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Cherokee

The Cherokee (/ˈɛrək, ˌɛrəˈk/;[8][9] Cherokee: ᎠᏂᏴᏫᏯᎢ, romanized: Aniyvwiyaʔi or Anigiduwagi, or Cherokee: ᏣᎳᎩ, romanized: Tsalagi) people are one of the Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States. Prior to the 18th century, they were concentrated in their homelands, in towns along river valleys of what is now southwestern North Carolina, southeastern Tennessee, southwestern Virginia, edges of western South Carolina, northern Georgia and northeastern Alabama consisting of around 40,000 square miles[10]

This article is about an Indigenous American people. For tribal administration, see Cherokee Nation. For other uses, see Cherokee (disambiguation).

The Cherokee language is part of the Iroquoian language group. In the 19th century, James Mooney, an early American ethnographer, recorded one oral tradition that told of the tribe having migrated south in ancient times from the Great Lakes region, where other Iroquoian peoples have been based.[11] However, anthropologist Thomas R. Whyte, writing in 2007, dated the split among the peoples as occurring earlier. He believes that the origin of the proto-Iroquoian language was likely the Appalachian region, and the split between Northern and Southern Iroquoian languages began 4,000 years ago.[12]


By the 19th century, White American settlers had classified the Cherokee of the Southeast as one of the "Five Civilized Tribes" in the region. They were agrarian, lived in permanent villages and had begun to adopt some cultural and technological practices of the white settlers. They also developed their own writing system.


Today, three Cherokee tribes are federally recognized: the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians (UKB) in Oklahoma, the Cherokee Nation (CN) in Oklahoma, and the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI) in North Carolina.[13]


The Cherokee Nation has more than 300,000 tribal members, making it the largest of the 574 federally recognized tribes in the United States.[14] In addition, numerous groups claim Cherokee lineage, and some of these are state-recognized. A total of more than 819,000 people are estimated to have identified as having Cherokee ancestry on the U.S. census; most are not enrolled members of any tribe.[2]


Of the three federally recognized Cherokee tribes, the Cherokee Nation and the UKB have headquarters in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, and most of their members live in the state. The UKB are mostly descendants of "Old Settlers", also called Western Cherokee: those who migrated from the Southeast to Arkansas and Oklahoma in about 1817, prior to Indian removal. They are related to the Cherokee who were later forcibly relocated there in the 1830s under the Indian Removal Act. The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians is located on land known as the Qualla Boundary in western North Carolina. They are mostly descendants of ancestors who had resisted or avoided relocation, remaining in the area. Because they gave up tribal membership at the time, they became state and US citizens. In the late 19th century, they reorganized as a federally recognized tribe.[15]

Etymology[edit]

A Cherokee language name for Cherokee people is Aniyvwiya (ᎠᏂᏴᏫᏯ, translating as "Principal People").[16] Another endonym is Anigiduwagi (ᎠᏂᎩᏚᏩᎩ, translating as "People from Kituwah").[17] Tsalagi Gawonihisdi (ᏣᎳᎩ ᎦᏬᏂᎯᏍᏗ) is the Cherokee name for the Cherokee language.[18][19]


Many theories, though all unproven, abound about the origin of the name "Cherokee." It may have originally been derived from one of the competitive tribes in the area.


The earliest Spanish transliteration of the name, from 1755, is recorded as Tchalaquei, but it dates to accounts related to the Hernando de Soto expedition in the mid-16th century.[20] Another theory is that "Cherokee" derives from a Lower Creek word Cvlakke ("chuh-log-gee"), as the Creek were also in this mountainous region.[21]


The Iroquois Five Nations, historically based in New York and Pennsylvania, called the Cherokee Oyata'ge'ronoñ ("inhabitants of the cave country").[22] It is possible the word "Cherokee" comes from a Muscogee Creek word meaning "people of different speech", because the two peoples spoke different languages.[23]

Early culture[edit]

Much of what is known about pre-18th century Native American cultures has come from records of Spanish expeditions. The earliest ones of the mid-16th century encountered peoples of the Mississippian culture era, who were ancestral to tribes that emerged in the Southeast, such as the Cherokee, Muscogee, Cheraw, and Catawba. Specifically in 1540–41, a Spanish expedition led by Hernando de Soto passed through present-day South Carolina, proceeding into western North Carolina and what is considered Cherokee country. The Spanish recorded a Chalaque people as living around the Keowee River, where western North Carolina, South Carolina, and northeastern Georgia meet. The Cherokee consider this area to be part of their homelands, which also extended into southeastern Tennessee.[27]


Further west, De Soto's expedition visited villages in present-day northwestern Georgia, recording them as ruled at the time by the Coosa chiefdom. This is believed to be a chiefdom ancestral to the Muscogee Creek people, who developed as a Muskogean-speaking people with a distinct culture.[28]


In 1566, the Juan Pardo expedition traveled from the present-day South Carolina coast into its interior, and into western North Carolina and southeastern Tennessee. He recorded meeting Cherokee-speaking people who visited him while he stayed at the Joara chiefdom (north of present-day Morganton, North Carolina). The historic Catawba later lived in this area of the upper Catawba River. Pardo and his forces wintered over at Joara, building Fort San Juan there in 1567.


