Cherokee / Tsalagi

Status: Researched draft — cultural review pending

How to read this entry: Documented fact = treaty text, court record, or published scholarship (Sources). Tradition — the people's own account = Cherokee oral tradition / nation-published teaching, labelled as such. Debated / Claim = disputed point, stated as disputed. No ceremonial instructions are given; restricted knowledge is named only as restricted, or omitted. Today there are three federally recognised Cherokee governments in the United States — the Cherokee Nation and the United Keetoowah Band in Oklahoma, and the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians in North Carolina (Cherokee Nation, n.d.; U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs, tribal directory) — and this entry concerns the Cherokee people historically and collectively, not only one government.

Language

• Family. Cherokee is an Iroquoian language — the sole member of the Southern Iroquoian branch, separated geographically from the Northern Iroquoian languages of the Haudenosaunee (Mithun, 1999, The Languages of Native North America). It is polysynthetic and tonal, features documented in published grammars (Montgomery-Anderson, 2015, Cherokee Reference Grammar, University of Oklahoma Press).
• Dialects. Published linguistics distinguishes historically three major dialect areas — Lower, Middle (Kituwah) and Overhill / Western — of which Middle and Western survive as living community dialects, in North Carolina and Oklahoma respectively (Montgomery-Anderson, 2015; Cherokee Nation Language Department materials).
• Status today. UNESCO's Atlas and Cherokee nation sources classify Cherokee as endangered. Speaker counts are contested by method: a widely cited Cherokee Preservation Foundation–commissioned survey begun in 2005 counted fluent speakers in the North Carolina communities in the hundreds, most over 50, and later reporting put the Eastern Band fluent figure lower still; Oklahoma figures published by the Cherokee Nation are larger but use different criteria (Cherokee Preservation Foundation survey, reported 2005–2019; Cherokee Nation, n.d.). This entry therefore gives no single total and flags the numbers as method-dependent — a gap for cultural review.
• Revival. Documented: Cherokee Nation immersion schooling (founded 2001 as the Cherokee Language Immersion School, Tahlequah), the Eastern Band's New Kituwah Academy immersion school, master-apprentice programmes, and Unicode / phone-keyboard support for the syllabary (Cherokee Nation, n.d.; Eastern Band / Kituwah Preservation & Education Program publications).

Traditions

• Towns and governance, high level. Historically Cherokee life centred on autonomous towns with council houses, with peace ("white") and war ("red") organisations described in the classic ethnographies (Mooney, 1900, Myths of the Cherokee, Bureau of American Ethnology; Gilbert, 1943, The Eastern Cherokees). In 1827 the Cherokee Nation adopted a written constitution modelled in part on republican forms while asserting Cherokee sovereignty — a documented fact of the published constitution text (Constitution of the Cherokee Nation, 1827).
• Seasonal round. Published sources describe maize-centred agriculture, hunting, and a ceremonial cycle tied to corn, including a green-corn observance (Mooney, 1900). The content of Cherokee ceremonial practice is community knowledge and is not described here beyond that public, high-level statement.
• Tradition — the people's own account: Cherokee origin and migration accounts, and the stories collected by James Mooney from Cherokee knowledge-keepers such as Swimmer (Ayunini), are published in Mooney (1900) explicitly as Cherokee tellings recorded in the 1880s–90s; they are presented on this site as the people's own accounts, not as archaeological findings.

Treaties Particular to Them

• Treaty of Hopewell (28 November 1785). The first U.S.–Cherokee treaty. Parties: the United States and "all the Cherokees." From the text: the Cherokee acknowledged U.S. protection (Art. III) and Article IV allotted a boundary for Cherokee hunting grounds (Treaty with the Cherokee, 1785, in Kappler, 1904, Indian Affairs: Laws and Treaties, Vol. II; the Hopewell date is given as 20/28 November in different secondary records — the treaty text in Kappler is dated 28 November 1785, and the 20 November date appearing in Latimer v. Poteet, 39 U.S. 4 (1840), is a flagged discrepancy; see Weakest points).
• Treaty of Holston (2 July 1791). Parties: the United States and the Cherokee Nation. It redrew the Hopewell boundary, provided for a marked boundary surveyed by commissioners of both parties, and — in the treaty's own assimilation-era language — U.S. provision of farming implements and advice (Treaty with the Cherokee, 1791, Kappler, Vol. II; Cherokee Nation history timeline, n.d.).
• A long series of cession treaties (1804–1819 etc.) progressively reduced the eastern homeland; they are listed in Kappler, Vol. II, and should be enumerated on the site only from that record.
• Treaty of New Echota (29 December 1835) — and its contested ratification. Documented facts: signed at New Echota by a minority "Treaty Party" (including Major Ridge, John Ridge and Elias Boudinot) without authorisation from Principal Chief John Ross or the Cherokee National Council; it purported to cede all Cherokee land east of the Mississippi for $5 million and land in Indian Territory. The overwhelming majority opposed it — a protest petition bearing, by published counts, more than 15,000 Cherokee names was presented to Congress — yet the U.S. Senate ratified it in May 1836 by one vote (Treaty with the Cherokee, 1835, Kappler, Vol. II; Perdue & Green, 2007, The Cherokee Nation and the Trail of Tears; Cherokee Nation history materials). The forced removal of 1838–39 under the Indian Removal Act followed; Cherokee and U.S. sources alike record that more than 4,000 Cherokee died — published estimates vary, commonly 4,000–6,000 of roughly 16,000 removed, and the figure is debated (Thornton, 1984, "Cherokee Population Losses during the Trail of Tears," Ethnohistory; National Park Service, Trail of Tears National Historic Trail). Note also Worcester v. Georgia, 31 U.S. 515 (1832), in which the Supreme Court held Georgia law had no force in Cherokee territory — a documented holding that Georgia and the federal executive did not enforce.

Writings

• The Cherokee syllabary — Sequoyah, completed 1821. Documented fact: Sequoyah (also rendered George Gist / Guess in English sources), a Cherokee silversmith who did not read English, completed a syllabary of 85 characters (in its standard printed form), each representing a syllable of Cherokee, after roughly twelve years of work; the Cherokee National Council adopted it in 1825 (Walker & Sarbaugh, 1993, "The Early History of the Cherokee Syllabary," Ethnohistory 40(1); Cherokee Nation, n.d.). Published accounts report rapid, widespread literacy following adoption; precise literacy percentages sometimes quoted are not reliably documented and are not given here.
• Cherokee Phoenix (from 21 February 1828). The first Native American newspaper, bilingual Cherokee/English, printed at New Echota with type cast for the syllabary, edited by Elias Boudinot (Cherokee Phoenix, 1828–; Library of Congress, newspaper directory; Cherokee Nation, n.d.). Its press was seized by the Georgia Guard in 1835 (documented in Perdue, ed., 1983, Cherokee Editor: The Writings of Elias Boudinot).
• What survives, where. Syllabary manuscripts, laws and newspapers are held by, among others, the Cherokee Nation, the Museum of the Cherokee People (Cherokee, NC), the Gilcrease Museum, and the Newberry Library; the Cherokee Phoenix continues today as the Cherokee Nation's newspaper (Cherokee Nation, n.d.).

Crafts, Arts, Skills

• Rivercane basketry. Double-weave rivercane baskets are a signature documented Cherokee art, alongside white-oak and honeysuckle basketry (Museum of the Cherokee People collections; Hill, 1997, Weaving New Worlds: Southeastern Cherokee Women and Their Basketry, UNC Press).
• Agriculture. Maize, beans and squash — the Three Sisters complex shared across the Eastern Woodlands — plus sunflowers and, after contact, orchard fruit; Cherokee farmers were widely documented as adopters of plough agriculture, mills and printing in the 1820s "nation-building" period (Perdue & Green, 2007; McLoughlin, 1986, Cherokee Renascence in the New Republic).
• Other documented arts. Carving (stone and wood), pottery revival at Qualla Boundary, and blowgun making are documented in museum and nation sources (Museum of the Cherokee People, n.d.).
• Medicine / plants — historical record only. Mooney (1900) and later ethnobotanical compilations (e.g., Banks, 1953, Ethnobotany of the Cherokee Indians, MA thesis) record plants historically said to be used. Caution: traditional use as recorded historically is not proof of clinical effectiveness; this site gives no dosages, preparations, or treatment instructions, and Mooney himself noted that the formulas he recorded were knowledge-keeper material — some of it is treated as restricted by Cherokee communities today and is not reproduced here.

Sources

• Cherokee Nation (n.d.). History, Language Department, and Cherokee Phoenix pages. cherokee.org.
• Cherokee Preservation Foundation (2005– ). Cherokee language survey reporting, via Eastern Band sources.
• Constitution of the Cherokee Nation (1827). Published text.
• Gilbert, William H. (1943). The Eastern Cherokees. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 133.
• Hill, Sarah H. (1997). Weaving New Worlds. University of North Carolina Press.
• Kappler, Charles J. (1904). Indian Affairs: Laws and Treaties, Vol. II — Treaty with the Cherokee, 1785; 1791; 1835.
• McLoughlin, William G. (1986). Cherokee Renascence in the New Republic. Princeton University Press.
• Mithun, Marianne (1999). The Languages of Native North America. Cambridge University Press.
• Montgomery-Anderson, Brad (2015). Cherokee Reference Grammar. University of Oklahoma Press.
• Mooney, James (1900). Myths of the Cherokee. 19th Annual Report, Bureau of American Ethnology.
• Perdue, Theda, ed. (1983). Cherokee Editor: The Writings of Elias Boudinot. University of Tennessee Press.
• Perdue, Theda & Green, Michael D. (2007). The Cherokee Nation and the Trail of Tears. Viking / Penguin.
• Thornton, Russell (1984). "Cherokee Population Losses during the Trail of Tears: A New Perspective and a New Estimate." Ethnohistory 31(4).
• UNESCO. Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger — Cherokee entry. Accessed 2026.
• Walker, Willard & Sarbaugh, James (1993). "The Early History of the Cherokee Syllabary." Ethnohistory 40(1).
• Worcester v. Georgia, 31 U.S. 515 (1832).

Weakest-sourced points in this entry (flagged): (1) Hopewell signing date, 20 vs. 28 November 1785, in different records; (2) Trail of Tears death toll — published range 4,000–6,000, no exact count exists; (3) current fluent-speaker totals — survey methods differ between Oklahoma and North Carolina counts; (4) post-syllabary literacy rates — widely repeated, poorly documented.