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Chenoweth English III 10 October 2011 Cherokee Indians The Cherokee are a Native American people that historically lived in the Southeast of the United States. There is dispute among researches and academic specialists about the origins of the Cherokee. One proposal states that the Cherokee had not settled in Southeastern portion of the United States until the late prehistoric times. This proposal is backed by recorded conversations of Cherokee elders recounting oral traditions of the Cherokee peoples migrating south from the Great Lakes area in prehistoric times. Another theory proposes that the Cherokee had been in the area for thousands of years already; no migration happened; this theory is very disputed by academic specialists. Yet another theory states that the Cherokee people did migrate, but didnt do so until around the 13th century. Whatever the case, the Cherokee are a people with a very rich history. The first recorded contact between the Cherokee and outsiders was in 1540, when a Spanish expedition passed through Cherokee country. This first contact was riddled with misfortune; diseases that were brought by the exploring Spaniards killed off many in the Cherokee tribe. A century later, the first English contact was made in 1654. The English settlers were fighting the Powhatan Confederacy, and stumbled upon Cherokees that were living in

Shih 2 abandoned Powhatan lands in Virginia. The English colonists engaged the Cherokees, but the Cherokees held their ground and emerged victorious. The 18th century was a very violent century for the Cherokee. From 1710-1715 the Cherokee, allied with the Chickasaw tribe and the British, fought the Shawnee tribe, who were allied with the French. The result of the war forced the Shawnee to move north. During this time period, the Cherokee was also fighting against the Tuscarora people in the Second Tuscarora War. Then in 1716, the Cherokee found themselves entering the Yamasee War. This war ended the following year as a result of a peace treaty. From 1753 to 1755, the Cherokee and the Muscogee engaged in constant battles; they were fighting over hunting grounds in North Georgia. In 1756 the Cherokees fought alongside their British allies in the French and Indian War, but serious misunderstandings between the allies resulted in the 1760 Anglo-Cherokee War. In 1776, the Cherokee and the Shawnee attacked settlers in Georgia, Washington DC, Virginia, and North and South Carolina in what became the Second Cherokee War. The European-American militias retaliated, and ended up destroying over 50 Cherokee towns. In 1777, most of the remaining Cherokee town leaders signed peace treaties with the states. In the 19th century, the Cherokee and other tribes were heavily and permanently affected by the rapidly expanding white population. In 1815, the US government created a Cherokee Reservation in Arkansas, in order to convince the Cherokee to migrate voluntarily. In 1830, the Indian Removal Act was signed into law. The law was created in order to make room for the rapidly expanding population of the United States. While in theory, Native American removal was supposed to be voluntary, the reality of things was very different. Great pressure was subjected onto the leaders of the Native Americans, forcing them to sign removal treaties. This resulted in the inevitable removal of most Indians from the states. As a result, massive amount of

Shih 3 Native Americans were forced to migrate from their homeland to Indian Territory. This migration and relocation is known as the Trail of Tears. It is named this way because many Native Americans on the forced migration suffered from exposure, disease, and starvation. A whopping 4000 of the 15000 (about 27%) relocated Cherokee died en route to their destination. Because of the mass amount of deaths, the forced migration has also been referred to as a death march. Some Cherokee chose to evade the forced migration by separating into another group called the East Band of Cherokee Indians. The band consisted of Cherokees that William Thomas helped rescue, Cherokees that hid from federal troops in the mountains, and mixedblood Cherokees that stayed on reserves as citizens of the states that the reserves were located in. As if the Trail of Tears wasnt bad enough, the American Civil War also devastated the Cherokees. The Cherokees were split into confederate and Union factions as a result of the war. The Cherokee are a very culturally rich people. They had their own societal structure and organization. An American writer John Payne published papers about Cherokee culture and society. In his papers, he described Cherokee elders recounting a traditional two-part societal structure. The first part was the white group. This organization consisted of elders that represented the seven clans. This hereditary group was responsible for religious activities, such as healing, purification, and prayer. The other group was the red group. This organization consisted of younger men, and they were responsible for warfare. Warfare was viewed as a polluting activity by the Cherokee, however, and thus these warriors were required to be purified by the white organization before the warriors can return to normal life after participating in combat. This hierarchy, however, ceased to exist long before the dawn of the 18th century. Some researchers and historians believe that the abolishment of this hierarchy resulted from a revolt against the abuses of the priestly class. After the hierarchy was abolished, the structure of the

