American History Tellers - Encore: Supreme Court Landmarks | The Cherokee Cases | 2

Episode Date: July 26, 2023

In the early 1800s, the United States was growing rapidly, seeking land and resources for its expanding population. But the growth threatened Native American communities throughout the East. In the southern Appalachia region, the Cherokee Nation held millions of acres of prime farmland and forests, managed by a centuries-old tradition and a thriving government. But the state of Georgia, and a relentless President Andrew Jackson, set their sights on seizing the land.When the Georgia statehouse declared political war, Cherokee advocates fought back. Newspaper publisher Elias Boudinot and Cherokee Chief John Ross took their challenge all the way to the Supreme Court, forcing Chief Justice John Marshall to weigh in on two monumental cases, Cherokee Nation v. Georgia and Worcester v. Georgia.At stake was a decision that would test the limits of the high court’s power -- and determine the future and sovereignty of a threatened nation.Listen ad free with Wondery+. Join Wondery+ for exclusives, binges, early access, and ad free listening. Available in the Wondery App. https://wondery.app.link/historytellersSupport us by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge new seasons of American History Tellers early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. This is a special encore presentation of our seven-part series on Supreme Court landmarks. We're taking a look back at crucial Supreme Court decisions that fundamentally changed the legal landscape of our nation. But just as with today's court, social movements and partisan politics often influence those decisions, sometimes in unexpected ways. Imagine as 1829, a sweltering late August day in New Echota, the capital of the Cherokee Nation.

You're setting type for the newest issue of the Cherokee Phoenix, the only newspaper in America with stories in both English and Cherokee. It's also the only newspaper advocating for Cherokee land rights. Glancing out the window, the whole town of New Echota is laid out in front of you. Stores, a city hall, houses, a bustling town of Cherokee people. But the governor of Georgia would like nothing more than to see it demolished, to become instead a home for white settlers. It's enough to make your blood boil. As you look up from your typesetting, you see a man on a horse approaching at a fast clip.

It's your boss, the editor of the Phoenix, Elias Boudinot. He rushes into the office and over to your desk. How much of that front page do you have set? I'm just about done. Well, we'll have to clear some space towards the top. They found gold. You nearly drop the metal letters in your hands on the floor. Gold? Where?

Ward Creek. Rumors are flying around like wildfire. Land prices are doubling. People jumping all over themselves to get in and pan. Gold turning up on Cherokee land should be wonderful news. But you both know the reality is anything but. White settlers and their politicians have been ratcheting up a fight against your people for nearly 30 years. Now, the discovery of gold will only make them hungrier for your land. Chief Ross and the council are going to have to address this. He means the Cherokee National

Council, the governing body of the Cherokee Nation. The council building is right down the road. But what will the council be able to do? I'm not sure, but what I do know is that the Cherokee have rights in the United States. We sign treaties to ensure our sovereignty. The U.S. has to honor them, even against one of its own states. So if we have to go to Washington to press our case, then that's what we're going to have to do. Nothing good has come from the American government. Not their treaties, not their politicians. Elias suddenly turns on you, his face hot with anger. What would you do then? Start a war against the entire state of Georgia? No, of course not. We don't have the numbers. We don't have the military. We would lose. Exactly. So when your back's against the wall, what do you do? You negotiate.

There's no arguing with Elias when he gets like this. So you turn away, looking back out the window. Elias has always had faith in the American government. And you've never been sure why. All they've done is break their promises. But he's right. Your people don't have many options. But negotiations take trust and faith.

You just hope that Elias Boudinot's faith isn't misplaced. With Audible, there's more to imagine when you listen. Whether you listen to stories, motivation, expert advice, any genre you love, you can be inspired to imagine new worlds, new possibilities, new ways of thinking. And Audible makes it easy to be inspired and entertained as a part of your everyday routine without needing to set aside extra time. As an Audible member, you choose one title a month to keep from their ever-growing catalog. Explore themes of friendship, loss, and hope

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on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. From Wondery, I'm Lindsey Graham, and this is American History Tellers. Our history, your story. In the first three decades of the 1800s, the United States expanded rapidly.

