The Supreme Court declared Georgia’s actions unconstitutional. But high-court rulings meant little in the face of the squatter onslaught. Cherokee landowners watched with alarm as Georgia divided the Cherokee Nation into parcels and started distributing it to whites by lottery. In 1835 John Ross returned home to find a white man living in his house—Ross had to abandon his large estate for a one-room log cabin. Later that year, he was arrested on the trumped-up charge of inciting a slave rebellion. Other Cherokees faced similar harassment.
