came to be known as the "Trail of Tears". Thousands of Indians were forced to walk from Georgia, Tennessee and the Carolinas to a designated reservation over 1,000 miles away in Oklahoma.