Cherokee by Blood is an image created by Cherokee artist John Guthrie. This image is available as a limited edition print or on garments and gifts.

At the beginning of the 19th century, the Cherokee Nation resided on and bore land claims in the Appalachian valleys of Georgia and the Carolinas. At the same time, Euruopean immigrant communities was encroaching and sounding increasing bitterness of the Cherokee holdings. Insistence increased when a gold strike occurred in northern Georgia, at Dahlonega. Many whites resolved that it was time for the Cherokee to leave behind their farms, homes, and lands. In 1817, a Cherokee group called “Old Settlers” traveled to western lands granted them in Arkansas. In that location they restored their native government and a passive way of life. Nevertheless, this Old Settler group was later on displaced on to Indian Territory (Oklahoma).
In 1802, President Jefferson showed his support for removal of Indians to western territories. Adopting President James Monroe’s recommendation in his last address to Congress, President Andrew Jackson signed the 1830 Indian Removal Act. Opposition protests came in from Senators Daniel Webster and Henry Clay and others. Reverend Samuel Worcester, a missionary to the Cherokees, took exception in court Georgia’s endeavor to get rid of Indian claims to land claims. The Worcester vs. Georgia (1832) case went to the Supreme Court and debated the constitutionality of the Removal Act. Worcester won this court battle and Cherokee’s rights of land ownership was preserved; nevertheless, Jackson and the US Government carried on efforts for their removal.
In 1835 the Treaty of New Echota was signed by a “Treaty Party” of approximately a hundred Cherokees. In that agreement, Cherokees abandoned all title to lands east of the Mississippi in exchange for land in the Indian Territory and the future promise of money, livestock, tools, and additional provisionary support. This treaty signing and the subsequent removal contributed to acrimonious factionalism inside the Cherokee Nation and the eventual deaths of numerous of the Treaty Party leaders. Irrespective of the resistance and disagreements of the Cherokee, Georgia and the US Government’s point of view triumphed and the New Echota treaty was employed to justify their removal. In the summer of 1838, the US Army set about enforcement of the Removal Act. Cherokees were rounded up and temporarily confined in stockades. 3,000 Cherokees were loaded onto barges to journey up the Tennessee, Ohio, Mississippi Rivers, and on to the Arkansas into Indian Territory. Over 14,000 additional Cherokee remained in the prison camps till the winter of 1838-39. And then they were force marched 1,200 miles through Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, and Arkansas to their Indian Territory. The Cherokee suffered torrential rainfalls and other inclement weather conditions, poor food and water, and lacked suitable clothing. It’s estimated that at the least 4,000 perished of starvation, exposure, and disease.

Cherokee by Blood pictured here on a Throw Pillow