"Cherokee Government officials such as John Ross and George Lowrey were frequent visitors to New Echota. Five small log buildings were constructed near the Council House for officials to reside in while here on business."

That is what the sign out front tells us.  Let's see what the SGT brochure/map has to say about the Council House.  "The Cherokee Council began meeting at New Echota in 1819. This building is a reconstruction of the Council House that was built at New Echota in 1822. It served as the capitol building and government headquarters of the Cherokee Nation. The Cherokee Council consisted of a legislature composed of two groups: the National Council, a body of 32 members, and the 13 member National Committee. The National Council met on one floor of the Council House and the National Committee on the other. Bills had to pass both houses to become law. Council members were elected by the Cherokee people. The Council chose the executive branch of government, which consisted of the Principal Chief, the Vice-Principal Chief, and the Treasurer." 

John Ross was president of the national committee from 1819 till 1826 leading in the development of the autonomous government embodied in the republican constitution adopted in 1827. He was associate chief with William Hicks in that year, and president of the Cherokee constitutional convention.  Ross became Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation in 1928 and remained so through the day he died in 1866.  He was popular with the full-bloods though he himself was the son of an immigrant from Scotland by a Cherokee wife who was herself three-quarters white.  Traditionally, we did not delineate the way we do today.  Speaking of today, looks like George Lowrey would have fit right in with our body piercing culture.  He likely did give white folks a bit of a start in those days though.  A cousin of Sequoyah, he was Assistant Principal Chief at the time of the Trail of Tears, and joined Ross in steadily opposing all attempts to force our people to move from their eastern lands.

(Some of the above text is from the Cherokee Chiefs page in the Access Genealogy website. See the links section.)

While reviewing the images to select what to include, the different set of photos above the fireplace in the two audience seating shots threw me for a second.  It was obvious they were not opposite sides of the same room, because of the direction the benches faced.  Then I remembered there is only one chimney on this building (see below).  It finally dawned on me that what we are looking at here is an upstairs picture and a downstairs picture.  I honestly do not remember which is which.