Converting some Native Americans to Christianity was not enough. Europeans assimilated Native Americans. The Cherokee were known as the most civilized Native Americans. They were influenced and educated in American schools. U.S. officials began urging them to abandon hunting and their traditional lifestyles and instead learn to live, worship, and farm like an American yeomen. They even established a judicial system, formally abandoned the law of blood feud, and adopted a republican government (Garrison, 2015). They flourished in and around the Smoky Mountains in Tennessee, Georgia and their neighboring states. After influencing the Cherokees, the Georgia legislature extended the state's authority over Cherokee territory, passed laws claiming to abolish Cherokee government, and began the process of seizing Cherokee lands. Europeans refused to accept the Cherokee people as social equals. One of the Cherokee leaders who attempted to break the removal policy was John Ross. Although he was only one-eighth Cherokee by blood, he fought for the Cherokee. The court, however, ignored the Cherokees' complaints. Georgia held a lottery for Cherokee lands. In the late spring of 1838, the Treaty of Removal went into effect and the infamous Trail of Tears began