The population tripled from 5 to 15 million, and the nation's territory kept pace, growing threefold with the purchase of the Louisiana Territory and the acquisition of Florida. Construction of canals, turnpikes, and railroads improved transportation and spurred the economy. But for Native Americans in the East, all this growth threatened their very existence. With millions of acres of prime farmland and forests, the Cherokee Nation found their rights slowly being eroded by the neighboring state of Georgia. To make matters worse, the federal government and the president refused to intervene. But the Cherokee had one last option, pursuing a case against the state of Georgia in federal court. Historically, legal trees had outlined the relationship between the Cherokee and the United States. But even these legally binding agreements were open to different

interpretations. Cherokee leaders would stand their ground in the only branch of government left to them, the Supreme Court. In two separate cases, Cherokee Nation v. Georgia and Worcester v. Georgia, the court would render decisions that would determine the future of an entire civilization. This is Episode 2, The Cherokee Cases. By the late 1820s, a gold rush in northwestern Georgia was the latest development to put pressure on the Cherokee people. White Southerners were hungry, not just for gold, but the promise of western expansion. There was money to be made in land speculation, and the Cherokee were some of the last tribes standing in the way. Up and down the east coast of North America, white settlers, first French and Spanish,

then English, had made deals with Native tribes. They traded with them, established communities, and learned how to survive the harsh winters. As the settlers grew in number, they intensified their fighting with the neighboring tribes, forcing Native Americans further into the western portion of the North American continent. All the while, white settlers called Native Americans savages and characterized them as primitive, creating a myth of racial inferiority that laid the groundwork for white aggression. By the 19th century, white businessmen and landowners in the United States looked to the government to help drive out tribal communities. And the government obliged by offering cash buyouts to Native tribes who would relocate and applying pressure to those who remained. But in the state of Georgia, the Cherokee were not leaving fast enough for the settlers. And the state's politicians were doing their best to speed things along. For a young Cherokee man named Elias Boudinot, his 26 years had been

spent in anticipation of a confrontation like this. Boudinot lived with his wife and children in the town of New Echota, the capital of the Cherokee Nation. Their residents walked wide streets and slept in large frame houses. They ran farms and plantations, some of them maintained by enslaved labor. At the center of town stood a courthouse and a two-story council building with glass windows and brick chimneys. The new tribal government, the Cherokee National Council, met in this building, and from there it oversaw a territory that covered a vast swath of land stretching up into the southern Appalachian Mountains. The majority of Cherokee, around 17,000 people, still lived in other mountain towns and villages

across 150 miles of trails. These settlements were more remote, more inaccessible, and more traditional. Women held powerful leadership roles, and communities were matrilineal. Though tribal law and social behavior had once differed from place to place, now the central council in Nu'achota helped settle disputes and kept up lines of communication within the Cherokee community. Just like New Echota, Elias Boudinot himself was symbolic of the changes Cherokee people had undergone in the 19th century. Born in 1802 to a prominent mixed-race family, he'd been christened Galagina Wati and nicknamed Buck. His father was Cherokee, and his mother had European and Cherokee

heritage. Like his cousins and others in the tribe with high social standing, Buck was sent north to be educated, to a Christian missionary school in Cornwall, Connecticut. There, Buck met an aging former congressman named Elias Boudinot. The elder Boudinot took an interest in Buck and urged the young Cherokee to adopt his name. Buck accepted, and for the rest of his life was known as Elias Cornelius Boudinot. Returning to Nui Chota in his early twenties, Boudinot found a tribal leadership that was changing into a national council. Political leaders were being chosen and a constitution was about to be formed.

The Cherokee were forming their own modern independent government. A new written language, or syllabary, had also been recently developed by a Cherokee linguist named Sequoyah. For the first time, the Cherokee could record their spoken words on paper. Boudinot worked to get this new syllabary set into typeface. But the tribe's leaders decided it wasn't enough to just develop a written language. The new government needed a way to communicate with the tribal community and the outside world. In other words, they needed a newspaper. The tribal council agreed and sent Boudinot out with other men his age. Men like his cousin John Ridge and his brother Stan Watte. They would set off into the northeastern states to raise money for the newspaper

and to promote the cause of Cherokee sovereignty. Young, eager, and well-spoken, Elias Boudinot was about to go on tour. Imagine this 1826 in the city of Philadelphia. You're in the vast reception hall next door to the First Presbyterian Church. You're a member of the American Board of Commissioners of Foreign Missions, a group that has helped spur the cause of Native rights in the United States. You've just attended a lecture from a young Cherokee named Elias Boudinot. A colleague leads you through the crowd, wanting you to meet the guest of honor. You cross through throngs of people and are led over to a small group of Cherokee.

Boudinot looked young when you saw him speak, but he looks even younger this close. Mr. Boudinot, it's a pleasure to meet you. And you, sir. It's a pleasure to meet anyone who is interested in the cause of Cherokee sovereignty. Boudinot meets your eye with an unwavering gaze. He's dressed in formal clothes, a white starch collar standing stiff around his neck.

