What did The Treaty of New Echota have to do with the Trail of Tears?

Answer 1

The Treaty of New Echota essentially guaranteed the Trail of Tears. Stand Watie and a splinter group of the Cherokee tribe sold out for some $5million and promises of new land that would leave them undisturbed. It was signed on December 29, 1835 in New Ochota, Georgia and quickly ratified by the US Senate and in the following May, General Winfield Scott was ordered to move the entire Cherokee nation despite the appeal by legitimate tribal chief John Ross.

Of those signing, Major Ridge, John Ridge, and Elias Boudinot were soon killed for their treasonous act. Watie, however, was a bit sterner bird, later becoming the last general of the Confederacy to surrender at the end of the Civil War. Poetic justice, though, the part of Oklahoma that he and his people eventually settled in was the part that was first opened up to yet another white invasion, the celebrated "Sooners" of Oklahoma snuck in and staked out their places in Stan Watie's land even before the Oklahoma land rush began. Even the place that he bargained for as a safe haven for his tribe eventually failed his people.