CHEROKEE NATION



CHEROKEE TIMELINE

1450(?) First Cherokee enter the state in the vicinity of Traveler's Rest. Tugaloo Old Town is the first major Cherokee village.

1540-1 deSoto "visits" the Cherokee and is supposedly one of the first whites seen by the tribe, although written descriptions of the tribe by the Spanish note the wide range of colors in the tribe, from "negro" (black) to light skinned and "fair," according to Moyano and Pardo.

1715 Massive uprising against North and South Carolina.

1721 First treaty with whites (South Carolina).

1738 Smallpox eradicates 25% of the Cherokee Nation. Nancy Ward is born

1753 Smallpox epidemic.

1755(?) Battle of Taliwa (numerous other spellings) - Accounts differ on exact events, however, the Creek, who greatly outnumber the Cherokee, attack the Cherokee line five times. During the fifth attack elderly Cherokee leader Kingfisher is slain. His teenage wife picks up his weapon, and chanting a Cherokee war song, Nancy Ward leads the Cherokee to victory, routing the Creek. The battle marked successful expulsion of the Creek from much of North Georgia. The only major remaining Creek settlement was near present Rome, Georgia.

1760-1762 Cherokee War (SC)

1771 Sequoyah born. Ridge born.

1773 First cession of Cherokee land in Georgia.

1776-1783 Impressed by the British during the French and Indian War, the Cherokee side with them during the American Revolution. The price for the decision is immense. Colonel Pickens destroys Long Swamp village (1782) and forces the Cherokee to cede land to settlers.

1786 Treaty of Hopewell (SC)- The Cherokee thought this would be the end of the settlers' invasion of Cherokee land. Within 3 years bitter fighting had erupted as settlers continued to move into the Cherokee Nation. This treaty is the basis for the term "Talking Leaves." Cherokee felt that written words were like leaves, when they were no longer of use they withered and died.

1790 John Ross born.

1791 Treaty of Holston-Cherokee cede land in eastern Tennessee in exchange for President Washington's guarantee that the Cherokee Nation will never again be invaded by settlers. This treaty forces Americans to obtain passports to enter Cherokee lands, and granted Cherokee the right to evict settlers.

1792 The town of Hightower moves from the vicinity of Rome, Georgia to present-day Cartersville, further east on the Etowah River after a brutal attack on the village by Tennessee governor John Sevier(more).

1794 Chickamauga Cherokee (Lower Towns) cease fighting, begin westward move.

1799 Formation of the Lighthorse, a loose knit Cherokee police force headed by The Ridge and James Vann.

1799-1804 Building of the Augusta to Nashville Road, later known as the Federal Road.

1801 Return J. Meigs appointed "indian agent." Morovians start mission at Spring Place.

1802 President Thomas Jefferson agrees with the state of Georgia to removal of all American Indians in exchange for the state's claim of western lands.

1804 Cherokee cede Wafford's Tract.

1806 Start of a complex series of events known as Revolt of the Young Chiefs

1809 Death of Doublehead at the hands of Ridge, James Vann and Alexander Saunders

1810 Death of James Vann.

1811 New Madrid earthquake. Actually 3 separate earthquakes with an epicenter near the town of New Madrid, Missouri in the southeastern border with Kentucky. The quakes were felt throughout the Cherokee Nation and sparked what is best described as a religious revival among the Cherokee. Writer James Mooney would call this movement the "Ghost Dance," after a similar Western Indian revival.

1812 Shawnee warrior Tecumseh agitates American Indians on the frontier to rise up and destroy the settlers. A faction of the Creek Indians, the "Red Sticks," revolt, attacking Fort Mims, Alabama and massacre 250 men, women and children.

1813-1814 Cherokee warriors fight alongside future president Andrew Jackson during two campaigns (5 major battles) against the Red Sticks, saving both his army and his life in separate battles.

1814 Jackson demands cessions of 2.2 million acres from the Cherokee.

1817 Cession of land east of the Unicoi Turnpike. (Treaty of Turkey Town, instead of the 2.2 million acres demanded by Jackson.)

1819 Final cession of land in Georgia, and part of a much larger cession, the Cherokee give up claims to all land east of the Chattahoochee River.

1821 Cherokee warrior Sequoyah finishes his work on a written language (syllabary) for the tribe. Within six months more than 25% of the Cherokee Nation learns how to read and write.

1822 Georgia begins press for cession of remaining Cherokee lands, citing Jefferson's

1802 commitment to the state.

1828 Gold discovered in Georgia. This discovery was on Cherokee land ceded to the U. S. in 1817 (Duke's Creek), however, gold was soon found inside the Cherokee Nation; Publication of the Cherokee Phoenix begins with Elias Boudinot, editor.

1830 Cherokee evict encroachers in Beaver Dam on Cedar Creek, a few miles south of present-day Rome, Georgia. Passage of the Indian Removal Act.

1831 Chief Justice John Marshall rules that the Cherokee have no standing to file suit in the United States in Cherokee Nation vs. Georgia. He then instructs attorney William Wirt on how to correctly file; Samuel Worcester and others arrested for violation of Georgia law requiring whites to get permits to work in the Cherokee territory.

