Worcester v. Georgia
By Sydney Stephenson
Worcester v. Georgia is a case that impacted tribal sovereignty in the United States and the amount of power the state had over native American territories. Samuel Worcester was a minister affiliated with the ABCFM (American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions). In 1827 the board sent Worcester to join its Cherokee mission in Georgia. Upon his arrival, Worcester began working with Elias Boudinot, the editor of the Cherokee Phoenix (the first Native American newspaper in the United States) to translate religious text into the Cherokee language. Over time Worcester became a close friend of the Cherokee leaders and advised them about their political and legal rights under the Constitution and federal-Cherokee treaties. The Georgia government recognized that Worcester was influential in the Cherokee resistance movement and enacted a law that prohibited "white persons" from residing within the Cherokee Nation without permission from the state. When I first started researching the case, the sources I looked at gave no mention to the fact that Worcester was wanted and welcomed in the territory, or that he was helping the Cherokees with legal issues. The fact that he was helping with legal issues is probably the main reasons the Georgia government wanted him off the territory, as they wanted the Cherokees out of their boundaries.
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Several missionaries, including Worcester decided to challenge the law and, refused to leave the state. Worcester and the others were arrested and released several times while the law was in effect.
The tenth amendment is in question here, which says that any power that is not given to the federal government is given to the people or the