Shih 4 Cherokee religious practitioners became more informal, and was based on individual knowledge and ability rather than heredity. The Cherokee participated in seven sacred ceremonies. There were seven, because seven is an important number in Cherokee culture. The number seven represented the seven directions: north, south, east, west, above, below, and here in the center the place of the sacred fire. The other number was four, which represented the four primary directions. The ceremonies that the Cherokees participated in were mostly annual; six of the seven ceremonies took place annually, the seventh ceremony was celebrated every seventh year. These ceremonies consisted of dancing, fasting, and feasting, sometimes also including purification. The first ceremony was the First New Moon of Spring Ceremony. It celebrated the first new moon of March. This festival marked the beginning of the planting season and included predictions of crop success and failure. The second ceremony was the Green Corn Ceremony in August. The ceremony took place when the new corn was ripe enough to eat. The third ceremony was the Ripe Corn Ceremony held in late September. It celebrated the maturing of the corn crop. The fourth ceremony was the Great Moon Ceremony, which took place in October when the new moon appeared. This ceremony represented the New Year celebration. The fifth ceremony was the Friends Made ceremony. This ceremony dealt with relationships between two people of the same or opposite sex. It celebrated these relationships. The sixth ceremony was the Bounding Bush ceremony. From the few details known about the ceremony, it is said to be a non-religious ceremony, and was celebrated by feasting and dancing. Every seventh year, the Uku Dance would replace the Great Moon Ceremony, effectively being the seventh ceremony. It was a celebration led by the Chief in order to give thanks and rejoice. The Cherokee were flexible when it came to marriage. Polygamy was common before the

Shih 5 19th century, and couples could divorce freely. Marriage between Cherokees and non-Cherokees was also common, but quite complicated. A European-American could legally marry a Cherokee woman by obtaining 10 approvals from blood relatives of the woman, and using that to petition the federal court. The Cherokee spoke Cherokee, a Southern Iroquoian language. It is the only Southern Iroquoian language that is still spoken today. The Cherokee language is a very complex language, and is characterized by soft sounds. It also once had 3 dialects, with the Lower dialect becoming extinct around 1900. The Middle Dialect is spoken by the Eastern Band, and the Overhill dialect is spoken in Oklahoma. The Cherokee also had an innovative writing system that was invented by the Cherokee scholar Sequoyah. The writing system is a syllabary, which means one character represents each syllable (think Japanese, a modern syllabary language). The Cherokee had their own specific fashion. Traditionally the men wore breechcloths and leggings, the women wore wraparound skirts and poncho-style blouses, made of woven fiver or deerskin. For footwear, the Cherokees wore moccasins. The Cherokee also didnt wear the long headdresses that we stereotypically associate with Native Americans. The Cherokee men usually shaved their heads, except for a single scalplock. They would also sometimes wear a porcupine roach. The women always had long hair, cutting it only when mourning for a family member. The men decorated their faces and bodies with tribal tattoo art and also painted themselves with bright colors during war. The women of the Cherokee didnt paint themselves or have tattoos. They wore bead necklaces and copper armbands instead. After colonization, the Cherokee adapted European wear. They began wearing long braided/beaded jackets, cotton blouses and full skirts with ribbon, feathered turbans, and calico tear dresses. The Cherokee were a farming tribe. Their diet consisted of corn, beans, squash,

Shih 6 sunflowers, berries, nuts, fruit, deer, wild turkeys, small game, bear and fish. In order to hunt, the men made lots of tools and weapons. These weapons included tomahawks and blowguns and bows and arrows. In order to move around and hunt, the Cherokee made long dugout canoes out of hollowed logs. They also used dogs as pack animals while traveling over land. Cherokee dishes included cornbread, and soups and stews. They would have one large garden where they grew all their beans, corn, squash, pumpkins, and sunflowers. The Cherokee also had their own arts and crafts. Traditional art included pipe carving, river cane baskets, gourd art, and pottery. Most of the arts and crafts were made by the women.

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Works Cited "Cherokee." Cherokee. Web. 9 Oct. 2011. <http://www.mce.k12tn.net/indians/reports1/cherokee2.htm>. "Cherokee Indian Fact Sheet." Facts for Kids: Cherokee Indians (Cherokees). Web. 6 Oct. 2011. <http://www.bigorrin.org/cherokee_kids.htm>. Kissock, Heather, and Rachel Small. Cherokee: American Indian Art and Culture. New York: Weigl, 2011. Print. McLoughlin, William Gerald. After the Trail of Tears: the Cherokees' Struggle for Sovereignty, 1839-1880. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 1993. Print. Wood, Rob. "The Seven Ceremonies." The Seven Ceremonies. Powersource. Web. 8 Oct. 2011. <http://www.powersource.com/cocinc/ceremony/seven.htm>.