The sprawling town of New Town, which had stood here since 1819, was designated the seat of government for the Cherokee Nation in a legislative act of 1825 and was renamed New Echota for a former principal town in Tennessee. In its short history, New Echota was the site of the first Indian language newspaper office, a court case that carried to the U.S. Supreme Court, one of the earliest experiments in national self-government for an Indian tribe, the signing of a treaty relinquishing Cherokee claims to lands east of the Mississippi, and the assembly of Indians for removal west.