Nearby, you see other men like him, members of the Cherokee delegation. He follows your glance. Uh, those are my friends, Mr. Waddy, Mr. Ridge, Mr. Hicks. They're all so young, you think. A group of revolutionary children. Still, their ideas are just as radical as the abolitionists. You like their pluck. So, Mr. Boudinot, did they help you write your speech? No, I wrote that myself, but they've helped me formulate those ideas. Mr. Boudinot, in your speech, you talked of a successful assimilation with white culture.

I believe my words were, I'm an Indian. My kindred are Indians. My father is sleeping in the grave are Indians. But I am not as my fathers were. Broader means and nobler influences have fallen over me. Huh? Nobler influences. Some might say you're calling your own tribesmen primitive. Well, they would be wrong.

That is exactly what I'm fighting against. The Cherokee people are evolving, improving ourselves, just as whites are evolving, improving. And there is no reason why these evolutions can't happen together. But what about members of your tribe who aren't here? Do they agree with these ideas? They would agree that we need to strengthen our ties to the American government. That when you negotiate, you want to do so from the best possible position. You sound very, hmm, politic. Are you going to run for Congress? Elias laughs. For which seat? Georgia? Tennessee? No, they both hate us. They hate our independence. They hate our sovereignty. Now it's up to the United States to formally recognize our independence. Boudinot catches someone else's eye nearby, but finishes his thought.

Then, once the Cherokee are independent, I'll run for Senate. You've got to say you were impressed with the boy. You move along through the crowd and head for the donation box. It's clear to anyone who reads a paper that an ill wind is blowing for these poor people. It's hard to imagine what it's like to have your freedom stripped away bit by bit, but you can try, and you can also make your money do a little extra work as well. In his speech, which he published entitled An Address to the Whites, Elias Boudinot called out the racism inherent in Native removal policies. He also articulated a vision of a historical timeline in which Cherokee people were not stuck in the past, not primitive, as their detractors would claim, but moving forward.

Boudinot had a deep love for his people, but he was also strongly influenced by his Christian missionary education and notions of racial hierarchy and progression. The Cherokee were surrounded by a country with a strong military and a history of warfare with Native people. They were under tremendous pressure to prove that they were civilized, that they could live up to the American ideals of society. So for Elias Boudinot, it was vital that the Cherokee show they were evolving and reinventing themselves in meaningful ways. Boudinot's speaking tour took him up and down the East Coast, to Charleston, Boston, and Philadelphia. He was able to raise the $1,500 it took to purchase a printing press and have it installed in a new Echota office.

The first issue of the Cherokee Phoenix debuted in February 1828. Boudinot was its editor, and subscriptions spread to all the cities he had visited. The Phoenix fast became a weekly chronicle of Cherokee self-determination and the nation's struggles against the state of Georgia and the U.S. Congress. Meanwhile, Cherokee leaders had finished formalizing a style of government they felt would make negotiations with the U.S. federal government more authoritative. By 1827, the Cherokee had declared themselves a constitutional republic. Committee rule was replaced by a national council, which oversaw a legislative body and a court system.

They elected John Ross to be their principal chief. At 38 years old, Ross had already been negotiating with leaders in Washington for more than 10 years. He'd rejected previous offers of settlement money for relocation. A former soldier, Ross was now committed to non-violence, and he worked to placate the more hawkish members of his council. Like Elias Boudinot, John Ross had to bridge both the old and new definitions of what it meant to be a Cherokee. Ross had fought alongside white settlers against the French during the War of 1812. He operated a plantation run by enslaved labor, and he'd made enough money to build several houses in an area of Cherokee territory

that he'd named Ross's Landing. Prosperous, educated, and politically connected, Ross envisioned a future for his people, living right alongside their white neighbors in Tennessee and Georgia. Still, Chief Ross made sure the tribe held fast to core Cherokee values, which were written into their new constitution. Foremost amongst these was that Cherokee land was not owned by any one person, but common property to the entire nation. Over decades, their people had ceded vast tracts of land to the U.S. federal government. Now there would be no more land for sale at all. Ross took a delegation party through the Northeast, handing out copies of the Cherokee Phoenix and trying to sway progressive settlers in their favor. The Cherokee quickly became a cause célèbre among progressive churches and

publications. But then, in 1828, the election of Andrew Jackson to the U.S. presidency sent a shockwave through the progressive and Cherokee communities. Jackson was the first candidate of the newly formed Democratic Party. He won election on a platform that advocated the removal of Native people from their lands and the continuation of slavery in the South. The new president announced to Congress his immediate intention to remove all Native peoples to the West. This came as no surprise to anyone who'd followed Jackson's career battling Native tribes during the War of 1812, or the land deals he'd made after the war, helping sell 45,000 acres of conquered Native territory in Tennessee to white settlers. Emboldened by Jackson's election and the discovery of gold on Cherokee land,

