Cherokee

Category: Tribe

Culture area: Southeast

Language group: Iroquoian

Primary location: North Carolina, Oklahoma

Population size: 308,132 (1990 U.S. Census)

The largest and most powerful of the Eastern Woodland tribes in what is now the southeastern part of the United States was the Cherokee. Their population in the sixteenth century is estimated to have been about twenty-five thousand. Between their first major contact with Europeans in 1540 and their forced removal to the west in 1838-1839, the Cherokee adopted many aspects of European civilization. The Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Seminole, all southeastern tribes, became known as the Five Civilized Tribes.

Background and Tradition

The Cherokee language belongs to the Iroquoian language group, found primarily in the Northeast. Apparently a major war, perhaps against the Delaware (Lenni Lenape) along the East Coast, separated the Cherokee from the other Iroquoian tribes and led to their migration to the southern Appalachian highlands. Traditions of both the Delaware and the Cherokee support this theory.

The early Cherokee called themselves Ani-Yun-Wiya, which means “principal people.” Neighboring tribes of the Muskogean language group called them Chilikee, or “people of a different speech.” The chroniclers of Hernando de Soto in 1540 called the area Chalique. “Cherokee” is an Anglicized form of these last two names.

The Cherokee lived in approximately eighty towns, scattered over a large area of the southern Appalachians. There were three basic groups of towns, each speaking a distinct dialect. The lower towns were along the Tugaloo River in northeastern Georgia and the Keowee river in northwest South Carolina. The middle-valley towns were in western North Carolina, along the Nottely River, the upper Hiwassee River, and the Valley River. Across the mountains in eastern Tennessee was the third group, the upper or Overhill towns, which were located around the Little Tennessee River, the Tellico River, the lower Hiwassee River, and the headwaters of the Tennessee River. Although the Cumberland Plateau formed the western boundary of all Cherokee towns, their hunting grounds spread far beyond the plateau into middle Tennessee. The dialect of the middle-valley towns has been preserved by the Qualla Cherokee in North Carolina; the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma has retained the Overhill dialect. The lower town dialect has disappeared.

Although the Cherokee had a loosely organized tribal government, most affairs were conducted at the town level. Both levels had a dual organization, one for peace and one for war. At the town level, the peace chief was an elder who also served as the chief priest. The war chief was a younger and highly successful warrior; he wielded great power in town affairs. Each town had a council, which met in a seven-sided town house, composed of seven clans: Deer, Wolf, Long Hair, Red Paint, Blue, Bird, and Wild Potatoes.

The customs of the Cherokee were similar to those of the other Eastern Woodland tribes. They lived in mud and thatch houses that were easy to build yet designed to be permanent. Marriage and family traditions were matriarchal and matrilineal. Women often rose to influential positions in town and tribal affairs, acquiring such titles as Ghighau (beloved or greatly honored woman). These women had an active role in town councils and could decide the fate of prisoners.

The major occupations of Cherokee men were hunting and warfare. Some historians classify them as the warlords of the southern Appalachians. Although most wars occurred on the town level, there were basic tribal rivalries, especially with the Creek, who lived south of the Cherokee, which led to major tribal wars. Honorary titles, such as Mankiller, Bloody Fellow, and The Raven were given to outstanding warriors.

Cherokee religion was polytheistic, but major emphasis was placed on Yowa, the creator god. Seven religious festivals, with elaborate ceremonies and artistic dancing, were held each year. One of the most beautiful of all Native American dances is the Cherokee Eagle Dance. Many elements of Cherokee religion, including Yowa, made it comparatively easy for many Cherokees later to convert to Christianity. In spite of this conversion, much religious tradition has been retained by modern-day Cherokees.

On the eve of their first contacts with Europeans, the Cherokee seemed to be at peace with their environment, contented with their lifestyles, and prosperous in their economic development. Beginning in 1540, these conditions began to change—first slowly, then very rapidly.

