We, the great mass of the people think only of the love we have to our land for … we do love the land where we were brought up. We will never let our hold to this land go … to let it go will be like throwing away [our] mother that gave … [us] birth. … Inclination to remove from this land has no abiding place in our hearts, and when we move we shall move by the course of nature to sleep under this ground which the Great Spirit gave to our ancestors and which now covers them in their undisturbed peace. —Cherokee Legislative Council at New Echota, July 1, 1830
