The painter
​Jean Leon Gerome Ferris was a 19th-century painter. He was known for painting scenes from American history. He was born in Philadelphia in 1863, and he painted 78 depictions of significant moments in American history. Ferris was referred to at the time as a “painter historian.” 
His paintings and illustrations depicted notorious [noteworthy] moments in U.S. history, such as when William Penn was greeted [welcomed] by friendly Indigenous people, shown in The Landing of William Penn — 1682.

A | The beginning
They were the first people ever to live in North America. Exactly when they came and how they arrived it’s still a mystery. But many scientists believe that as long as 30,000 years ago some hunters from Asia walk or sailed along the coast of a land bridge that once connected Russia to Alaska. Their decedents became known as native Americans, or American Indians. As they spread out across the vast continent Native Americans adapted to living in different regions and hundreds of unique cultures were born. 

Introduction
For thousands of years, these mountains were home to the Cherokee. But they were just a small piece of the vast nation which covered 40,000 mi.² here in the Apalachee mountains. In in 1819, as more and more Americans started encroaching on Indian land, the US government signed a treaty that guaranteed that Cherokee land would be off-limits to white settlers forever. (…)
Confident, the Cherokee nation proceeded to build itself a new capital in 1825 here in what is known New Echota, Georgia. It had its own courthouse, council house and post office, and even space for the first Indian language newspaper office in the nation.