The Cherokee lived along the eastern part of the Tennessee River thriving in the bottomlands from Virginia southward, and built their houses in villages, which were separated by daylong walks. Their houses were made of wood and stone, fields planted, nuts and berries gathered, game cured, and tobacco was smoked. The Cherokees predominantly relied upon hunting as their sole source of food, and lived peacefully with the Creek tribe, with whom they shared hunting grounds. Their hunting grounds extended from the Mississippi River to the Blue Ridge Mountains and from Central Georgia all the way north to Ohio River.
The Cherokee Nation was the largest of Five Civilized Tribes of the southeast. They are a people of Iroquois descent. The Cherokee who were known as "Ani'-Yun'wiya" or "principal people" migrated to the southeast from the Great Lakes region. They held more than 40,000 square miles of land in the south by 1650 with a population estimated at well over 30,000. Similar to other Native Americans of the southeast, their nation was a confederacy of towns each under the rule of a supreme chief. In short, the Cherokee culture and society thrived and prospered in the Americas prior to contact with the Europeans. No society has ever made a more dramatic cultural shift then that of the Cherokee. This, a culture that had suffered pronounced side effects of Europe even prior to the introduction to European man. With the introduction of man onto the Americas also came something unknown to them, disease. Unable to counter these viruses many of the Cherokee were wiped out. Reports state that between 40 and 50% of their culture died from diseases such as: smallpox, typhus, and measles. With the sudden lose of population, there is no doubt that this population also lost leadership and knowledge through these deaths. Once the obstacle of disease had been passed came the addition of a new opponent: the European man.
In 1783, the American Revolution ended. Since most of the Cherokees helped the British in the Revolutionary War, the Americans needed to make peace with them. Then in1785, the treaty of Hopewell was signed (Perdue 8). This was a peace treaty between the Cherokee and the Americans. This treaty defined the Cherokees’ boundaries and it gave them the right to get rid of unwanted settlers. The states of Georgia and North Carolina ignored this treaty. The people of these states expanded into Cherokee land, and the Cherokees continued to resist.
Native Americans, namely the Cherokees, had been living on the lands of the eventual Americas without European contact for years until the 1700s. After contact was made and America had gained freedom, people like President Andrew Jackson, believed that the Cherokees should be removed from the land that was rightfully the United States’. President Jackson even hired Benjamin F. Curry of Tennessee to help with the removal of the Cherokees from east of the Mississippi River. Curry believed that his job was to try to drive the Cherokees to either want to leave without a second thought or sign a treaty agreeing to America’s terms. Curry’s actions led to the natives of the Cherokee nation’s objections of being removed so miserably. Many complained about how their significant others or children were either forcibly removed or held to get the natives to agree to leave. Some of the natives decided that they would try to fight their way out of being removed, but some, like Rebecca Neugin, a member of the Cherokee nation’s father were persuaded not to resist so that they or their families would not be harmed more than necessary. When some of the Americans, like Evan Jones, saw this, they tried to spread awareness of how the Cherokees were being treated,...
In the vast collection of Indian tribes that the United States would encounter in its gradual expansion, the Cherokee would be considered to be one of the most “civilized” in that they mostly adopted western culture and practices that white settlers had introduced to them. “Many Indians sent their children to schools operated by white missionaries, and some had embraced the Christian religion. Cherokees had devised their own written language and published a newspaper in English and Cherokee.” (Watson 106). All this change was encouraged by white settlers who hoped that the rapid development would allow for the gradual opening up of Indian lands for purchase. When the Cherokee continued to hold fast and refused to sell their ancestral land, the state of Georgia exercised its supposed sovereignty over the region and took away Cherokee land. This move was solely motivated by the greed for the rich black soil that the tribe lived on. The Cherokee’s relative development and familiarity with American society led them to take one of the most American approaches to check American encroachment: they sued. De...
The Cherokee people were a unique and strong community. They held the belief that they should never bow to any other creature. They held a high respect for one another. When they spoke, they spoke one at a time paying careful attention to listening to one another. The Cheroke...
The Cherokee life is full of traditions from the past and has helped them survive as long as they have in the present. Even though they don’t all live the same, or in the same place, they all still have close to the same past and traditions they live by that include marriage, daily life, government, and war. The life of the Cherokees have been studied for many years and will be continued for a long time to come.
Davis, J. B. "SLAVERY IN THE CHEROKEE NATION." Chronicles of Oklahoma 11.4 (1933): 1058. Oklahoma State University. Web. 4 Dec. 2013.
The Cherokee way of life and history of the tribe continues to impact generations of Cherokee today. Without the colorful history that the tribe has underwent, the many people living today would not know the important of living within the culture or speaking the native tongue. Without the knowledge of their ancestor’s hardships, the youth of today would likely disregard the past and only focus on the
Alice, N. (2006). Daily Life of Native Americans from Post-Columbian through Nineteenth-Century America. (p. 41). Greenwood Publishing Group. Westport Connecticut. Retrieved Oct. 28, 2013 http://books.google.com/books?id=Ghv-E7OuBlMC&dq=how+iroquois+daily+lives+were+carried+out&source=gbs_navlinks_s
The Cherokee Indians, the most cooperative and accommodating to the political institutions of the united states, suffered the worst fate of all Native Americans when voluntarily or forcibly moved west. In 1827 the Cherokees attempted to claim themselves as an independent nation within the state of Georgia. When the legislature of the state extended jurisdiction over this ‘nation,’ the Cherokees sought legal actions, not subject to Georgia laws and petitioned the United States Supreme Court. The case became known as Cherokee Nation vs. Georgia in 1831. Supreme Court Justice John Marshall denied their claim as a republic within Georgia, he then deemed the Cherokee as a ‘domestic dependent nation’. One year later through the case of Worcester vs. Georgia, the Cherokee’s were granted federal protection from the molestation by the state of Georgia. Through the Indian Removal act in 1830 President Andrew Jackson appropriated planning and funding for the removal of Native Americans, Marshall’s rulings delayed this for the Cherokee Nation, and infuriated President Jackson. Marshall’s decision had little effect on Jackson and ignoring this action the president was anxious to see him enforce it.
Mooney, James. Myths Of The Cherokee And Sacred Formulas Of The Cherokees: From 19th and 7th Annual Reports B.A.E. Nashville, Tennessee: Charles and Randy Elder‑Booksellers. 1982
In the essay, “The Trail of Tears” by author Dee Brown explains that the Cherokees isn’t Native Americans that evaporate effectively from their tribal land, but the enormous measure of sympathy supported on their side that was abnormal. The Cherokees process towards culture also the treachery of both states and incorporated governments of the declaration and promises that contrived to the Cherokee nation. Dee Brown wraps up that the Cherokees had lost Kentucky and Tennessee, but a man who once consider their buddy named Andrew Jackson had begged the Cherokees to move to Mississippi but the bad part is the Indians and white settlers never get along together even if the government wanted to take care of them from harassment it shall be incapable to do that. The Cherokee families moved to the West, but the tribes were together and denied to give up more land but Jackson was running for President if the Georgians elects him as President he agreed that he should give his own support to open up the Cherokee lands for establishment.
2. “Cherokee Culture and History.” Native Americans: Cherokee History and Culture. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Mar. 2014. .
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.