1832 The Supreme Court of the United States declares the Cherokee Nation to be sovereign (Worcester vs. Georgia). This has constitutional implications, disallowing the state of Georgia from passing any law governing the Cherokee;Elias Boudinot resigns as publisher of the Cherokee Phoenix under pressure from John Ross because of his editorial support for removal;Georgia's sixth land lottery and the gold lottery.

1834 The Georgia Guard destroys the printing press in the offices of The Cherokee Phoenix.

1835 Nov. 7 Ross and John Howard Payne, in Red Clay, Tennessee, are illegally detained by the Georgia Guard. Dec. 29 Treaty of New Echota signed in Elias Boudinot's home by members of the Treaty Party.

1838 May 23 Deadline for voluntary removal. Georgia Guard had begun round-up 5 days earlier. U. S. forces under command of Winfield Scott begin roundup in Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, and North Carolina. Cherokee are herded into "forts," gradually making their way north to the Cherokee Agency in southeastern Tennessee.



The Cherokee Nation - largest of the Five Civilized Tribes of the Southeast - is a people of Iroquoian lineage.

The Cherokee, who called themselves 'Ani'-Yun' wiya' - 'Principal People' - the 'Keetoowah' - 'people of Kituhwa' - or Tsalagi from their own name for the Cherokee Nation - migrated to the Southeast from the Great Lakes Region. They commanded more than 40,000 square miles in the southern Appalachians by 1650 with a population estimated at 22,500.

The Cherokee Native Americans were a large tribe who lived in the Smokey Mountain region including Virginia, North and South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, and Alabama. Their language came from the Iroquois. The Cherokee were divided into seven clans. People in a clan had to marry outside of his or her clan. Then, the male lived with his wife's family. Before the Europeans came over, they lived together in square houses made of bark, wood, earth, and clay. Later, they lived in log cabins.

Their economy consisted of the cultivation of corn, beans, and squash. Also, hunting and slash-and-burn agriculture was a large part of their economy. Their only domesticated animal was the dog, until the Europeans brought horses over.

The Cherokees held many ceremonies. One of their ceremonies marked the changing of rulers between the Red and White Orginizartion. Another ceremony consisted of nightlong dancing before going to war. After war, they had rituals of purification before they returned to their daily routine.

For leisure, the Cherokees played a game with rackets and a ball. Ritual fasting and bleeding was associated with the game. Along with this they had ceremonies called harvest feast and an observance of the new year.

Cherokee life and culture greatly resembled that of the Creek and other Indians of the Southeast. The Cherokee nation was composed of a confederacy of red (war) and white (peace) towns. The chiefs of the red towns were subordinated to a supreme war chief, while the officials of the white towns were under the supreme peace chief. The white towns provided sanctuary for wrongdoers; war ceremonies were conducted in red towns.

When first encountered by Europeans in the mid-16th century, the Cherokee possessed a variety of stone implements including knives, axes, and chisels. They wove baskets, made pottery, and cultivated corn (maize), beans, and squash. Deer, bear, and elk furnished meat and clothing. Cherokee dwellings were windowless log cabins roofed with bark, with one door and a smokehole in the roof. A typical Cherokee town had between 30 and 60 such houses and a council house where general meetings were held and the sacred fire burned. An important religious ceremony was the Busk, or Green Corn, festival, a first-fruits and new-fires rite.

The Cherokee wars and treaties, a series of battles and agreements around the period of the U.S. War of Independence, effectively reduced Cherokee power and landholdings in Georgia, eastern Tennessee, and western North and South Carolina, freeing this territory for speculation and settlement by the white man. Numbering about 22,000 tribesmen in 200 villages throughout the area, the Cherokee had since the beginning of the 18th century remained friendly to the British in both trading and military affairs.

In 1773 the Treaty of Augusta, concluded at the request of both Cherokee and Creek Indians, ceded more than 2,000,000 tribal acres in Georgia to relieve a seemingly hopeless Indian indebtedness to white traders. In 1775 the Overhill Cherokee were persuaded at the Treaty of Sycamore Shoals to sell an enormous tract of land in central Kentucky.

Although this agreement with the Transylvania Land Company violated British law, it nevertheless became the basis for the white takeover of that area. Threatened by colonial encroachment upon their hunting grounds, the Cherokee announced at the beginning of the American Revolution their determination to support the crown.

Despite British attempts to restrain them, in July 1776 a force of 700 Cherokee under Chief Dragging-canoe attacked two U.S.-held forts in North Carolina: Eaton's Station and Ft. Watauga. Both assaults failed, and the tribe retreated in disgrace. These raids set off a series of attacks by Cherokee, Creek, and Choctaw on frontier towns, eliciting a vigorous response by militia and regulars of the Southern states during September and October.

At the end of this time, Cherokee power was broken, crops and villages destroyed, and warriors dispersed. The humiliated Indians could win peace only by surrendering vast tracts of territory in North and South Carolina at the Treaty of DeWitt's Corner (May 20, 1777) and the Treaty of Long Island of Holston (July 20, 1777). As a result, peace reigned on this frontier for the next two years.

