New Echota was the capital of the Cherokee Nation in the Southeast United States from 1825 until their forced removal in the late 1830s. New Echota is located in present-day Gordon County, in northwest Georgia, 3.68 miles north of Calhoun. It is south of Resaca, next to present day New Town, known to the Cherokee as Ustanali. The site has been preserved as a state park and a historic site. It was designated in 1973 as a National Historic Landmark District. The site is at the confluence of the Coosawattee and Conasauga rivers, which join to form the Oostanaula River, a tributary of the Coosa River. It is near Town Creek. Archeological evidence has shown that the site of New Echota had been occupied by ancient indigenous cultures for thousands of years prior to the historic Cherokee Native Americans. It was known as Gansagiyi or Gansagi. The Cherokee renamed it as New Echota in 1825 after making it the capital, in honor of their former chief town of Chota, based along the lower Little Tennessee River as one of the Overhill Towns on the west side of the Appalachian Mountains. History Prior to relocating to Gansagi and building the community of New Echota, the Cherokee had used the nearby town of Ustanali on the Coosawattee River as the seat of their tribe, beginning in 1788. They had migrated south from eastern Tennessee and western South Carolina under pressure from European-American settlement. Ustanali had been established in 1777 by refugees from the Cherokee Lower Towns in northwestern South Carolina. In that year, Old Tassel and several other Cherokee leaders were murdered by whites while under the flag of truce, while visiting representatives of the short-lived State of Franklin in present-day Tennessee. In response, warriors across the frontier increased attacks on European-American settlers. The Chickamauga Cherokee, a band led by Dragging Canoe, were already carrying out armed resistance to European-American settlement along the Holston River in northeastern Tennessee. Following the murders, Little Turkey was elected a chief of the Cherokee, although they did not have a centralized form of government. The Overhill Cherokee moved the seat of the Cherokee council from Chota to Ustanali. New Echota was named after Chota, the former capital of the Overhill Cherokee, those who lived to the west of the Appalachian Mountains and had previously had numerous towns along the lower Little Tennessee River. A common English