Beginning in 1791 a series of treaties between the United States and the Cherokees living in Georgia gave recognition to the Cherokee as a nation with their own laws and customs. Nevertheless, treaties and agreements gradually whittled away at this land base, and in the late 1700s, some Cherokees sought refuge from white interference by moving to northwestern Arkansas between the White and Arkansas Rivers. Then in 1819, the Cherokee National Council notified the federal government that it would no longer cede land, thus hardening their resolve to remain on their homelands. In 1828, Georgia passed a law pronouncing all laws of the Cherokee Nation to be null and void after June 1, 1830, forcing the issue of states' rights with the federal government. At the same time President Andrew Jackson began to aggressively implement a broad policy of terminating Indian land titles and relocating the Indian population. In 1830 Congress passed the Indian Removal Act, which removed Native Americans west of the Mississippi River.
