While the United States were expanding west and south, white settlers faced an obstacle. This obstacle were the Choctaw, Creek, Chickasaw, Seminole and, Cherokee nations that called the land their home. The white settlers did not care who had the land or who was living on the land; they believed that the Indian nations were in the way of progress. In the late seventeen hundreds and early eighteen hundreds U.S. officials started to demand tribes to stop their traditional ways of living and learn how to live like the white settlers. By this living of being an "individual farmer" Indians began to have more successful farms, more livestock and, began to become more educated in farming and as well as reading and writing by attending missionary schools. .
Meanwhile under the Treaty of Hopewell in seventeen eighty-five, the Indians thought they were protected by the United States and had land permanently. However, whites treated Indians unequal and did not believe that they had the right to land permanently. On the other hand, Indians had the right to send a "deputy" to congress and made American settlers in Cherokee territory subject to Cherokee law. Although part of the deal insured that the United States government would acquire all the lands held by Indians within the new boundaries of the state as "rapidly as it could be done peacefully and on reasonable terms." The federal government recognized Indian tribes as sovereign nations and could not force tribal leaders to sell their land that they have been on for hundreds of years. The government conducted relations with the Native Americans through treaties; states generally had less control in the matter of relations. However, Georgia and its people took a radical and aggressive approach in the expulsion of the Cherokee people on their own terms. They believed that the United States were not acting quick enough on removing the Indians.