As the population of the United States moved closer to the Cherokee Nation, Cherokee leaders agreed to give up some of their land to the newly arriving Americans. They did this for two reasons:

• First, they wanted to be seen as reasonable people who treated these Americans as their friends and neighbors, not as their enemies.
• Second, they did not want to fight a war. Native Americans who went to war to keep their lands had almost always been defeated. Sometimes the U.S. Army attacked them. More often, they were just outnumbered by the ever-growing population of American settlers and realized they would not be able to defeat them.

The Cherokees' willingness to compromise helped them to live in peace with their American neighbors for several decades.