The 1835 Treaty of New Echota between Cherokee leaders and the U.S. government forced the Cherokee Nation off their ancestral lands east of the Mississippi River and onto the deadly "Trail of Tears”- what is now present-day Oklahoma. A quarter of the Cherokee population died on that treacherous journey. 

Today, nearly 200 years after the The Treaty of New Echota displaced the Cherokee in forced migration West, Cherokee Nation is one of the country’s largest tribes. And the treaty which pushed them off their lands also contains an unfulfilled article: a guaranteed right to send a non-voting delegate to the House of Representatives. Now, Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr., is calling on Congress to make good on the promise of its predecessors as soon as this year.

We spoke with Delegate Kim Teehee, a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, Director of Government Relations for Cherokee Nation and Senior Vice President of Government Relations Cherokee Nation Businesses. In 2019, Chief Hoskin designated Kim TeeHee as the first Cherokee Nation delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives.