The Eastern Cherokee Indian Land Trust (Qualla Boundary)
The Eastern Cherokee Indian Reservation, officially known as the Qualla Boundary, is located at 35°31′49″N 83°16′31″W / 35.53028°N 83.27528°W / 35.53028; -83.27528 in western North Carolina, just south of Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The main part of the reservation lies in eastern Swain County and northern Jackson County, but smaller non-contiguous sections are located to the southwest in Cherokee County (Cheoah community) and Graham County (Snowbird community). A small part of the main reservation extends eastward into Haywood County. The total land area of these parts is 213.934 km² (82.600 sq mi), with a 2000 census resident population of 8,092 persons. The Qualla Boundary is not a reservation, but rather a "land trust" supervised by the United States Bureau of Indian Affairs. The land was a fragment of the extensive original homeland of the Cherokee Nation. The people had to purchase their land to regain it after it was taken over by the US government.
Today the tribe earns most of its revenue from a combination of Federal/State funds, tourism, and the Harrah's Cherokee Casino, instituted in the early 1990s.
Read more about this topic: Eastern Band Of Cherokee Indians
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“And not by eastern windows only,
When daylight comes, comes in the light;
In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly!
But westward, look, the land is bright!”
—Arthur Hugh Clough (1819–1861)
“A Cherokee is too smart to put anything in the contribution box of a race that’s robbed him of his birthright.”
—Howard Estabrook (1884–1978)
“The Indian attitude toward the land was expressed by a Crow named Curly: “The soil you see is not ordinary soil—it is the dust of the blood, the flesh, and the bones of our ancestors. You will have to dig down to find Nature’s earth, for the upper portion is Crow, my blood and my dead. I do not want to give it up.””
—For the State of Montana, U.S. public relief program. Montana: A State Guide Book (The WPA Guide to Montana)
“We come and go, but the land is always here. And the people who love it and understand it are the people who own it—for a little while.”
—Willa Cather (1873–1947)
“He will calmly front the morrow in the negligency of that trust which carries God with it, and so hath already the whole future in the bottom of the heart.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)