The treaty, which was ratified by the United States Senate, gave the U.S. The treaty traded Cherokee land east of the Mississippi River for land in Indian Territory (the area that is now Oklahoma), plus more than five million dollars and other benefits from the federal government.

In 1835, Ridge and members of the Cherokee treaty party signed the Treaty of New Echota. Most supported Chief John Ross, who fought against removal however, about 500 Cherokees supported Major Ridge, who represented the United States government and advocated removal. The Cherokee Nation was divided between moving and staying put. To be removed, the Cherokees would have to agree to removal and sign a treaty. Georgia (1832), and the ruling was for the Cherokees, making the removal laws invalid. On appeal, the case was heard once again in the Supreme Court, Worcester v. Georgia (1831) against the Cherokees because they were a 'domestic dependent nation' and not a sovereign nation. The Cherokees fought removal by taking the case to the United States Supreme Court, which ruled in Cherokee Nation v. They lived peacefully until gold was discovered on their land in the late 1820s.īecause the United States wanted the gold, in 1830, Congress passed the Indian Removal Act, which President Andrew Jackson immediately signed into law. The Cherokees established a governmental system similar to that of the United States and adopted a constitution that declared them a sovereign nation, meaning that they were not subject to the laws of any other state or nation. The land was located in northwest Georgia, eastern Tennessee, and southwest North Carolina. The Cherokee Trail of Tears informs Taylor and Turtle's journey from Oklahoma to Arizona in the novel, and many of the novel's characters apparently are members of the Sanctuary movement.īy the end of the eighteenth century, the Cherokee Nation had settled on land guaranteed to it in a 1791 treaty with the United States. These two influences serve as the background to Kingsolver's The Bean Trees. Two of the greatest influences in The Bean Trees are the Cherokee Trail of Tears, the geographical trek that the Cherokee Nation was forced to travel when it was moved to the Oklahoma territory from the southeastern United States, and the Sanctuary movement, designed to help Central Americans flee oppressive governmental regimes and relocate - usually secretly and illegally - in the United States.

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