In 1795 Governor Matthews of Georgia signed the infamous Yazoo Land Act, bill authorizing the sale of 40 million acres of land that had been granted to the Choctaw and Chickasaw tribes by the federal government. When news of the sale became public, the people were outraged, and in 1796 the incoming Governor Jare Irwin signed a bill nullifying the act. But the story does not stop there. The new bill failed to undo the damage and complications increased. So the sate of Georgia decided to turn over the responsibility for settling the Yazoo land claims to the federal government. In the Compact of 1802, Georgia ceded all of it's Alabama and Mississippi territories to the federal government in exchange for $1.25 million and a promise to extinguish all American Indian land titles in Georgia.
In 1802, Thomas Jefferson dedicated a significant portion of his second state of the union address to the issues of Indian lands facing Congress. First Jefferson stated that the repurchase of the land from the creeks has been made part of the Talasscee county. Talasscee county was the historic American Indian lands found just west of the Great Smokey Mountains. As part of this deal, Jefferson also promised "to remove every ground of difference possible with our Indian neighbors". He then continued to state that they can not remain where they are. There title to the land "had been extinguished before the Revolution", and the population in those areas was growing rapidly. Thus, Jefferson urged congress to find a "prompt settlement" of "all existing rights and claims within this territory".
"The convention with the State of Georgia has been ratified by their legislature, and a repurchase from the Creeks has been consequently made of a part of the Talasscee country. In this purchase has been also comprehended a part of the lands within the fork of Oconee and Oakmulgee rivers. The particulars of the contract will be laid before Congress so soon as they shall be in a state for communication.
In order to remove every ground of difference possible with our Indian neighbors, I have proceeded in the work of settling with them and marking the boundaries between us. That with the Choctaw Nation is fixed in one part and will be through the whole within a short time. The country to which their title had been extinguished before the Revolution is sufficient to receive a very respectable population, which Congress will probably see the expediency of encouraging so soon as the limits shall be declared. We are to view this position as an outpost of the United States, surrounded by strong neighbors and distant from its support; and how far that monopoly which prevents population should here be guarded against and actual habitation made a condition of the continuance of title will be for your consideration. A prompt settlement, too, of all existing rights and claims within this territory presents itself as a preliminary operation."Ultimately, it was the Compact of 1802 agreement that set the stage for the "trail of tears" some 35 years later under President Andrew Jackson. In 1802, the Indian lands were signed away without any approval secured or solicited from the Cherokee nation. For the next years, the state of Georgia and the federal government struggled over jurisdiction and the general government's obligations stated in the compact. Then in 1822 a congressional committee called for an appropriation sufficient to extinguish the Indian titles to lands in Georgia, and the powerful Ways and Means Committee declared that it should be carried into effect. President Thomas Jefferson supported it, but added that the Cherokees had the right to refuse and that he lacked the power to remove them forcibly. This triad of struggle between Georgia, the federal government and the Cherokee nation continued until 1830s when the advocates of Indian removal gained a powerful ally in the White House by the name of Andrew Jackson.
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=29444
https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2213&dat=19900829&id=yyMxAAAAIBAJ&sjid=xDoDAAAAIBAJ&pg=5612,4334562&hl=en
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