A Nation Divided, Yet United
Cherokee strong
When European explorers first contacted the Cherokees in the 16th century, they have been consistently identified as one of the most socially and culturally advanced of the Native American tribes. Having thrived for hundreds of years before first European contact in the southeastern area of what is now the United States. Cherokee culture and society continued to develop, progressing and embracing cultural elements from European settlers. The Cherokee shaped a government and a society matching the most civilized cultures of the day.(1) In 1829, things changed when President Andrew Jackson ordered the round up and removal of the tribes for their land that held gold so coveted by the European
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These were created by using butternut trees and river cane. Both brought almost to extinction. Only three large butternut trees remain in Kituhwa. The sacred "mother town" of their tribe, Kituhwa (pronounced gah-DOO-ah), was part of a located about three miles (five kilometers) from the Qualla Boundary area.(4) The area is inside one that was ravaged by Americans since before the Civil War. Butternut trees and river cane grow naturally in this area, used for making carving and baskets. The river cane is even used to make blow dart guns for traditional hunters today for small game animals. The basket resources have become harder to come by in past years. These are more often made to sell as souvenirs to tourists on the eastern territory. While not used by the tribe members for self much, these are important skills to pass on generation to generation. Another of the skills to keep is the Cherokee language. Taught in the schools in Oklahoma, and starting in programs in North Carolina. Tsalagi is an Iroquoian language spoken by the Cherokee people. It is the only Southern Iroquoian language and differs significantly from the other Iroquoian languages. Cherokee is a polysynthetic language and uses a unique syllabify writing system. (5) It is thankful to George Guess/Gist, a.k.a. Chief Sequoyah, of the Cherokee, for inventing the syllabary between 1809 and 1824. After experimenting with a logogram system, Chief Sequoyah devised a new version with symbols based on letters from the Latin alphabet and Western numerals. Thousands of Cherokees had learned the syllabary by 1820. Being 90% literate in their own language, books and more were published using the syllabary, widely used for over 100 years. Today the revival to use the language and syllabary is taught in a number of schools, colleges and
Pages one to sixty- nine in Indian From The Inside: Native American Philosophy and Cultural Renewal by Dennis McPherson and J. Douglas Rabb, provides the beginning of an in-depth analysis of Native American cultural philosophy. It also states the ways in which western perspective has played a role in our understanding of Native American culture and similarities between Western culture and Native American culture. The section of reading can be divided into three lenses. The first section focus is on the theoretical understanding of self in respect to the space around us. The second section provides a historical background into the relationship between Native Americans and British colonial power. The last section focus is on the affiliation of otherworldliness that exist between
The generalization that, “The decision of the Jackson administration to remove the Cherokee Indians to lands west of the Mississippi River in the 1830s was more a reformulation of the national policy that had been in effect since the 1790s than a change in that policy,” is valid. Ever since the American people arrived at the New World they have continually driven the Native Americans out of their native lands. Many people wanted to contribute to this removal of the Cherokees and their society. Knox proposed a “civilization” of the Indians. President Monroe continued Knox’s plan by developing ways to rid of the Indians, claiming it would be beneficial to all. Andrew Jackson ultimately fulfilled the plan. First of all, the map [Document A] indicates the relationship between time, land, and policies, which affected the Indians. The Indian Tribes have been forced to give up their land as early as the 1720s. Between the years of 1721 and 1785, the Colonial and Confederation treaties forced the Indians to give up huge portions of their land. During Washington's, Monroe's, and Jefferson's administration, more and more Indian land was being commandeered by the colonists. The Washington administration signed the Treaty of Holston and other supplements between the time periods of 1791 until 1798 that made the Native Americans give up more of their homeland land. The administrations during the 1790's to the 1830's had gradually acquired more and more land from the Cherokee Indians. Jackson followed that precedent by the acquisition of more Cherokee lands. In later years, those speaking on behalf of the United States government believed that teaching the Indians how to live a more civilized life would only benefit them. Rather than only thinking of benefiting the Indians, we were also trying to benefit ourselves. We were looking to acquire the Indians’ land. In a letter to George Washington, Knox says we should first is to destroy the Indians with an army, and the second is to make peace with them. The Indian Trade and Intercourse Act of 1793 began to put Knox’s plan into effect. The federal government’s promise of supplying the Indians with animals, agricultural tool...
Thornton, Russell, Matthew C Snipp, and Nancy Breen. The Cherokees: A Population History Indians of the Southeast. Lincoln, NB: University of Nebraska Press, 1990.
2. “Cherokee Culture and History.” Native Americans: Cherokee History and Culture. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Mar. 2014. .
"Choctaw" UXL Encyclopedia of Native American Tribes-Volume 1. Sharon Malinowski, Anna Sheets, Linda Schmitroth. Detroit:1994 edition
The tragedy of the Cherokee nation has haunted the legacy of Andrew Jackson"'"s Presidency. The events that transpired after the implementation of his Indian policy are indeed heinous and continually pose questions of morality for all generations. Ancient Native American tribes were forced from their ancestral homes in an effort to increase the aggressive expansion of white settlers during the early years of the United States. The most notable removal came after the Indian Removal Act of 1830. The Cherokee, whose journey was known as the '"'Trail of Tears'"', and the four other civilized tribes, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek and Seminole, were forced to emigrate to lands west of the Mississippi River, to what is now day Oklahoma, against their will. During the journey westward, over 60,000 Indians were forced from their homelands. Approximately 4000 Cherokee Indians perished during the journey due to famine, disease, and negligence. The Cherokees to traveled a vast distance under force during the arduous winter of 1838-1839.# This is one of the saddest events in American history, yet we must not forget this tragedy.
Unconcerned about the legitimacy of their actions, European colonisers took lands unjustifiably from indigenous people and put original inhabitants who had lived on the land for centuries in misery. The United States also shared similarities in dealing with native people like its distant friends in Europe. Besides the cession of vast lands, the federal government of the United States showed no pity, nor repentance for the poor Cherokee people. Theda Perdue, the author of “Cherokee Women and Trail of Tears,” unfolds the scroll of history of Cherokee nation’s resistance against the United States by analyzing the character of women in the society, criticizes that American government traumatized Cherokee nation and devastated the social order of
New Echota was the capital of the Cherokee nation from 1825 until 1832. Although it is now a historical site, it used to be a town inhabited by the Cherokee Indian tribe. At first they called it Gansagi, but they renamed it to New Echota, which means “New Town”, when it became the capitol. The Cherokee Indians that lived at New Echota were highly civilized. They also worked hard and governed themselves. The town included such things as a Council House, a Supreme Court, a print shop, a mission station, stores, churches, taverns, and houses. It even had its own newspaper called the Cherokee Phoenix, which was written in their native script and in English. New Echota was only busy when the Cherokee Council meetings were held, this also
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 were forced into giving up most of their land in the eighteenth century. Through fraudulent treaties and unjust deals the Cherokee lost close to all of their land during this time. One of the biggest loses coming from "Henderson's Purchase", in Kentucky, 1775. In an effort to stop the complete takeover of all Indian land, the Cherokees go through a transformation in order to survive in a new world. "The great Cherokee renascence of 1794-1833 was the re-birth of that people in the image of the United States, yet with a difference." (McLoughlin, Preface)
advantage of the rich black soil for farming. Corn was their main source of food,
Another language in this family is Choctaw, which doesn’t come as a surprise since the tribes are historically related. Choctaw is spoken in Oklahoma as well. In fact, Choctaw and Chickasaw languages are the most closely related languages to each other although sometimes mutually unintelligible. Many people who know Chickasaw have some knowledge of Choctaw. Alabama is also a language in the Muskogean language family primarily spoken in Texas. Muskogee, also known as Creek, is a language spoken in Oklahoma and parts of
The Cherokee Indians thrived for thousand of years in the southern part of the continent we now call the United States. They learned how to farm the land, hunt, and fish. They were a peaceful, self-sufficient people when the settlers came. With the arrival of the new inhabitants, the Cherokees soon taught them how to farm, hunt, and fish. “By the 1820s, many Cherokees had adopted some of the cultural patterns of the white settlers as well” (National Park Service, n.d.). In 1827, two leaders of the Cherokee nation devised a constitution that was based primarily on the American Constitution. “Even as Major Ridge and John Ross were planning for the future of New Echota and an educated, well-governed tribe, the state of Georgia increased its pressure on the federal government to release Cherokee lands for white settlement” (National Park Service, n.d.). Once gold was discovered in Georgia, the white settlers could not resist owning the land for themselves at any cost.
Today, however, they accept and are commonly referred by the name ‘Cherokee.’ Cherokee, or Tsalagi, as it is both spoken and written in their language, comes from a Muskogee word meaning ‘speakers of another language’ (Orrin). Before European contact, the Cherokee Indians occupied a considerable region of South Appalachia exceeding and including 40,000 square miles of mountains, valleys, and streams. The region in which the tribes settled consists of modern-day Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia. Their land was lush, fertile, healthy, and untouched by ‘modern civilization.’ The land provisioned the Cherokee with plenty of natural resources. Interspersed among the land, typically by headwaters and rivers, were Cherokee villages with circular homes of river cane, sticks, and plaster (King p.3). These thatched-roofed homes were especially unique for their chimney-like hole in the center. This land encompassed a diverse geography and thus a diverse variety of natural resources. This diversity in natural resources created a diversified economy for the
My name is Amadahy, which means forest water. I am part of the Cherokee Native American tribe and the Long Hair clan. Our village is a mix of clans. The seven clans are Long Hair, Paint, Bird, Wolf, Wild Potato, Deer, and Blue. The clan you are in is determined by which clan your mother is in. My tribe lives in North Carolina where there’s such beautiful land. There is Mountains, forests, and rivers.