2 The Nature of Things In the Highlands (continued 2)

The Cherokees rapidly adopted governmental features of the invading culture. They adopted a written legal code in 1808. Within a dozen years they had divided their nation into judicial districts with designated judges. Two years later they had established the Supreme Court of the 97 feat. Within just two years of its adoption, The Cherokee Phoenix newspaper was published and most Cherokee-speakers could read and write! But the white people had an insatiable appetite for land. Treaty after treaty was made and broken. The fatal blow was the discovery of gold in 1828 near the Cherokee villages in northern Georgia. Within a few years all their land was confiscated. The infamous “Trail of Tears” came with passage of the 1830 Removal Act.

Some 13,000 Cherokees were forced to march to Oklahoma: 25 percent died en route. Not all left, however, and some soon returned. Today the eastern band of Cherokees lives on the Cherokee Reservation on the park’s North Carolina side.

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