Chief Justice John Marshall defined in his dicta that the federal government had an exclusive relationship with the Indian nations and recognized the latter's sovereignty, above state laws.

According to Charles Perry of the Peacham Historical Association, the father Leonard Worcester also worked as a printer in the town.

The goals ABCFM set for them were, "...make the whole tribe English in their language, civilized in their habits and Christian in their religion."

[4] The Worcesters had seven children together: Ann Eliza, Sarah, Jerusha, Hannah, Leonard, John Orr and Mary Eleanor.

[7] The two men helped produce the Cherokee Phoenix, which first rolled off the press on February 21, 1828, at New Echota (now Calhoun, Georgia).

"[1] The westward push of European-American settlers from coastal areas continued to encroach on the Cherokee, even after they had made some land cessions to the US government.

They wanted to take a case to the US Supreme Court to define the relationship between the federal and state governments, and establish the sovereignty of the Cherokee nation.

[1] Worcester and eleven other missionaries had met at New Echota and published a resolution in protest of an 1830 Georgia law prohibiting white men from living on Native American land without a state license.

Once the law had taken effect, Governor George Rockingham Gilmer ordered the militia to arrest Worcester and the others who signed the document and refused to get a license.

[8] After two series of trials, all eleven men were convicted and sentenced to four years of hard labor at the state penitentiary in Milledgeville.

William Wirt argued the case, but Georgia refused to have a legal counsel represent it, claiming that no Indian could drag it into court.

Faced with the Nullification Crisis in neighboring South Carolina, he chose to free Worcester and Butler if they agreed to minor concessions.

He realized that the larger battle had been lost, because the state and settlers refused to abide by the decision of the Supreme Court.

Within three years, the US used its military to force the Cherokee Nation out of the Southeast and on the "Trail of Tears" to Indian Territory, lands west of the Mississippi River.

After being released, Worcester and his wife determined to move their family to Indian Territory to prepare for the arrival of the Cherokee.

[9] After reaching Dwight Presbyterian Mission, Worcester continued to preach to the Cherokee who had already moved to Indian Territory (they were later known within the nation as the Old Settlers, in contrast to the new migrants from the Southeast).

Worcester's work included setting up the first printing press in that part of the country, translating the Bible and several hymns into Cherokee, and running the mission.

[1][3] Worcester worked tirelessly to help resolve the differences between the Georgia Cherokee and the "Old Settlers", some of whom had relocated there in the late 1820s.