Chief John Ross and other leaders of the Cherokee nation wrote a letter to Congress to protest the 1835 Treaty of New Echota. This treaty, signed by a group of Cherokees claiming to represent ...

National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; Library of Congress John Ross made an unlikely looking Cherokee chief. Born in 1790 to a Scottish trader and a woman of Indian and European ...

These Indian nations ... this group were not the recognized leaders of the Cherokee nation, and over 15,000 Cherokees -- led by Chief John Ross -- signed a petition in protest.