The Cherokee Nation is renewing its push for a nonvoting delegate in Congress

Kimberly Teehee, right, and Cherokee Nation principal chief Chuck Hoskin Jr. speak to the media in 2019 after Hoskin nominated Teehee to be the Cherokee Nation's first delegate to Congress. (Sue Ogrocki/AP)

In 1835, U.S government officials and members of the Cherokee Nation signed the Treaty of New Echota, which led to the expulsion of Cherokees from their territory east of the Mississippi River in a mass exodus known as the Trail of Tears.

A lesser-known provision of the same treaty also granted the Cherokee Nation a delegate in the House of Representatives "whenever Congress shall make provision for the same."