Georgia's Echota Historic Site

I first visited New Echota in 1957 with my parents on the way to Illinois.  I felt very strange at that time, as though I was seeing a long lost memory.  In 1977 when I next came "home", I was with our people, Y Tylwyth Teg members.  We buried crystals at the four corners of the property and hold a vigil there once a year.

In 1825, the Cherokee national legislature established a capital called New Echota. A thriving town, this new governmental seat became headquarters for the small independent Indian nation that once covered present-day northern Georgia, western North Carolina, eastern Tennessee and northwestern Alabama.

Today, New Echota is an active State Historic Site where visitors can tour original and
reconstructed historic structures and learn about the dreams and lives of the Indians who tried to pattern their government and lifestyle after the white man only to be uprooted from their land and removed westward on the Trail of Tears in 1838-39.

A remarkable development in the Cherokees' progress came in 1821 when a written form of their native language was adopted. New Echota's resourceful natives soon put this new invention to use when in 1828, their national press began printing a newspaper, the Cherokee Phoenix, in both Cherokee and English. Touring visitors can see a sheet of this bilingual paper printed on a Washington hand press. In addition to the film and museum exhibits, vistors can tour the reconstructed Print Shop and Supreme Courthouse and the original home of missionary Samuel A. Worcester. Vann's Tavern, a rough-hewn log building representative of the Indian taverns that once stood at New Echota, is also among the furnished buildings on the tour.