legislators in the state of Georgia quickly sought to try and break the Cherokee nation apart. First, they passed a resolution declaring land and title rights to the 10 million acres of Cherokee territory. The measure nullified all Cherokee laws and customs and made all white people on Cherokee land subject to Georgia law. It also declared the Cherokee to be second-class citizens lacking the rights of whites, including the right to testify against white people in court. Then Georgia authorized a volunteer militia called the Georgia Guard. Under the guise of a peacekeeping force, the Guard patrolled Cherokee land and physically intimidated Cherokee people. These strategies aimed to force the Cherokee to relocate west.

Georgian knew the federal government had set lands aside in Oklahoma for several tribes. Some tribes had already relocated. Georgian hoped that perhaps, with enough force, the Cherokee would join them. Facing these developments, Chief John Ross advised the National Council not to panic. He argued that the Cherokee Nation possessed valid treaties for their land with the United States government. Georgia was only one state. Hold fast to the place you were raised, Ross told the Council in the winter of 1828. If you all unite together and be of one mind, there is no danger of our rights being taken away from us.

Ross felt it was long past time for the US federal government to help the Cherokee people, or at the least, intercede against aggressive states like Georgia. He had faith in the American system and its promises, and he had a plan to force the government's hand. He was going to use white settlers' tactics against them. He was going to hire a lawyer. In a quiet suburb, a community is shattered by the death of a beloved wife and mother. But this tragic loss of life quickly turns into something even darker. Her husband had tried to hire a hitman on the dark web to kill her. And she wasn't the only target. Because buried in the depths of the internet is the Kill List, a cache of chilling documents containing names, photos, addresses,

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and a Congress full of members who wanted the Cherokee gone from the eastern seaboard. Chief John Ross and the Cherokee National Council could feel the door closing upon them. Their options appeared to be just two, either relocate west or stay on their land and submit to the punishment of Georgia state law. But Ross and his allies saw a third option. By taking their case for land ownership and sovereignty to the U.S. Supreme Court, perhaps a ruling would land in their favor. To do this, they engaged the services of a lawyer named William Wirt. Wirt had argued many cases before the Supreme Court over the years, and with his shock

of bushy hair, he was a familiar face amongst a small circle of nationally prominent lawyers. But also, Wirt had two qualities that recommended him to the Cherokee people. First, he was sympathetic to their cause. And second, President Jackson had just forced him to resign a 12-year post as Attorney General to the United States. Wirt had little doubt as to his new client's claims of sovereignty. He and his team began poring over previous cases involving property and U.S. treaties. For centuries, the Cherokee people had lived across the vast lands surrounding the southern Appalachian mountain range. Spanish explorers wrote of encountering them in the 1500s.

More than a hundred years later, French and English settlers had begun to trade with them. By the mid-1700s, the Cherokee were forming military alliances with the British. But with the strength of the American colonies growing, this would be the wrong side to choose. After the American Revolutionary War, the Cherokee signed a peace treaty with the newly independent colonies, permitting the Cherokee to retain their land in Georgia. In two more treaties, the United States promised it would protect Cherokee land and guarantee its boundaries. Congress ratified these agreements in 1793, effectively sealing them with the stamp of the U.S. federal government. These assurances were further backed by the U.S. Constitution, which called treaties the supreme law of the land. So William Worth

thought he had his case, and he had it in the government's own handwriting. But the state of Georgia had its own federally backed claims to Cherokee land. In 1802, just nine years after Congress ratified the Cherokee agreements, Georgia cut a deal with the U.S. government, giving up some of its land holdings in exchange for a promise. Under the terms of the deal, the federal government gained Georgia territory that would become the future states of Alabama and Mississippi. In return, the federal government promised to help Georgia acquire all native territory from the Cherokee and other tribes as soon as they can be peaceably obtained upon reasonable terms. It was this tension that was the heart of the matter. The U.S. government had made a deal with a state that directly contradicted a previous deal it had made with the Cherokee Nation. From his offices in Baltimore, Wirt wrote a back-channel letter to Chief Justice

John Marshall laying out the ground for the case he'd like to bring on behalf of the Cherokee people. Wirt did not yet have a plaintiff, but he had the basic idea of his strategy. Through a friend and intermediary, Wirt asked Marshall whether he'd give an unofficial opinion on the prospects of such a case. But before Marshall could reply, the U.S. Congress passed legislation called the Indian Removal Act. It was a formal declaration of the government's intention to take the lands of Native tribes and move those tribes west of the Mississippi River. Written in the language of a business deal, it gave the president broad powers

to push Native residents off their land and create new enforceable boundaries for their lands in the west. The bill was a culmination of President Jackson's harsh policies, and he hurriedly signed it on May 20 20, 1830. Soon after, Chief Justice Marshall responded in a letter to William Wirt. I have followed the debate in Congress with deep interest and have wished most sincerely that both executive and legislative departments had thought differently on the subject.

