New Echota was the capital of the Cherokee Nation in the Southeastern United States from 1825 until their forced removal in the late 1830s.

Archeological evidence has shown that the site of New Echota had been occupied by ancient indigenous cultures for thousands of years prior to the Cherokee.

Prior to relocating to Gansagi and building the community of New Echota, the Cherokee had used the nearby town of Ustanali on the Coosawattee River as the seat of their tribe, beginning in 1788.

In that year, Old Tassel and several other Cherokee leaders were murdered by whites while under the flag of truce, while visiting representatives of the short-lived State of Franklin in present-day Tennessee.

The Chickamauga Cherokee, a band led by Dragging Canoe, were already carrying out armed resistance to European-American settlement along the Holston River in northeastern Tennessee.

New Echota was named after Chota, the former capital of the Overhill Cherokee, those who lived to the west of the Appalachian Mountains and had previously had numerous towns along the lower Little Tennessee River.

Private homes, stores, a ferry, and mission station were built in the outlying area of New Echota.

During these meetings, the town filled with several hundred Cherokee, who arrived by foot, horseback, or in stylish carriages.

Despite objections from John Ross, who represented the large majority of Cherokee to the US government, the Senate ratified the treaty.

When its landowners deeded land to be commissioned to the state for preservation, the Worcester house, the largest remaining structure, had been vacant for two years.

[4] In March 1954, archeologist Lewis Larsen from the Georgia Historical Commission and five associates were assigned to oversee the work of excavating New Echota.

They asked National Park Service archeologist Joe Caldwell and two more workers to join them for the next two months as they continued excavation.

The group recovered a Spanish coin dated 1802, crockery, household wares, bootery remains, a small quantity of lead, and 1,700 other artifacts.

In addition to the standard finds and remains of many buildings, Larsen and Caldwell discovered much of the type syllabary that was once used to print the Cherokee Phoenix.

Across from the New Echota park are two farmhouse sites of that era, formerly owned by white men who had married Cherokee women.

The site was designated in 1973 by the US Department of Interior as a National Historic Landmark, the highest recognition in the United States.