European Contact, 1540-1775

Although there are legends of white-skinned people visiting the southern Appalachians as far back as the twelfth century, the first documented contact was with the Spanish explorer and conqueror Hernando de Soto. De Soto landed at Tampa Bay in 1539, fought his way up the East Coast with an army of six hundred men, and entered Cherokee country in May, 1540. Along the way, several hundred other Native Americans had been enslaved as burden-bearers for de Soto’s army. The goal of de Soto’s expedition was gold, such as had already been discovered by other Spaniards in Central and South America. As he drew near to the Cherokee and heard accounts of their power, de Soto thought he had found what he was seeking.

The Cherokee were initially awestruck by the sight of de Soto’s armor-clad warriors, thinking that they had been sent by the gods to punish them for their sins. Later, realizing the true nature of the Spaniards, the Cherokee goal was to get their uninvited guests through and out of their territory as quickly as possible. This they accomplished by being hospitable but pressing de Soto to move on, which he did when he found no gold. De Soto moved west into Chickasaw territory, where, in 1542, he was buried in the Mississippi River. Twenty-five years after de Soto, another Spaniard, Juan Pardo, visited the Cherokee, also looking for gold (and also finding none). Following the exit of Pardo in 1567, the Cherokee enjoyed more than a century with no significant European contact.

That serenity ended in 1673, when Abraham Wood, a trader in the English colony of Virginia, sent two men to establish a commercial relationship with the Overhill Cherokee in eastern Tennessee. With the taste of the Spanish still lingering in their tribal memory, the Cherokee killed one of the men and made a temporary prisoner of the other. In spite of this rough beginning, commercial ties were soon established that endured until the American Revolution.

In 1730, six Cherokee warriors were taken on a visit to Great Britain, where they signed the Articles of Friendship and Commerce. This treaty, after being approved by the chiefs at home, meant that the Cherokee would trade only with—and fight only for—the British. For the next fifty years, the Cherokee tried to keep their word, even when the British were negligent of theirs. This period included the French and Indian War (1754-1763), in which the Cherokee fought with the British against the French and their Indian allies. In the midst of that conflict, however, mistreatment by the British led to the brief Cherokee War (1759-1761) against the British. Following the end of the French and Indian War in 1763, peaceful cooperation between the Cherokee and the British was restored.

One of the warriors who visited Great Britain in 1730 was Attakullakulla, later called the Little Carpenter by the British because of his ability to build mutually beneficial relationships between his own people and the European settlers. Until his death in 1778, at about ninety-two years of age, Little Carpenter performed this task well.

The Cherokee were perplexed by the outbreak of the American Revolution in 1775, not understanding why British settlers were fighting Great Britain. When they did understand, true to the Articles of Friendship and Commerce, they gave support to the British. The desire of Little Carpenter and most other leaders was that the Cherokee would not become militarily involved. The British also, believing that the revolution would soon collapse, believed that it would be in the best interests of the Cherokee to remain neutral. One group of Cherokee war-riors, however, had no desire for neutrality.

The Chickamauga, 1775-1794

On March 19, 1775, exactly one month before the first shots of the revolution were fired, the Treaty of Sycamore Shoals was signed in present-day Elizabethton, Tennessee. This treaty was between the Cherokee and their white neighbors, and it involved the sale of about twenty million acres of Cherokee hunting grounds to white leaders. The land, about half of the area originally claimed by the Cherokee, included much of Kentucky and middle Tennessee. Little Carpenter led the majority of the Cherokee in approving the sale. Dragging Canoe, the outspoken son of Little Carpenter, led the minority who opposed it. When he realized that his views were not going to prevail, Dragging Canoe left Sycamore Shoals, with a bitter warning of the violence to be expected when whites tried to settle the land being purchased.

In June, 1776, a delegation of northern tribes, led by a Shawnee chief named Cornstalk, visited the Cherokee capital of Chota, on the Little Tennessee River. Taking advantage of the American Revolution, Cornstalk was forming a coalition to drive the white settlers back across the Appalachian Mountains. Little Carpenter and other peaceful chiefs listened to Cornstalk’s appeal, then watched in sad silence while Dragging Canoe accepted the war belt offered by the Shawnee chief.