Chief Justice Marshall's letter did not offer any advice about Wirt's legal strategy, but he implied that if the court did hear such a case, Marshall's sympath did not offer any advice about Wirt's legal strategy, but he implied that if the court did hear such a case, Marshall's sympathies would lie with the Cherokee. Then, in the fall of 1830, a Cherokee man named George Corn Tassel was charged with the murder of another Cherokee man in Cherokee territory. Tassel's trial and conviction took place in Gainesville County, Georgia, outside the jurisdiction of the Cherokee Nation. So here was the kind of plaintiff that William Wirt and the Cherokee had been looking for. Wirt appealed Tassel's conviction directly to the Supreme Court on the grounds that Georgia had no standing to convict a member of the Cherokee Nation. Chief Justice Marshall accepted

the appeal and ordered Georgia to show cause. But ignoring this order, Georgia pushed forward with Tassel's execution, and he was hanged in Gainesville's town square on Christmas Eve. William Wirt then sued the state directly. The case, Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, appeared before the Supreme Court in March 1831, only three months later. Arguing before the nine justices, Wirt tried to prove that, as a foreign nation, the Cherokee had the right to sue the state of Georgia and that the Supreme Court had the power to

grant an injunction against the state's anti-native laws. Wirt reasoned that the court should and could defend Cherokee rights to both their land and their independent government. Georgia did not bother to send counsel to represent the state, so Wirt argued unopposed. Surely, Wirt felt this would be the moment in which Cherokee sovereignty could be ruled upon. But it wasn't. In his opinion, Marshall wrote that the Cherokee did not technically constitute a foreign nation. Inventing a new legal status for them, Marshall called the Cherokee a domestic dependent nation.

In a 7-2 ruling, he concluded that the court had no jurisdiction to make a decision. It was a devastating blow for the Cherokee. But a glimmer of hope remained. In his opinion, Marshall speculated that the question of right to Cherokee lands might perhaps be decided by the court in a proper case with proper parties. Much like Marshall's earlier letter to William Wirt, this was an implied imitation, one that read, try again, find a different kind of case. And very soon after, a tense showdown in Georgia would provide an opportunity to do just that. Imagine it's 1831, one of those insufferably hot days that makes you curse the state of Georgia for simply existing. Growing up, you heard stories about how this state used to be a penal colony,

a debtor's prison for misfits and men who'd stowed away on the Mayflower. You imagined prisoners breaking rocks in the hot sun, and strangely, it made you shiver. That would never be you. You would never find yourself on the wrong side of the law. And here you are, a member of the George Guard militia, sweating and swatting at flies with a dozen other men, listening to a Cherokee congregation singing the altar call. Well, I've got to tell you, I've never had to arrest a preacher before. You glance over at Lonnie, a fellow guardsman.

He thinks he's a wit, but he never knows when to keep his mouth shut. That's not the preacher we're arresting. Lonnie frowns. But this, uh, uh, Worcester fella. I read he's a wit, but he never knows when to keep his mouth shut. That's not the preacher we're arresting. Lonnie frowns. But there's a Worcester fella. I read he's a preacher. No, he's not a preacher. He's a missionary. Lonnie looks slightly confused.

But this Worcester fella, he's a missionary without his white man's license or whatever. No, that's right. State of Georgia says white men need a license to live on Cherokee land, and Worcester didn't get his. Well, I think we could stand to bring a couple of those Cherokee to jail along with him, whoever he is. We're not here to arrest any Cherokee people. And why not?

They're here illegal too, ain't they? Keep a lid on it, Lonnie. Just ahead, your captain looks restless. He keeps glancing around. You don't blame him. It feels strange to be standing here, near a church in a clearing by the woods, waiting for someone else's church to let out, to then begin an arrest. As the service finishes, the congregants begin to slowly exit the building.

They're all Cherokee, wearing clothes just like you'd wear to a Sunday service. One by one, they stop in their tracks. It gets to where the people inside can't come out because the doorway's blocked. They look scared, and you understand why. There's a dozen armed men outside their church. Your captain calls out to them. We're here for Samuel Worcester.

