aries worked among the Cherokees to try to make them more like the white settlers moving into the area: "Missionaries had promised the Cherokees that the surest way to save their country was to become civilized and Christianized - to give up heathen ways and join mission churches" (Missionaries 301). Many of the Cherokee had embraced these efforts, not simply converting to the new faith but also emulating the settlers by building houses and farms, intermarrying, and learning to speak English (Brandon 234).
The Cherokee first encountered European explorers in the form of Hernando de Soto who recorded meeting them in 1540. Contact was sporadic at first, and, when increasing numbers of explorers and settlers brought a virulent new disease known as smallpox to the New World in the early 18th century, the plague reduced the Cherokee to 11,000 (Horowitz 32).
In the struggles for territory that followed, the Cherokee sided with the British, first against the French and then against the colonists seeking to establish an independent America. Although they signed a peace treaty with the United States in 1785, the Cherokee continued to resist. A group of 3,000 Cherokee migrated west between 1790 and 1817, establishing themselves as the Western Band. The remaining group developed a government modeled on the U. S. system and was subsequently named one of the Five Civilized Tribes for their enlightened stance.
However, gold was soon discovered on their land, and the Americans "suddenly lost interest in the Cherokee experiment with democracy" (Carter 123). Gold prospecting and land speculation were two of the primary sources of enterprise in America at the time; young men seeking to make their fortune saw the undeveloped frontier as an unparalleled opportunity to strike it rich. The local and state governments began to look for ways to acquire Cherokee land in order to begin prospecting.
At this point, the Cherokee Nation contr...