When Cherokee raids flared up again in 1780 during American preoccupation with British armed forces elsewhere, punitive action led by Col. Arthur Campbell and Col. John Sevier soon brought them to terms again. At the second Treaty of Long Island of Holston (July 26, 1781), previous land cessions were confirmed and additional territory yielded.

After 1800 the Cherokee were remarkable for their assimilation of white culture. The Cherokee formed a government modelled on that of the U.S. Under Chief Junaluska they aided Andrew Jackson against the Creek (see Creek War), particularly in the Battle of Horseshoe Bend. They adopted white methods of farming, weaving, and home building.

Perhaps most remarkable of all was the syllabary of the Cherokee language, developed in 1821 by Sequoyah, a half-blooded Cherokee who had served with the U.S. Army in the Creek War. The syllabary--a system of writing in which each symbol represents a syllable--was so successful that almost the entire tribe became literate within a short time.

A written constitution was adopted, and religious literature flourished, including translations from the Christian scriptures. An Indian newspaper, the Cherokee Phoenix, the first of its kind, began publication in February 1828.

But the Cherokee's rapid acquisition of white culture did not protect them against the land hunger of the settlers. When gold was discovered on Cherokee land in Georgia, agitation for the removal of the Indians increased. In December 1835 the Treaty of New Echota, signed by a small minority of the Cherokee, ceded to the U.S. all their land east of the Mississippi River for $5,000,000. The overwhelming majority of Cherokees repudiated the treaty and took their case to the Supreme Court of the United States. The court rendered a decision favourable to the Indians, declaring that Georgia had no jurisdiction over the Cherokees and no claim to their lands.

Georgia officials ignored the court's decision, and Pres. Andrew Jackson refused to enforce it. As a result, the Cherokees were evicted under the Indian Removal Act of 1830 by 7,000 troops commanded by Gen. Winfield Scott. Some 15,000 Cherokees were first gathered into camps while their homes were plundered and burned by local residents. Then the Indians were sent west in groups of about 1,000, most on foot.

The eviction and forced march, which came to be known as the Trail of Tears, took place during the fall and winter of 1838-39 and was badly mismanaged. Inadequate food supplies led to terrible suffering, especially after frigid weather arrived. About 4,000 Cherokees died on the 116-day journey, many because the escorting troops refused to slow or stop so that the ill and exhausted could recover.

When the main body had finally reached its new home in what is now northeastern Oklahoma, new controversies began with the settlers already there. Feuds and murders rent the tribe as reprisals were made on those who had signed the Treaty of New Echota.

In Oklahoma the Cherokee joined four other tribes, the Creek, Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Seminole, all forcibly removed from the Southeast by the U.S. government in the 1830s. For three-quarters of a century each tribe had a land allotment and a quasi-autonomous government modelled on that of the U.S. In preparation for Oklahoma statehood (1907), some of this land was allotted to individual Indians; the rest was opened up to white homesteaders, held in trust by the federal government, or allotted to freed slaves.

Tribal governments were effectively dissolved in 1906 but have continued to exist in a limited form. Some Indians now live on tribal landholdings that are informally called reservations. In the late 20th century there were approximately 47,000 Cherokee descendants living in eastern Oklahoma and about 15,000 full-bloods. At the time of removal in 1838, a few hundred Cherokee escaped to the mountains and furnished the nucleus for the 3,000 Cherokee who in the 20th century lived in western North Carolina.



Creational Myth - Grandmother Spider Steals The Sun

A Cherokee Myth is Grandmother Spider Steals The Sun. This is how it goes. In the beginning there was only blackness, and nobody could see anything. People kept bumping into each other and groping blindly.

They said: "What this world needs is light." Fox said he knew some people on the other side of the world who had plenty of light, but they were too greedy to share it with others.

Possum said he would be glad to steal a little of it. "I have a bushy tail," he said.

"I can hide the light inside all that fur." Then he set out for the sther side of the world.

There he found the sun hanging in a tree and lighting everything up.

He sneaked over to the sun, picked out a tiny piece of light, and stuffed it into his tail. But the light was hot and burned all the fur off.

The people discovered his theft and took back the light, and ever since, Possum's tail has been bald.

"Let me try," said Buzzard.

"I know better than to hide a piece of stolen light in my tail. I'll put it on my head."

He flew to the other side of the world and, diving straight into the sun, seized it in his claws.

He put it on his head, but it burned his head feathers off.

The people grabbed the sun away from him, and ever since that time Buzzard's head has remained bald. Then Grandmother Spider said, "Let me try!"

First she made a thickwalled pot out of clay.

Next she spun a web reaching all the way to the other side of the world.

She was so small that none of the people there noticed her coming.

Quickly Grandmothe Spider snatched up the sun, put it in the bowl of clay, and scrambled back home along one of the strands of her web.

Now her side of the world had light, and everyone rejoiced.

Spider Woman brought not only the sun to the Cherokee, but fire with it.

And besides that, she taught the Cherokee people the art of pottery making.



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