How Did The Cherokee Influence On American Culture

When the earliest explorers came to America, wherever they settled, they always influenced the culture of most native people. Cherokees like any other natives had their own culture and lived in an organized lifestyle. Early before the whites came, the Cherokees used to have a culture well organized that governed their aspect of life. Also, despite the white man’s influence, Cherokees had a form of education, language, economy, political systems and a lived in a geographical locality. The widespread impact of the white man prompted the Cherokees to change and integrate their lives to that of the white man. They did it by only adopting those elements that complimented their previous way of life. The Cherokees changed the following aspects of

their culture; education, language, economic activities, embraced technology, political system, way of worship and the geographical location.
Education
In an aim to restore the fate of the Indians system of education, the federal government took responsibility to build up schools and offer health services.

The education provided was used as a means to change the people's way of thinking and change their ways of life. Previously it was intended to bring a shift of the people from being hunters and gathers to being farmers. The government later introduced policies that offered conditional land surrender in exchange for an education. Regardless of the Cherokee not embracing the new regime their education system was improved, and it expanded rapidly. To showcase the new regime, they started to publish newspapers and books in the native language. A Cherokee nation established institutes of higher education and some elementary schools. Due to its literacy expansion, it gained a remarkable education system, it was envied by many forcing even the whites around the area to take their children in Cherokee schools. To deal with the new form of education of the native loyalists, Cherokee, especially those from the British traders and Cherokee women refused to take their children to the existing schools such as to the mission

schools.
Shift from tradition to Christianity.
To make the native more civilized, the government sent missionaries to the Cherokee Nation. The missionaries built schools so that they can induce changes to the younger generation. As soon as they came into the daily encounter with the missionaries, the Cherokees slowly started to adopt some aspects of Christianity from the missionaries. After a while, the Missionaries succeeded in transforming the younger generations. Those educated regarded the old traditions as old-fashioned ways. In a belief that this new religion would help them to become more civilized and would make them superior to their elders the following generation adopted it. In 1800 almost all the Cherokees had accepted the Christians’ strong wish to build a school. Having their tradition to follow, Cherokees for many years stayed uninterested in being associated with Christianity (Perdue & Green,2005).
Language
The Cherokee people, early before the white man invasion, had an immense language that had a command of their lives.

Their language made it easier to accept traditions and be unified at all times. It is also at this point where the Cherokees syllabary was invented by Sequoyah. This syllabary enabled them to read and write their language with ease. It is through this syllabary that Sequoyah was able to transform the Cherokee from a native oral culture into a literary culture that can read and write. This introduction made it possible for the writing of a Constitution and publishing of newspapers. Cherokee Phoenix, a newspaper was then published in Cherokee Native

language.
Politics
Humans, despite their level of civilization saw the need to have laws that would govern the way they interacted with one another. Cherokee also had an established form of government. They had oral law suits that were well known by the community and the members of the tribe. Their laws were on a foundation of ideals perseverance and sacrifice which were not documented. Some of these rules governed marriage, conflict resolution, and wars. Despite having no judicial system, the community acknowledged what was right and wrong in the community. On the other side, the whites had a concrete documented form of laws which they used to the advantage of the Cherokees who had nothing to show as evidence of their laws and rights. As they interacted with whites, Cherokees realized that to protect their nation they had to transform their governance. With the urgent need to maintain sovereignty and adjust to the white’s way of ruling they developed stronger, unifying form of government. In a means to solidifying their rule, an English legal code was written and made official in 1808. The Cherokee existing laws were not that much evolving to precisely eliminate the white from controlling their rights and land. To curb this, they opted for a constitution, which was similar to that of the Americans in 1927. The newly written constitution declared Cherokee as a nation by itself, distinct from that of Americans .it also gave them rights distinct from that of the American Constitution. Further, in 1829, Cherokee brought into existence the law of death penalty. The law barred grabbing of lands without permission. Despite this law being in place the white still held land from the blacks. The holding of the property contributed to the adoption of a centralized government. By 1827, they had adopted, a copy of Americans government and had divided it into bicameral legislative bodies of the state. In the formation of this form of government, the Native Americans did not accurately imitate that of the Americans because they had in mind the need to protect their nation whose land was being bought by the whites. By concentrating the power under one single authority, they only gave officials authority to sell the property. Purposely motivated the Cherokee leaders were trying to ensure their Nation’s survival.
Economy
Cherokee inhabitants used to sell and buying to obtain goods that they fell short of from nearby existing native tribes. They also had a sustained economy boosted by agriculture that continuously supplied their food demands. They also supplemented their food needs through hunting activities by 1835, Cherokee communities had farms under crop production mostly corn this is an indicator to confident that Cherokee had a real working economy. When the whites came, they started to interfere with the land lowing the economy of the Cherokee nation.
Geography
Cherokees initially inhabited large portions of land in the United States. They covered most areas of Arkansas, Tennessee, and Georgia. During rivalry French and the Indian wars of (1756-63) together with outbreaks of diseases, the Cherokee large population was reduced. Their reduction in numbers resulted in them being evicted and displaced to other areas. Their cut in numbers made them vulnerable to the white who forced them to move further from their original lands. As discussed above Cherokee adapted to white culture in several ways, such as they adopted the same type of clothing, adopted Christianity, did farming and kept livestock, had their written language and a written Constitution that guided them.