Removal was not lawlessness. The Cherokee took their case to the Supreme Court and won, and were removed anyway — which makes this a hall about what law is worth when it stands against an economic interest.
ON THE FLOOR
Charles Horton Cooley
Theorist designate - flagged from the theory registry (#8494)
“You learned who you are by watching what other people reflected back at you. The mirror, it turns out, was people all along.”
ON THE FLOOR
Edward Soja
Theorist designate - flagged from the theory registry (#8494)
“Space is not the stage the story happens on - it is one of the actors. Ask WHERE, and half the mystery answers itself.”
ON THE FLOOR
George Herbert Mead
Theorist designate - flagged from the theory registry (#8494)
“The self is a conversation: the I speaking, the Me listening with everyone else's ears. You rehearse society every time you think.”
AM3-016 · Removal — Open the drawer
A reference chart of the Cherokee syllabary invented by Sequoyah around 1821, displaying eighty-five characters representing Cherokee phonetic units. This writing system enabled rapid literacy and unified Cherokee communication during the nation's final decades of sovereignty.
AM3-017 · Removal — What is this thing?
A printed and hand-filled lottery ticket issued by Georgia that granted settlers claims to Cherokee lands before removal was complete, materializing state seizure as individual property rights and converting dispossession into law.
AM3-018 · Removal — Read the source
A formal written protest submitted by the Cherokee National Council to the U.S. Congress in December 1835, asserting the Nation's sovereignty and legal right to its lands, composed after the fraudulent Treaty of New Echota was signed by a minority faction without authorization.
AM3-019 · Removal — Map it / time it
A representative cartographic document showing district and lot divisions of Cherokee lands in Georgia, Alabama, and North Carolina, with annotations of survey dates and removal routes, illustrating how territorial division preceded forced displacement.
AM3-020 · Removal — Two sources disagree
A treaty signed by a Cherokee faction ceding all eastern lands to the United States, rejected by the majority nation but ratified by Congress, becoming the legal instrument of forced removal despite Cherokee Supreme Court victory.
AM3-021 · Removal — State the claim
The Supreme Court's written opinion in Worcester v. Georgia, ruling that Georgia had no authority over Cherokee territory and that the Indian Removal Act violated federal treaty obligations—a legal victory that preceded forced removal by four years.
AM3-022 · Removal — Take the other side
A Georgia state land survey map from the 1820s-30s showing Cherokee territory subdivided into county grids and lottery districts, representing state assertion of jurisdiction over Indian lands before and independent of federal court action.
AM3-023 · Removal — Weigh it
A printed lottery ticket distributed by Georgia to white settlers, allocating Cherokee lands after gold discovery. Represents the state mechanism that bypassed federal treaty authority and created irreversible settler claims before removal.
AM3-024 · Removal — Build the answer
The Supreme Court case file and related documents from the Cherokee Nation's legal challenge to Georgia's jurisdiction, establishing the precedent later refined in Worcester v. Georgia and demonstrating the limits of judicial remedy against state removal pressure.
AM3-025 · Removal — For the file
A printed petition filed by Cherokee Nation lawyers arguing the tribe's sovereign status before the Supreme Court, exemplifying how removal proceeded despite legal remedy and establishing the paradox central to the hall's claim.
AM3-026 · Removal — Go and look
The Indian Removal Act of 1830, signed by President Andrew Jackson, authorized the federal government to negotiate treaties exchanging Native American lands east of the Mississippi for territory in the West. This statute, not court order or settler violence, became the legal instrument that overrode Cherokee sovereignty and Worcester v. Georgia.
AM3-027 · Removal — Now, today
An 1829 U.S. Geological Survey map of northern Georgia showing gold deposits discovered in Cherokee territory, marking the precise locations that triggered settler rush and removal pressure within months of discovery.
AM3-028 · Removal — Teach it back
A printed petition filed by Cherokee Nation leadership asking the U.S. Supreme Court to stop Georgia's laws stripping Cherokee sovereignty, before Worcester v. Georgia was decided and before removal began.
AM3-029 · Removal — The other place
A printed mineral lease form from the lead district of the upper Mississippi valley, showing how settler miners claimed extraction rights on indigenous lands before formal removal, demonstrating that economic pressure preceded legal justification.
AM3-030 · Removal — One object, close
The first Native American newspaper, printed in English and Cherokee syllabary in New Echota, Georgia. The Phoenix documented Cherokee nation sovereignty, legal arguments, and daily life during the decade before forced removal.
From the gallery’s own wall — “AM3-016 · Removal — Open the drawer”.