The Cherokees live in the southeastern mountainous region of present-day US states of Georgia, Tennessee, South Carolina, and North Carolina. In the 1730s, the Cherokees find a genuine friend in James Oglethorpe, founder of the Georgia colony. Later in the 18th century, however, Cherokee relations with the colonies grow strained, and the Cherokee fight on the British side during the American Revolution. A series of treaties in the 1780s and 1790s establish boundaries between the United States and the Cherokee Nation. The most important treaty agreement occurs in 1817, when the Cherokee cede additional lands in exchange for a promise of 640 acres to every head of family. This signals the Cherokees’ willingness to settle on smaller tracts of land and become farmers—the pathway to assimilation. Over the next 12 years, the Cherokees move quickly to adopt the institutions and habits of their white neighbors, including creating their own legislature and system of jurisprudence, and language and printing presses.

In 1829, the Georgia legislature shockingly declares all Cherokee laws null and void—despite not having the constitutional right to do so. Jackson quotes Thomas Jefferson and George Washington to show that the Founders established a system under which the states had no authority over tribes living inside their borders.