We have a warrant for his arrest under orders from the state of Georgia. And that's when you see him, shaggy dark hair, slicked back, like he's one of them. You guess that in a way he is one of them. You move forward, holding the shackles out so Worcester can see them. In turn, he holds out his wrists, saying nothing, like he knew you were coming. You fasten his wrists and lead him towards the wagon. For a split second, you wonder if the Lord really is on this man's side.

But it isn't your place to guess about such things. God's law and man's law are two different things. And all you have to do is enforce the latter. Samuel Worcester had known something like this was coming. Just three months before, Georgia passed a law prohibiting white men from residing in the Cherokee territory without first obtaining a license. The 33-year-old Worcester had no license and did not seek or apply for one. He'd already lived in New Echota with his wife and family for six years. Worcester was a vocal advocate for Cherokee independence.

He'd helped Elias Boudinot create the Cherokee Phoenix newspaper. And, as the postmaster of New Echota, Worcester made sure that copies were sent to cities all over the Northeast. Worcester, along with Eliza Butler and seven other missionaries, deliberately courted arrest to help bring the question of Cherokee independence before the Supreme Court. Once Georgia Governor Wilson Lumpkin realized this, he had the men set free. Lumpkin was a newly elected governor, but he followed the same mandate as his predecessors, pressured the Cherokee by all means available. But once Lumpkin released them from jail, Samuel Worcester and Eliza Butler still refused to leave Cherokee land. Enraged, Governor Lumpkin had Worcester removed

from his position as postmaster and arrested again. For good measure, he also re-arrested Butler. The two missionaries were sentenced to four years of hard labor in a Georgia jail. The re-arrest of the two missionaries was a strategic mistake for Lumpkin. Here at last was the case that William Wirt and the Cherokee had been waiting for. Like he had with Corn Tassel, Wirt took over representation for the Worcester case and filed a notice to appear in the Supreme Court. Unwittingly, Governor Lumpkin had backed himself into a corner. Unlike Tassel, his two prisoners were white. He couldn't execute them just to get them out of the way, but he couldn't release them from jail either. For Lumpkin and his Georgia constituents,

this was a matter of states' rights above all else. But for Wirt, Worcester, and the Cherokee, this case was about defending their right to exist as they had for generations on the American continent. They were going to defend that right in the highest court in the nation, even if it meant taking on the state of Georgia and the president. Now streaming. Welcome to Buy It Now, the show where aspiring entrepreneurs get the opportunity of a lifetime. I wouldn't be chasing it if I didn't believe that the world needs this product. In each episode, the entrepreneurs get 90 seconds to pitch to an audience of potential customers. This is Matt's point, baby.

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Join Wondery in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Over three days in February 1832, the Supreme Court heard arguments in the case of Worcester v. Georgia, with the fate of the Cherokee Nation on the line. Once again, Georgia refused to appear. But the pressures surrounding the case were even more intense than those of the previous year. The whole country was watching, and everyone had an opinion. The pro-Jackson Democrats and their boosters cried foul to the whole proceedings. State matters should be handled in the state, they argued,

not by federal usurpation, as Georgia Governor Lumpkin put it. Meanwhile, Cherokee Chief John Ross went on tour of the Northeast, pressing for his tribe's rights and encouraging congressional action. In New Echota, fresh issues of the Cherokee Phoenix flew off Elias Boudinot's printing press. In Washington, William Wirt and his co-counsel presented their argument to the Supreme Court on the broadest possible grounds. Just as in the Corn Tassel Appeal, Wirt argued that Georgia did not have the legal authority to arrest someone on Cherokee land. He also contended that the Supreme Court had the power to issue a writ of error,

forcing the release of Samuel Worcester and Eliza Butler from prison. In less than two weeks, Chief Justice John Marshall delivered the court's opinion. It was a powerful rebuke to Georgia. Marshall wrote, The Cherokee Nation is a distinct community, occupying its own territory, in which the laws of Georgia can have no force, and which the citizens of Georgia have no right to enter, but with the assent of the Cherokee themselves. The act of the state of Georgia, under which the plaintiff was in error prosecuted is consequently void. Marshall continued that Worcester had been arrested while under the guardianship of treaties guaranteeing the country in which he resided,

and that Worcester was convicted under a law repugnant to the Constitution. The court ruled in favor not just of Worcester and Butler, but Cherokee independence itself. In a slight modification from its ruling the year before, the court ruled that the Cherokee, a separate political entity, could not be regulated by any individual state. Only the federal government had the authority to make treaties, and its treaties with the Cherokee nation had to be respected. Going even further, the Supreme Court declared all of Georgia's laws in regards to Native people were unconstitutional. News of the decision was greeted with feasts and dances in New Echota.

