History of the Cherokee Indians: Growth to Reduction of the tribes
I would like to provide you with some information regarding the Cherokee Indians. I am one quarter Cherokee Indian. My grandmother is full blooded Cherokee and may mother is one half Cherokee. Cherokee comes from a creek word "Cherokee" meaning "people of a different speech" (Cherokee history 1996).
There are 561 officially recognized Indian tribes in the United States. The Bureau of Indian Affairs is the largest database of records and histories of Native American tribes in the country.
The language of the Cherokee Indian is Iroquian, although the Cherokee language differs slightly from the Iroquian language.
Before the coming of the Europeans my family the Cherokee’s were forced to migrate to the southern Appalachians from the northwest after a defeat at the hands of the Iroquois and Delaware.
According to Cherokee history, The growth of my hertiage started in the southern Appalachian Mountains including western and North and South Carolina, Northern Georgia and Alabama, Southwest Virginia, and the Cumberland Basin of Tennessee, Kentucky, and Northern Alabama (www.tolatsga.org/cherokee.html 1996). The Eastern Cherokee still maintain their reservation in western North Carolina but most live in Oklahoma, Northern Cherokee nation of old Louisiana territory still has almost 12,ooo members and they are recognized by the state of Missouri unlike North Alabama whom do not have federal recognition.
We lived in small communities usually near river bottoms. Homes are made of wooden frames covered with woven vines and saplings plastered with mud. Each village usually consisted of 30 to 50 log and mud huts. These huts are usually grouped around the village to make a town square, which was known as the council house. "The council house was seven sided to represent the seven clans of the Cherokee Indians : Bird, paint, deer, wolf, blue, long hair, and wild potato" (smoky mountain mall, 2007).
We lived in the dense evergreen forests among the Allegheny and Great Smoky Mountains because these areas were plentiful with game, fish, and plant life. Clothing was made of deer skins. According to the wild west the women farmed corn, beans, squash and sunflowers which they preserved for use year around. Gourds were used as utensils, storage containers and ceremonial rattles.
The tragedy of the Cherokee nation has haunted the legacy of Andrew Jackson"'"s Presidency. The events that transpired after the implementation of his Indian policy are indeed heinous and continually pose questions of morality for all generations. Ancient Native American tribes were forced from their ancestral homes in an effort to increase the aggressive expansion of white settlers during the early years of the United States. The most notable removal came after the Indian Removal Act of 1830. The Cherokee, whose journey was known as the '"'Trail of Tears'"', and the four other civilized tribes, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek and Seminole, were forced to emigrate to lands west of the Mississippi River, to what is now day Oklahoma, against their will. During the journey westward, over 60,000 Indians were forced from their homelands. Approximately 4000 Cherokee Indians perished during the journey due to famine, disease, and negligence. The Cherokees to traveled a vast distance under force during the arduous winter of 1838-1839.# This is one of the saddest events in American history, yet we must not forget this tragedy.
Native Americans Status Today Native Americans are equal to everyone else in the United States. Most of them are holding steady jobs and living like normal people but some of them still live on Indian reservations and act like they are old time Indians from long ago. Indians became United States citizens in 1901.
Thornton, Russell, Matthew C Snipp, and Nancy Breen. The Cherokees: A Population History Indians of the Southeast. Lincoln, NB: University of Nebraska Press, 1990.
The Cherokee Indians lived in the south of the Appalachian Mountains for hundreds maybe thousands of years before the
The Native Americans of the southeast live in a variety of environments. The environments range from the southern Appalachian Mountains, to the Mississippi River valley, to the Louisiana and Alabama swamps, and the Florida wetlands. These environments were bountiful with various species of plant and animal life, enabling the Native American peoples to flourish. “Most of the Native Americans adopted large-scale agriculture after 900 A.D, and some also developed large towns and highly centralized social and political structures.” In the first half of the 1600s Europeans encountered these native peoples. Both cultures encountered new plants, animals, and diseases. However, the Indians received more diseases compared to the few new diseases to the Europeans. The new diseases resulted in a massive loss of Native Americans, including the Southeast Indians which had never encountered the new diseases. Three of the main tribes in the southeast were the Cherokee and the Creek. They were part of a group of southeast tribes that were removed from their lands. These tribes later became known as “The Five Civilized Tribes because of their progress and achievements.”
Today, most of the Navajo code talkers have been forgotten. Those who’s memories still linger are honored highly. The Navajo are the largest Indian tribe in the United States and live on the largest reservation, which covers over three states on 17 million acres. The states include Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and a small part of Colorado. The Navajo are continuing to grow and keep their culture, nation and tradition alive.
The United States of American is a country that was previously inhabited before the European Anglo-Saxons came across that Atlantic Ocean. It was a nation of independent people, multiple tribes in many places both those who made one place their home year round and others who traveled with the seasons. In the middle of this big island laid a land that belonged to the Osage tribe, and what a mighty tribe it was and still is. In the 17th century the original Osage tribe separated from the Sioux their language almost extinct belongs to the Siouan family, few Osage still speak this native language. This tribe is federally recognized by the United States Government and the majority of the tribal members are located on the Osage Reservation in north-central Oklahoma, but members of this tribe are throughout North America.
advantage of the rich black soil for farming. Corn was their main source of food,
The Cherokee lived in the present day United States of America hundreds of years before its occupation by the Europeans. History proclaims that members of this community migrated from the Great Lakes and settled in the Southern Appalachians. When the Europeans started settling down in America, the Cherokee decided to co-exist peacefully with her foreign neighbors. The Cherokee lands consisted of Alabama, parts of Virginia, Kentucky, North and South Carolina and Georgia.... ... middle of paper ...
In approaching this topic, I first realized that I need to look up some general information about Native Americans in the United States. According to the Department of the Interior, Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), there are approximately 564 federally recognized tribes in the United States today (Who we are, n.d). This group does not include tribes that do not have federal recognition but are recognized at the state level.
The Indian population in North Carolina consists of one federally recognized Indian tribe (Cherokee), seven state-recognized tribes, and three state-recognized urban organizations. Through the years, Indian cultures changed rapidly, and some were all but wiped out.
The Choctaw Indians is a tribe of Musksgean stock .The Choctaws were once part of a larger tribe that included the Greeks and Seminoles and are considered one of the five civilized tribes (Cherokees , Greeks, Choctaws , Seminoles, and Chickasaws) . At one time Choctaw territory extended from Mississippi to Georgia, but by the time Europeans began to arrive in North America they were primarily in Mississippi and Louisiana.
.... White settlers began to resent the Cherokees. Pressure was put on the tribe to voluntarily move, but their homeland, Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Alabama they have lived here for generations and they did not want to move.
2. “Cherokee Culture and History.” Native Americans: Cherokee History and Culture. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Mar. 2014. .
People have been living in America for countless years, even before Europeans had discovered and populated it. These people, named Native Americans or American Indians, have a unique and singular culture and lifestyle unlike any other. Native Americans were divided into several groups or tribes. Each one tribe developed an own language, housing, clothing, and other cultural aspects. As we take a look into their society’s customs we can learn additional information about the lives of these indigenous people of the United States.