Cherokee Nation
During the early 1800´s, northern Georgia was heart of the sovereign, independent Cherokee Indian Nation. By this time Cherokee were the most progressive Indian tribe in North America in 1821, they became the first American Indians with a written form of their native language, invented by Sequoyah, an uneducated Cherokee.
New Echota, the Cherokee national capital, was located 10miles north. There a constitutional government of executive, legislative, and judicial branches ruled the Nation. Once the largest town in the area, New Echota considered of houses, stores, taverns, a Council house, Supreme Court house, and a printing office which published a nation bilingual newspaper, the CHEROKEE PHOENIX.
Most of the 17,000 Cherokee were farmers and lived in small log cabins but some grew very wealthy and owned great plantations such as the Vann House, located 27 miles north.
In 1838, at gunpoint, the Cherokee were rounded up and imprisoned by state and federal armies. Later that year they were forced to what is now Oklahoma. Four thousand Cherokees died on the terrible march west known as the "Trail of Tears"
GHM 064-92 GEORGIA HISTORICAL MARKER 1983
Plaque courtesy Lat34North.com.
Original page, with additional info, here.
Photo credit: Byron Hooks of Lat34North.com.