In Washington, an enthusiastic Cherokee delegation, already in town for the ruling, was invited to meet with Associate Supreme Court Justice John McLean. McLean had ruled in the Cherokees' favor, but he told the delegation to pass on a warning to Chief John Ross, do not expect this decision to change anything. McLean's fellow associate justice, Joseph Story, said as much in a letter to his wife following the Worcester decision. He wrote,

Georgia is full of anger and violence. Probably she will resist the execution of our judgment, and if she does, I do not believe the president will interfere. It is one thing for the Supreme Court to rule in favor of the Cherokee, but it was another thing entirely for the ruling to be enforced. Worcester and Butler, the plaintiffs, still sat in a Georgia jail, and there was no way that Governor Lumpkin would release them. If he did, it was possible that the whole architecture of his state's Cherokee policies would collapse. In addition, President Jackson's support was emphatic. It was clear there would be no action from Washington forcing the state to comply. So the state of Georgia did nothing. It

refused even to publicly record its refusal in the minutes of its legislative sessions. Governor Lumpkin made sure nothing was put in writing. Another state lawmaker promised that the Supreme Court's judgment would be resisted with Georgian promptitude and spirit. It would never be accepted until Georgia was made a howling wilderness. Throughout all of this, Worcester and Butler continued to sit in jail. They languished there through the summer of 1832 and through Andrew Jackson's re-election that November. They were finally set free in the spring of 1833 when through Andrew Jackson's re-election that November. They were finally set free in the spring of 1833, when it became politically expedient for Governor Lumpkin to do so. The two missionaries had helped prove a legal case for Cherokee independence in the Supreme

Court. But for the Cherokee Nation, it looked increasingly like nothing had been accomplished. Still, Chief Ross would not give up. He and members of the National Council continued to lobby the U.S. Congress and to bring circuit court cases against state laws in Alabama and Tennessee. Undaunted, Ross continued to believe in the U.S. court system, to trust that there would be a way to legally protect his nation and his land. But some members of his nation didn't feel the same way. Elias Boudinot had been on tour, raising funds for his newspaper, when he heard about the Supreme Court decision in Worcester v. Georgia. After realizing that the decision would not be enforced, Boudinot shifted his priorities.

His concern was no longer with Cherokee sovereignty, but with preserving the culture of Cherokee people, no matter where they lived. Removal was inevitable, he felt, and fighting it was useless. So Boudinot began to pen articles in the Cherokee Phoenix to make his case. These new articles suggested that, if a new treaty with the U.S. government could be signed, the Cherokee could at least secure more money and better terms in exchange for giving up their land. These views aligned with a small faction of the Cherokee Council that called themselves the Treaty Party. But Chief John Ross and the majority of the Council refused any talk of compromise or negotiation. To negotiate any type of removal policy would

surely end in disaster, they thought. The Cherokee Council condemned the pro-treaty newspaper articles, and Boudinot soon resigned his position as the paper's editor. The Phoenix continued to publish, with Chief Ross's cousin taking over the editorship. And as it had from the start, the paper continued to make the case for Cherokee independence. But hopes for that cause dimmed over the next two years, as the Cherokee Council grew bitterly divided over just how to negotiate, if at all, with the U.S. government. The Cherokee people and their hopes for retaining their land in Georgia were running out of time. Imagine it's June 1834. You're standing inside the office of the Cherokee Phoenix,

or what used to be the Cherokee Phoenix. The metal printing press sits in the corner, gathering dust. Across the room, your husband is attempting to fit one more back issue of the newspaper into a large satchel. He's run this paper for two years since Elias Boudinot resigned, but now the council doesn't have the funds to print anymore. Here, can I give you a hand? I don't need a hand. I got it. It's clear the satchel will not hold one more piece of anything, but he has more faith in you. He continues to force the last copy inside until he rips it. Why don't you just sit down? Take a breath. Your husband doesn't scream. He doesn't yell.

He puts the satchel down on the table and walks outside. So you heave the satchel over your shoulder and follow him out. Your husband sits on a small set of stairs leading up to the office. The phoenix is done. We're not going to make it. The newspaper isn't the only thing that's failing. The town of New Ochoa is failing too. The air is still and quiet. Many people have moved further into the hills, and those who remain, all they see is confusion, aggression from Georgia settlers. Your husband looks past you, towards the empty town square. In the distance, you hear the sound of a hammer against wood. A house going up. What used to be the sound of Cherokee prosperity is now, more than likely, a man from Georgia building a house on

your people's land. What else are we going to do? We'll do whatever the council says. Your husband's eyes narrow in anger. So we stay because the council tells us to. What if the council tells us to leave? Do we leave? We stayed only to watch everything die around us. A white family is already living in my brother John's house. Georgia's lottery is filling our land with settlers. We cannot fight them. I really thought it all meant something. Delegations, the white lawyer, those cases in Washington. We proved our independence. We won in a white court, the highest court in their nation. But we're still negotiating and we're still losing.