Within a month of the meeting at Chota, Dragging Canoe was leading raids against the white settlements in east Tennessee. The settlements, however, were usually warned by friendly Cherokees such as Nancy Ward, a Ghighau (beloved woman). After being wounded in a raid that became an ambush, Dragging Canoe and his followers withdrew from Cherokee territory. Their new home was along Chickamauga Creek, a tributary of the Tennessee River. They occupied several abandoned Creek sites and began to call themselves the Chickamaugas, a name that means “river of death.”

The raids against the settlements in east Tennessee continued until the original Chickamauga towns were destroyed by a retaliatory raid in April, 1779. After moving west to their Five Lower Towns, the Chickamauga launched new raids, this time against Fort Nashborough and the Cumberland River settlements on land bought at Sycamore Shoals. The raids, which continued for about ten years and covered a distance of about one hundred miles each way, could not prevent the settlement of that part of middle Tennessee.

In September, 1794, two years after the death of Dragging Canoe, the Five Lower Towns were destroyed by a surprise attack from Fort Nashborough. The surviving Chickamaugas were gradually assimilated back into the mainline Cherokee.

Cherokee Civilization, 1775-1830

The Long Island Treaty, signed in July, 1777, kept the majority of the Cherokee out of the American Revolution. By the terms of the Treaty of Hopewell, in 1785, the Cherokee recognized the supreme authority of the new government of the United States, which in turn promised to protect the rights of the Cherokee to the twenty million acres of land that they still possessed. In spite of this promise, by 1817 Cherokee lands had been reduced to about seven million acres in southwest North Carolina, southeast Tennessee, a large portion of north Georgia, and the northwest corner of Alabama. The reduction in the size of Cherokee land led to major changes in their lifestyle. The basic means of support shifted from hunting to agriculture. Many Cherokee continued to supplement their income by trading with their white neighbors, who constantly moved closer and closer to the Cherokee towns.

Soon after the American Revolution, the Cherokee began adopting European standards of civilization. Their hope was that by so doing they would be able to remain in their homelands. The first step in civilization was the acceptance of Christianity. The evangelization of the Cherokee was begun by the Moravians in 1802. The most effective attempt was by the Brainerd Mission, beginning in 1817 in present-day Chattanooga; this was also the major source of education for young Cherokee men and women. Later Cherokee leaders such as Elias Boudinot and John Ridge began their formal education at Brainerd.

During the War of 1812, the Cherokee were given the chance to prove their loyalty to the United States. One of their traditional tribal enemies, the Creek, were fighting in Alabama. The Cherokee joined the volunteers of Andrew Jackson to defeat the Creek at Horseshoe Bend in 1814, a battle in which Yonaguska, a future Cherokee chief, saved the life of Jackson, a future American president.

Cherokee educational development took a major step forward in 1826, when Sequoyah, a part-blood Cherokee, invented a syllabary for the Cherokee language. With this creation, the first for any Native American tribe, the Cherokee soon began publishing their own newspaper: the Cherokee Phoenix, edited by Elias Boudinot.

The next significant step was the Cherokee adoption, on July 4, 1827, of a democratic constitution. This document was patterned after the U.S. Constitution. It established a national capital at New Echota, in north Georgia, and led to the election of John Ross as the first principal chief. Although only an eighth-blood Cherokee, Ross was pure Cherokee at heart, and he became the tribe’s major protector and spokesman during the trying years that followed.

The Trail of Tears, 1830-1839

Beginning with the Georgia Compact in 1802, signed by President Thomas Jefferson, the United States government promised to aid in the eventual removal of the Cherokee from Georgia. The Jackson-McMinn Treaty in 1817 was the first step in that process; it provided for the voluntary relocation of Cherokee to the western territory, present-day Oklahoma. Between two and four thousand Cherokee accepted this offer; about sixteen thousand remained on their ancestral land.

The urgent demand to remove all Cherokee began in 1828, when gold was discovered on their land near Dahlonega, Georgia. In 1830, Congress passed the Indian Removal Act, authorizing President Andrew Jackson to pursue Cherokee removal vigorously. A representative of the president met with a pro-removal minority of Cherokee leaders at New Echota on December 29, 1835. The resulting treaty was ratified by the U.S. Senate; it gave the entire tribe until May, 1838, to move voluntarily to the west. The majority, led by John Ross, refused to move.

