Cherokee, North American Indians of Iroquoian lineage who were one of the largest politically integrated tribes at the time of European colonization of America. Their name comes from the word Creek which means "people of different speech"; many prefer to be known as Keetoowah or Tsalagi. They are believed to have numbered about 22,500 individuals by 1650, and they controlled about 40,000 square miles (100,000 sq km) of the Appalachian Mountains in present-day Georgia, eastern Tennessee, and western parts of what is now North Carolina and South Carolina.
Traditional Cherokee life and culture are very similar to that of the Creek and other tribes of the Southeast. The Cherokee nation consisted of a symbolic confederation of red (war) and white (peace) cities. The city of peace provides refuge for wrongdoers; war ceremonies were carried out in the red cities. The individual red city heads were under the supreme war chief, while the individual white city officials were under the supreme peace chief.
Cherokee life and culture are very similar to that of the Creek and other tribes of the Southeast. The Cherokee nation consisted of a symbolic confederation of red (war) and white (peace) cities. The city of peace provides refuge for wrongdoers; war ceremonies were carried out in the red cities. The individual red city heads were under the supreme war chief, while the individual white city officials were under the supreme peace chief.
The Spaniards, French, and British all sought to colonize the Southeast, including the Cherokee region. By the early 18th century, the tribe had chosen an alliance with Britain in both trade and military matters.
During the French and Indian Wars (1754–63), they were allied with Britain; France had allied itself with some of the Iroquoian tribes, who were the traditional enemies of the Cherokee. In 1759, Britain began to engage in a scorched earth policy that led to the indiscriminate destruction of native cities, including the city of Cherokee and other allied tribes of England.
The British actions severely disrupted the tribal economy. In 1773 the Cherokees and Creeks had to exchange some of their lands to reduce the resulting debt, ceding more than two million acres (over 809,000 acres) in Georgia through the Treaty of Augusta.
In 1775, the Overhill Cherokee was persuaded in the Sycamore Shoals Treaty to sell a very large plot of central Kentucky plot to the privately owned Transylvanian Land Company. Although the sale of land to a private company violated British law, the agreement remained the basis for colonial settlements in the area. As the American War of Independence loomed, the Transylvania Land Company declared its support for the revolutionaries.
The Cherokees became convinced that Britain was more likely to enforce border laws than the new government and announced their determination to support the crown. Despite British efforts to contain them, a force of 700 Cherokee men under Chief Dragging Canoe attacked the colonist-held forts at Eaton's Station and Fort Watauga (in what is now North Carolina) in July 1776.
Both attacks failed, and the tribesmen it backed away humiliatingly. The attacks were the first in a series of attacks by Cherokee, Creek, and Choctaw on border towns, which elicited a strong response by militias and permanent residents of the Southern colonies during September and October. At the end of that time, the Cherokee's power was destroyed, their crops and villages were destroyed, and their soldiers dispersed.
The defeated tribes demanded peace. To obtain it, they were forced to cede large areas of North and South Carolina through the Treaty of DeWitt's Corner (May 20, 1777) and the Treaty of Long Island of Holston (July 20, 1777).
Peace reigned for the next two years. When the Cherokee attack flared in 1780 during America's preoccupation with British armed forces elsewhere, punitive action led by Colonels Arthur Campbell and Colonels John Sevier conquered the tribe again. The Second Treaty of Long Island of Holston (July 26, 1781) confirmed the previous surrender of land and caused the Cherokee to cede additional Territory.
After 1800, the Cherokees were remarkable for their assimilation with American settler culture. The tribe formed a government modeled after the United States. Under Chief Junaluska, they assisted Andrew Jackson against the Creek in the Creek War, particularly in the Battle of Horseshoe Bend. They adopted colonial methods of farming, weaving, and building houses.
Perhaps most remarkable of all is the Cherokee syllable, which was developed in 1821 by Sequoyah, a Cherokee who had served with the US Army in the Creek War. Syllables—a writing system in which each symbol represents a syllable—was so successful that almost all the syllables became literate in no time. Written constitutions were adopted, and religious literature flourished, including translations of the Christian Scriptures. The first Native American newspaper, Cherokee Phoenix, began publication in February 1828.
The rapid cultural acquisition of the Cherokee settlers did not protect them from starvation of the lands of the people they imitated. When gold was discovered in Cherokee lands in Georgia, agitation to eliminate the tribe increased. In December 1835, the New Echota Treaty, signed by a small minority of Cherokees, ceded all of the Cherokee land east of the Mississippi River to the United States for $5 million. Most tribal members rejected the treaty and took their case to the US Supreme Court. The court ruled in the tribe's favor, stating that Georgia had no jurisdiction over the Cherokees and did not claim their land.
Georgian officials ignored court decisions, President Andrew Jackson refused to enforce them, and Congress passed the India Elimination Act of 1830 to facilitate the eviction of tribal members from their homes and territories. The elimination was carried out by 7,000 soldiers led by General Winfield Scott. Scott's men move through Cherokee territory, forcing many people out of their homes at gunpoint. As many as 16,000 Cherokees were gathered in camps while their homes were looted and burned by local European-Americans. The refugees were then sent west in 13 ground detachments of about 1,000 per group, the majority on foot. Additional groups of various sizes were led by Captain John Benge, some Cherokee John Bell, and Principal John Ross,
Forced evictions and marches, which came to be known as the Trail of Tears, occurred during the fall and winter of 1838–39. Although Congress had allocated funds for the operation, the operation was mismanaged, and inadequate supplies of food, shelter, and clothing caused terrible suffering, especially after the cold weather arrived. The trail consumed almost everything for the Indians; they had to pay farmers to pass land, cross rivers, and even bury the dead. Some 4,000 Cherokees died en route over the 116 days, many because the guards refused to slow down or stop for the sick and exhausted to recover.
When the main body finally reached its new home in what is now northeastern Oklahoma, a new controversy started with the settlers already there, especially other Native Americans—especially the Osage and Cherokee groups who immigrated there after the Treaty of 1817. (As a result of the Treaty of 1817.) the territorial dispute, relations between the Osage and the Cherokee have long been fractured.) In many ways, settling in the Indian Territory was even more difficult than negotiating a trail and required much more time. Tribal rent feuds and killings in retaliation were committed against those who had signed the New Echota Agreement.
In Oklahoma, the Cherokee joined four other tribes—the Creek, Chickasaw, Choctaw, and the Seminole —all of whom had been forcibly evicted from the Southeast by the US government in the 1830s. For three-quarters of a century, each tribe had a land allotment and a semi-autonomous government modeled on the United States.
In preparation for the state of Oklahoma (1907), portions of the land were awarded to individual tribal members; the remainder was opened to homeowners who were trusted by the federal government or given to formerly enslaved people. The tribal government was effectively dissolved in 1906 but continued to exist in a limited form.
At the time of the resettlement in 1838, several hundred people fled to the mountains. They provided the core for several thousand Cherokee living in western North Carolina in the 21st century. Early 21st-century population estimates suggest more than 730,000 individuals of Cherokee descent live throughout the United States.