Cherokee History

Cherokee History

According to some accounts, before the coming of the Europeans, the Cherokee were

forced to migrate to the southern Appalachians from the northwest after a defeat at the

hands of the Iroquois and Delaware. Some Delaware traditions also support this, but the

Iroquois have no memories of such a conflict. While there is probably some historical

basis, it is difficult to imagine a tribe as large and powerful as the Cherokee being forced

to move anywhere, although they may have lost some territory in the north to the

Susquehannock, Erie, or Delaware. Considering their language differences with other

Iroquian groups, the Cherokee probably have been a distinct group for a considerable

period. It seems more reasonable to assume that the Cherokee had occupied their

mountain homeland for a long time before the arrival of the Europeans.

At the time of contact, the Cherokee were a settled, agricultural people living in

approximately 200 fairly, large villages. The typical Cherokee town consisted of 30 to 60

houses and a large council house. Homes were usually wattle and daub, a circular

framework interwoven with branches (like an upside-down basket) and plastered with

mud. The entire structure was partially sunken into ground. In later periods, log cabins

(one door with smokehole in the bark-covered roof) became the general rule. The large

council houses were frequently located on mounds from the earlier Mississippian culture,

although the Cherokee themselves did not build mounds during the historic period. Used

for councils, general meetings, and religious ceremonies, the council houses were also the

site of the sacred fire, which the Cherokee had kept burning from time immemorial.

Like other I...

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...ed tribal

governments and forced allotment during 1901. Grafting(swindles) of Indian lands became

a massive and unofficially sanctioned form of theft in Oklahoma. Of the original seven

million acres granted the Cherokee in the New Echota Treaty, the Cherokee Nation kept

less than 1/3 of 1 percent. As compensation, the Cherokee became citizens in 1901 and

were finally allowed to vote. An attempt by the Five Tribes to form their own state of

Sequoyah in eastern Oklahoma failed in 1905, and the Cherokee Nation was officially

dissolved on March 3, 1906. The following year Oklahoma was admitted as the 46th state.

The present government of the Cherokee Nation was formed in 1948 after passage of the

Wheeler-Howard Indian Reorganization Act (1934). In 1961 the Cherokee Nation was

awarded $15,000,000 by the U.S. Claims Commission for lands of the Cherokee Outlet.