The US promised the Cherokee Nation a seat in Congress in a treaty that fueled the Trail of Tears. 188 years later, the Cherokee say lawmakers may finally fulfill that promise.

• The Cherokee Nation was promised a seat in Congress in the 1835 Treaty of New Echota.
• A recent congressional hearing suggested the tribe could be close to seating a delegate.
• Kim Teehee, the proposed delegate, told Insider it would show the US can keep its promises to tribes.

In the state of Georgia in 1835, the US government and the Cherokee signed the Treaty of New Echota, which required the tribe give up millions of acres of its ancestral homeland in the Southeast and move to Indian territory west of the Mississippi.