The forced removal began when the deadline expired. After a heartless roundup of unoffending Cherokee families, the deadly journey began. Under the guard of federal soldiers, the Cherokee were taken, first by water, then by land, to their new homes in the west. When the “trail where they cried” ended, in March, 1839, there were four thousand unmarked graves along the way. About one thousand Cherokee escaped the removal by fleeing into the mountains. They later became the nucleus of the Eastern Band of the Cherokee, on the Qualla Boundary in North Carolina.

A New Life

The tragedy of the Trail of Tears did not end with the arrival in the west. Those who had been forced to travel the trail harbored deep bitterness toward those who had signed the New Echota Treaty. The brutal assassinations of the leaders of the Treaty Party on June 22, 1839, did not end the bitterness. The murderers of Major Ridge, John Ridge, and Elias Boudinot were never identified or punished.

There was also friction between the Old Settlers, who had been in the west since 1817, and the more numerous arrivals of 1839. On July 12, 1839, the Act of Union, under the leadership of John Ross, helped create a unified direction for the uncertain future. On September 6, the first united council was held at Tahlequah, their new capital. Ross was elected as the first principal chief, and David Vann, an Old Settler, was chosen as assistant chief. The constitution for the tribal government was similar to the one adopted in 1827. A new treaty signed in 1846 helped to heal the rift with the Treaty Party.

A new Cherokee schism developed in connection with the U.S. Civil War. Both the Union and the Confederacy courted Cherokee support. John Ross, still the principal chief, led those who backed the Union. Stand Watie, the brother of Elias Boudinot, became a Confederate general.

Traditional tribal government for the western Cherokee Nation ended in 1907, when Oklahoma became a state. From that date until 1971, the principal chief was appointed by the president of the United States. In 1971, the Cherokee regained the right to elect their chief and a tribal council.

The last capital of the Cherokee before the Trail of Tears had been at Red Clay in east Tennessee. In 1984, an emotional meeting was held at the same location. It was the first full tribal council since 1838, with delegates from both Oklahoma and North Carolina attending. An eternal flame was lit to symbolize the new united spirit of all the Cherokee. In December, 1985, another history-making event occurred in Oklahoma, when Wilma Mankiller became the first female chief of any North American tribe. She was re-elected to four-year terms in 1987 and 1991.

A 1989 U.S. Census Bureau publication listed the population of the western Cherokee Nation at 87,059. According to the 1990 U.S. Census, the Qualla Boundary in North Carolina had a population of 5,388. The 1990 census figure for the total Cherokee population was much higher (308,132), because it included anyone who identified himself or herself as Cherokee.

Bibliography

Corkran, David H. The Cherokee Frontier: Conflict and Survival, 1740-62. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1962. Corkran’s research emphasizes the effect of European contacts on the Cherokee. Special attention on their alliance with England and involvement in the French and Indian War.

Finger, John R. The Eastern Band of the Cherokee, 1819-1900. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1984. Covers the Cherokee in North Carolina, emphasizing problems after the Trail of Tears. Gives the reader a good picture of traditional Cherokee life.

McLoughlin, William G. The Cherokee Ghost Dance. Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 1984. An interesting collection of essays covering Cherokee relations with other tribes, involvement in slavery, and contact with missionaries (1789-1861). Good tables.

Malone, Henry. Cherokees of the Old South. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1956. Presents a clear picture of the origin and pre-removal history of the Cherokee. Stresses tribal customs and civilization.

Wilkins, Thurman. Cherokee Tragedy. New York: Macmillan, 1970. Based on the Ridge family. A very emotional account of the Cherokee during the years preceding removal. Good photographs.

Woodward, Grace Steele. The Cherokees. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1963. An excellent picture of Cherokee development up to Oklahoma statehood. Emphasizes internal problems. A help in understanding present-day Cherokee. Good bibliography.