In an effort to avoid annihilation by the white man, the Cherokees decided the best course of action would be to assimilate various white attributes of society and government. For instance, tribal members learned to speak English, adopted an American-style Constitution, published tribal newspapers, and, most significantly, Sequoyah invented the syllabary (Assimilation, Relocation, Genocide, 2006).
None of these attempts were successful, though. The Cherokee Nation's land had too much to offer to the white settlers. They wanted the Cherokees' land to grow cotton (Satz, American Indian Policy in the Jacksonian Era); the Cherokees' land also had gold on it (Hunter, The Cherokee Nation in the 1820s). The settlers pressured the government to remove the Cherokees from their homeland (Satz, American Indian Policy in the Jacksonian Era).