His expedition proceeded into the interior, noting villages near modern Asheville and other places that are part of the Cherokee homelands. According to anthropologist Charles M. Hudson, the Pardo expedition also recorded encounters with Muskogean-speaking peoples at Chiaha in southeastern modern Tennessee.

Culture[edit]

Cultural institutions[edit]

The Qualla Arts and Crafts Mutual, Inc., of Cherokee, North Carolina, is the oldest continuing Native American art co-operative. They were founded in 1946 to provide a venue for traditional Eastern Band Cherokee artists.[71] The Museum of the Cherokee Indian, also in Cherokee, displays permanent and changing exhibits, houses archives and collections important to Cherokee history, and sponsors cultural groups, such as the Warriors of the AniKituhwa dance group.[72]


In 2007, the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians entered into a partnership with Southwestern Community College and Western Carolina University to create the Oconaluftee Institute for Cultural Arts (OICA), to emphasize native art and culture in traditional fine arts education. This is intended both to preserve traditional art forms and encourage exploration of contemporary ideas. Located in Cherokee, OICA offered an associate degree program.[73] In August 2010, OICA acquired a letterpress and had the Cherokee syllabary recast to begin printing one-of-a-kind fine art books and prints in the Cherokee language.[74] In 2012, the Fine Art degree program at OICA was incorporated into Southwestern Community College and moved to the SCC Swain Center, where it continues to operate.[75]


The Cherokee Heritage Center, of Park Hill, Oklahoma, is the site of a reproduction of an ancient Cherokee village, Adams Rural Village (including 19th-century buildings), Nofire Farms, and the Cherokee Family Research Center for genealogy.[76] The Cherokee Heritage Center also houses the Cherokee National Archives. Both the Cherokee Nation (of Oklahoma) and the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee, as well as other tribes, contribute funding to the CHC.

Marriage[edit]

Before the 19th century, polygamy was common among the Cherokee, especially by elite men.[77] The matrilineal culture meant that women controlled property, such as their dwellings, and their children were considered born into their mother's clan, where they gained hereditary status. Advancement to leadership positions was generally subject to approval by the women elders. In addition, the society was matrifocal; customarily, a married couple lived with or near the woman's family, so she could be aided by her female relatives. Her eldest brother was a more important mentor to her sons than was their father, who belonged to another clan. Traditionally, couples, particularly women, can divorce freely.[78]


It was unusual for a Cherokee man to marry a European-American woman. The children of such a union were disadvantaged, as they would not belong to the nation. They would be born outside the clans and traditionally were not considered Cherokee citizens. This is because of the matrilineal aspect of Cherokee culture.[77] As the Cherokee began to adopt some elements of European-American culture in the early 19th century, they sent elite young men, such as John Ridge and Elias Boudinot to American schools for education. After Ridge had married a European-American woman from Connecticut and Boudinot was engaged to another, the Cherokee Council in 1825 passed a law making children of such unions full citizens of the tribe, as if their mothers were Cherokee. This was a way to protect the families of men expected to be leaders of the tribe.[79]


In the late nineteenth century, the U.S. government put new restrictions on marriage between a Cherokee and non-Cherokee, although it was still relatively common. A European-American man could legally marry a Cherokee woman by petitioning the federal court, after gaining the approval of ten of her blood relatives. Once married, the man had status as an "Intermarried White," a member of the Cherokee tribe with restricted rights; for instance, he could not hold any tribal office. He remained a citizen of and under the laws of the United States. Common law marriages were more popular. Such "Intermarried Whites" were listed in a separate category on the registers of the Dawes Rolls, prepared for allotment of plots of land to individual households of members of the tribe, in the early twentieth-century federal policy for assimilation of the Native Americans.

Contemporary settlement[edit]

Cherokee people are most concentrated in Oklahoma and North Carolina, but some reside in the US West Coast, due to economic migrations caused by the Dust Bowl during the Great Depression, job availability during the Second World War, and the Federal Indian Relocation program during the 1950s–1960s. Destinations for Cherokee diaspora included multi-ethnic/racial urban centers of California (i.e. the Greater Los Angeles and San Francisco Bay Areas). They frequently live in farming communities, or by military bases and other Indian reservations.[102]

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