You can't argue with this. The fact remains your people are being forced from your land. You make a vow, then and there, to make sure that your family and your people survive this horror. But you fear that for the moment things are going to get much, much worse before they get any better, if at all. You put your arm around your husband's shoulder and try to comfort him. For now, it's all you can do. The Cherokee Phoenix continued to publish until the summer of 1834. During this time, the federal government and the state of Georgia began dismantling the town of New Echota.

Cherokee families were evicted from their properties. A land lottery was established to put white families into the empty homes and businesses. Those Cherokee who remained held on to their land and property for as long as they could. In 1835, Elias Boudinot and members of the Treaty Party began secretly negotiating with delegates sent from Washington. Led by John Ridge, a Cherokee cousin of Boudinot's, these talks were kept from the rest of the tribe and even Chief John Ross. Under Cherokee laws of treason, members of the Treaty Party could be charged as traitors. In December of 1835, this Treaty Party signed an agreement with the U.S. government in

Elias Boudinot's New Echota home. Twenty signatures was all it took to cede the entirety of Cherokee territory. In exchange, they received $5 million and vague assurances that the government would provide a school fund and stock investments for the nation. Nevertheless, these 20 signatures, supposedly representing approximately 17,000 Cherokee, were sent hastily to Washington. Despite the protests of Chief John Ross and the entirety of the Cherokee National Council, who maintained the treaty party had no authority to negotiate on behalf of the tribe, the U.S. Senate approved

the Treaty of New Echota by a single vote. The treaty required the removal of all eastern Cherokee to the west within two years. But with nearly all of the Cherokee people resisting, the U.S. military was required to force their removal to the west. Along with members of the Seminole, Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Muscogee tribes, thousands of Cherokee families trekked through harsh weather and forbidding conditions. Some 4,000 Cherokee, nearly a quarter of their total population, died along the way, including the wife of Chief John Ross, who was buried in an unmarked grave. The journey was named Nunadal Ainsuni, the Trail of Tears. Chief John Ross had gone to the Supreme Court in the hope that the American judiciary

would protect the Cherokee Nation's independence. And despite a ruling in their favor, the Cherokee were still driven from their lands by the United States government. There was a limit to the power of the judiciary. Its decisions were only paper, and its power would come from the commitment of society to follow the rule of law. Questions about federal authority over individual states would continue to appear before the court for years to come. But soon, a civil war would engulf the nation,

and the Supreme Court would have a central role in determining who would be considered a full citizen and who would be excluded. From Wondery, this is Episode 2 of Supreme Court Landmarks for American History Tellers. On the next episode, an early civil rights group in New Orleans seeks to challenge a new segregation law. And what begins with one man refusing to leave a train car will result in a Supreme Court case with lasting constitutional repercussions. If you like American History Tellers, you can binge all episodes early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. And before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey. For more information on Cherokee removal and the Supreme Court, we recommend The Cherokee Cases by Jill Norgan. American History Tellers is hosted, edited,

and produced by me, Lindsey Graham for Airship. Audio editing by Molly Bach. Sound design by Derek Behrens. Music by Lindsey Graham. This episode is written by George Ducker, edited by Dorian Marina. Our executive producers are Jenny Lauer Beckman and Marshall Louis, created by Hernán López for Wondery. I'm Tristan Redman, and as a journalist, I've never believed in ghosts. But when I discovered that my wife's great-grandmother was murdered in the house next door to where I grew up, I started wondering about the inexplicable things that happened in my childhood bedroom. When I tried to find out more, I discovered that someone who slept in my room after me, someone I'd never met, was visited by the ghost of a faceless woman. So I started digging into

the murder in my wife's family, and I unearthed family secrets nobody could have imagined. Ghost Story won Best Documentary Podcast at the 2024 Ambies and is a Best True Crime nominee at the British Podcast Awards 2024. Ghost Story is now the first ever Apple Podcast series essential. Each month, Apple Podcast editors spotlight one series that has captivated listeners with masterful storytelling, creative excellence, and a unique creative voice and vision. To recognize Ghost Story being chosen as the first series essential, Wondery has made it ad-free for a limited time, only on Apple Podcasts.

If you haven't listened yet, head over to Apple Podcasts to hear for yourself.