There were three methods of getting the land away from the Indian--the
easiest was by means of treaties, under which certain lands lying along
the Atlantic Coast were turned over to the whites in exchange for larger
territories west of the Mississippi. The second method was by purchase.
The third was by armed conquest. All three methods were employed at some
stage in the relations between the whites and each Indian tribe.

The experience with the Cherokee Nation is typical of the relation
between the whites and the other Indian tribes. (Annual Report of the
Bureau of Ethnology. Vol. 5. "The Cherokee Nation," by Charles C.
Royce.)

The Cherokee nation before the year 1650 was established on the
Tennessee River, and exercised dominion over all the country on the east
side of the Alleghany Mountains, including the head-waters of the
Yadkin, the Catawba, the Broad, the Savannah, the Chattahoochee and the
Alabama. In 1775 there were 43 Cherokee towns covering portions of this
territory. In 1799 their towns numbered 51.

Treaty relations between the whites and the Cherokees began in 1721,
when there was a peace council, held between the representatives of 37
towns and the authorities of South Carolina. From that time, until the
treaty made with the United States government in 1866, the Cherokees
were gradually pushed back from their rich hunting grounds toward the
Mississippi valley. By the treaty of 1791, the United States solemnly
guaranteed to the Cherokees all of their land, the whites not being
permitted even to hunt on them. In 1794 and 1804 new treaties were
negotiated, involving additional cessions of land. By the treaty of
1804, a road was to be cut through the Cherokee territory, free for the
use of all United States citizens.

An agitation arose for the removal of the Cherokees to some point west
of the Mississippi River. Some of the Indians accepted the opportunity
and went to Arkansas. Others held stubbornly to their villages.
Meanwhile white hunters and settlers encroached on their land; white men
debauched their women, and white desperadoes stole their stock. By the
treaty of 1828 the United States agreed to possess the Cherokees and to
guarantee to them forever several millions of acres west of Arkansas,
and in addition a perpetual outlet west, and a "free and unmolested use
of all the country lying west of the western boundary of the above
described limits and as far west as the sovereignty of the Unite