Cherokee Phoenix
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Front page of the June 4, 1828, issue of the Cherokee Phoenix, the first Native American Newspaper published in the United States. The columns contain news in both English and Cherokee languages.
Courtesy of Georgia Newspaper Project, Georgia Historic Newspapers.
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Elias Boudinot, who founded and edited the Cherokee Phoenix through its entire publication, was later a signer of the Treaty of New Echota. The treaty relinquished Cherokee lands and resulted in the removal of the Cherokee People to the Indian Territory in modern-day Oklahoma.
Courtesy of the Oklahoma Historical via New Georgia Encyclopedia.
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This reprinted editorial from the April 26, 1838, issue of the Brunswick Advocate promotes the white supremacist beliefs and calls for Cherokee removal that were common in antebellum Georgia. These beliefs were challenged by the Cherokee Phoenix newspaper in the 1820s and 30s.
Courtesy of Georgia Newspaper Project, Georgia Historic Newspapers.
Since the sixteenth century, Native Americans in Georgia had been contending with European colonization. Among those native groups were the Cherokees, who by the early 1800s had developed a written language and established a capital in New Echota, in what is today Gordon County. In February 1828, the Cherokees began publishing the Cherokee Phoenix, the first Native American newspaper published in the United States. The paper circulated nationally from their capital and included columns in both English and Cherokee languages. Editor Elias Boudinot employed a strong editorial style that advocated for the rights of Cherokee people over the impositions of the American government. The publication’s title changed to the Cherokee Phoenix and Indians’ Advocate in 1829 to reflect its coverage of news and issues related to native groups outside of the Cherokee Nation. After the American government ceased making promised payments to the Cherokee Nation for the use of their land, the Cherokee Phoenix and Indians’ Advocate lost its funding and stopped printing in May 1834. The American government expelled the Cherokee people from their homes in 1838, relocating them to the Indian Territory in modern-day Oklahoma, along what is commonly referred to as the Trail of Tears.