Cherokee People

Cherokee People

The Cherokee (/ˈtʃɛrəkiː/; Cherokee: ᏣᎳᎩ Tsalagi) are a Native American people historically settled in the Southeastern United States (principally Georgia, the Carolinas, and East Tennessee). Linguistically, they are part of the Iroquoian language family. In the 19th century, historians and ethnographers recorded their oral tradition that told of the tribe having migrated south in ancient times from the Great Lakes region, where other Iroquoian-speaking peoples were located. They began to have contact with European traders in the 18th century.

In the 19th century, white settlers in the United States called the Cherokee one of the "Five Civilized Tribes", because they had assimilated numerous cultural and technological practices of European American settlers. The Cherokee were one of the first, if not the first, major non-European ethnic group to become U.S. citizens. Article 8 in the 1817 treaty with the Cherokee stated Cherokees may wish to become citizen of the United States. According to the 2000 U.S. Census, the Cherokee Nation has more than 300,000 members, the largest of the 565 federally recognized Native American tribes in the United States.

Of the three federally recognized Cherokee tribes, the Cherokee Nation and the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians (UKB) have headquarters in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. The UKB are mostly descendants of "Old Settlers", Cherokee who migrated to Arkansas and Oklahoma about 1817. The Cherokee Nation are related to the people who were forcibly relocated there in the 1830s under the Indian Removal Act. The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians is located on the Qualla Boundary in western North Carolina.

In addition, there are Cherokee bands in the Southeast that are recognized as tribes by state governments, such as the Echota Cherokee Tribe of Alabama, but not the U.S. federal government.