Cherokee Indian Tribe

A powerful loose tribe of Iroquoian family, formerly with the entire mountain area south Alleghenies, in southwest Virginia, western North Carolina and South Carolina, northern Georgia, eastern Tennessee, and northeast Alabama, and claims to the Ohio River. 

Tribal Areas name is a distortion of the Tsalagi or Tsaragi, the name which they often called themselves, and which may be derived from the Choctaw chiluk-ki 'cave man', in allusion to the many caves in their mountain country. They sometimes also called themselves Ani-Yun-wiyd ',' real people ', or Ani-Kitu'hwagi,' Kituhwa people ', one of their most important ancient settlements. Their northern kinsmen, the Iroquois, called them Oyata'ge'ronon', 'inhabitants of cave country "(Hewitt), and Delaware and related strains called them Kittuwa, from the settlement already noticed. They seem to be identical with the Rickohockans who invaded the Central Virginia in 1658, with the old Talligewi, of Delaware tradition, which was represented to have been driven south from the upper Ohio River region, which combined forces of Iroquois and Delaware. 

The language has three main dialects: 

Elati, or lower, spoke on the head of the Savannah River in South Carolina and Georgia; 

Middle East, which is spoken mainly in the water in the Tuckasegee River in western North Carolina, and now it is the dialect of the East Cherokee reservation; 

Atuli, Mountain or Upper spoken in most of Upper Georgia, eastern Tennessee and extreme western North Carolina. The lower dialect was the only one who had r sound, and is now extinct. The upper dialect is that which has been used exclusively in the native literature of the tribe. 

Traditional, linguistic, and archaeological evidence that the Cherokee was in the north, but they were found in possession of the southern Allegheny region when they first arose in De Soto in 1540. Their relations with Carolina colonies began 150 years later. In 1736 the Jesuit (?) Priber started the first mission among them, and tried to organize their government on a civilized basis. In 1759 began under the leadership of Agansta'ta (Oconostota) war with the British Carolinas. The Revolution took sides against the Americans, and continued the struggle almost without interval until the 1794th During this period, the parties in the Cherokee pushed down Tennessee River and formed new settlements at Chickamauga and other things on the Tennessee-Alabama line. Shortly after 1800, missionary and educational work was established among theme, and in 1820 they adopted a regular form of government modeled after the U.S.. While many of the more conservative Cherokee, tired of harassment by whites, had crossed the Mississippi and made new homes in the desert in what is now Arkansas. A year or two later Sequoya (qv), a mixed blood, invented the alphabet, which at once raised them to the rank of a literary person. 

At the height of their prosperity, gold was found near the current Dahlonega, Ga., within the limits of the Cherokee Nation, and at once a vigorous agitation was begun for the removal of Indians. After several years of desperate struggle under the leadership of their great chief, John Ross, they were forced to submit to the inevitable and at the New Echota Treaty, December 29, 1835, Cherokee sold their entire remaining territory and agreed to eliminate from the Mississippi to a land allocated to them, the current (1890) Cherokee Nation in Indian territory. Removal was conducted in the winter of 1838-39, after a sharp adversity and the loss of almost one quarter of their number, unwilling Indians ousted by military force and make the long journey on foot. On reaching their destination, they changed their national government, with their capital at Tahlequah, admitting privileges, the former emigrants, known as "old settlers." Part of the Arkansas Cherokee had previously gone down in Texas, where they had received a grant of land in the eastern part of the state from the Mexican government. They later Texan revolutionists refused to recognize their rights, and despite the efforts of Gen. Sam Houston, who defended the Indian claim, a conflict was precipitated, which resulted in 1839 in the murder of the Cherokee Chief, Bowl, with a large number his men, as Texan troops, and the expulsion of the Cherokee from Texas. 

When the tribe was removed west, hundreds of refugees fled into the mountains where they lived as refugees in a time, until in 1842, through the efforts of William H. Thomas, an influential traders, they were allowed to remain in the set-off for their use in western North Carolina. 

They represent the current eastern band of Cherokee, residing chiefly Qualla reservation in Swain and Jackson counties, with several villages. 

The Cherokee in the Cherokee Nation was in the year divided into two hostile groups, those who had preferred, and those who opposed the Treaty on extradition. Scarcely had these differences, they have been revised since the Civil War broke them. Being slave owners and surrounded by southern influences, a large part of each of the Five Civilized Tribes from the area enlisted in favor of the Confederates, while others lived up to the national government. The area of the Cherokee was overrun in turn by the two armies, and at the end of the war took them straight. By treaty in 1866 they were readmitted to the protection of the U.S., but obliged to liberate their negro slaves and admit them to equal citizenship. In 1867 and 1870 Delaware and Shawnee, respectively, together numbering around 1,750, were taken from Kansas and incorporated with the Nation. In 1889 Cherokee Commission was created in order to abolish tribal governments and open areas for white settlement, with the result that after 15 years of negotiations, an agreement was reached by the government in the Cherokee Nation came to a definitive end March 3, 1906: The Indian land was divided and the Cherokee Indians, native was agreed that the citizens of the United States. 

The Cherokee have 7 clans, namely: 

Ani'-wa 'ya (Wolf) 

Ani'-Kawi '(Deer) 

Ani'-Tsi'skwa (Bird) 

Ani'-wi'di (Paint) 

Ani'-Sah'a'ni 

Ani'-Ga'tagewi 

Ani 'Gi la'hi 

Names of the last 3 can not be translated with certainty. There is evidence that previously was 14 when extinction or absorption has been reduced to the current number. The wolf clan is the largest and most important. The "seven clans" are frequently mentioned in the ritual prayers and even in the printed laws of the tribe. They seem to have had a connection with the "seven mother towns" of the Cherokee, described by Cuming in 1730 for having each a chief whose office was hereditary in the female line. 

They are said to have lost 1000 soldiers in 1739 from the smallpox and rum, and they have suffered a steady decline during their wars with the white, ranging from 1760 to the end of the revolution. Them in their original home had risen to 16,542 at the time of their forced removal west in 1838, but lost almost a quarter on the journey, 311 perished in a steamboat accident on the Mississippi. Those already in the west, before the removal was estimated at about 6,000. The civil war in 1861-65 again checked their progress, but they came from its consequences in a remarkably short time, and in 1885 talked about 19,000, of whom about 17,000 were in Indian territory, with about 6,000 adopted whites, Negroes, Delaware, and Shawnee while the remaining 2,000 were still in their old home in the east. 

Of the eastern band was 1376 in Qualla reservation in Swain and Jackson counties, NC, about 300 are at Riverside Cheowah, Graham County, NC, while the rest, all of mixed blood, are scattered in eastern Tennessee, North Georgia and Alabama. The eastern band lost about 300 of smallpox in the late civil war. In 1902 there were officially reported 28,016 persons of Cherokee blood, including all degrees of mixture in the Cherokee Nation in the area, but it includes thousands of individuals previously rejected by tribal courts. 

There was also live in the nation adopted about 3,000 Negro released more than 2,000 adopted whites, and around 1700 adopted Delaware, Shawnee and other Indians. The tribe has a higher proportion of whites than any other combination of the five civilized tribes.