Cherokee

The Cherokee language is part of the Iroquoian language group.

Cherokee (ᏣᎳᎩ ᎦᏬᏂᎯᏍᏗ, Tsalagi Gawonihisdi ) is an endangered to moribund Iroquoian language and the native language of the Cherokee people.

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

The Cherokee Nation (Cherokee: ᏣᎳᎩᎯ ᎠᏰᎵ, Tsalagihi Ayeli or ᏣᎳᎩᏰᎵ "Tsalagiyehli"), also known as the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, is the largest of three Cherokee federally recognized tribes in the United States.

Prior to the 18th century, they were concentrated in what is now southwestern North Carolina, southeastern Tennessee, edges of western South Carolina, northeastern Georgia and northeastern Alabama.

Among the historical tribes of Native American people living in present-day Alabama at the time of European contact were the Cherokee, an Iroquoian language people; and the Muskogean-speaking Alabama (Alibamu), Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Koasati.

Prior to the 18th century, they were concentrated in what is now southwestern North Carolina, southeastern Tennessee, edges of western South Carolina, northeastern Georgia and northeastern Alabama.

Some accounts suggest it is a Cherokee modification of an earlier Yuchi word.

By the 19th century, European settlers in the United States classified the Cherokee of the Southeast as one of the "Five Civilized Tribes", because they were agrarian and lived in permanent villages and began to adopt some cultural and technological practices of the European American settlers.

It refers to five Native American nations—the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek (Muscogee), and Seminole.

They are related to the Cherokee who were later forcibly relocated there in the 1830s under the Indian Removal Act.

Cherokee removal, part of the Trail of Tears, refers to the forced relocation between 1836 and 1839 of the Cherokee Nation and their roughly 1,600 black slaves from their lands in Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Alabama to the Indian Territory (present day Oklahoma) in the then Western United States, and the resultant deaths along the way and at the end of the movement of an estimated 4,000 Cherokee.

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

The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI), (Cherokee: ᏣᎳᎩᏱ ᏕᏣᏓᏂᎸᎩ, Tsalagiyi Detsadanilvgi) is a federally recognized Native American tribe in the United States, who are descended from the small group of 800 Cherokee who remained in the Eastern United States after the Indian Removal Act moved the other 15,000 Cherokee to the west in the 19th century.

Prior to the 18th century, they were concentrated in what is now southwestern North Carolina, southeastern Tennessee, edges of western South Carolina, northeastern Georgia and northeastern Alabama.

Historically documented tribes in the North Carolina region include the Carolina Algonquian-speaking tribes of the coastal areas, such as the Chowanoke, Roanoke, Pamlico, Machapunga, Coree, and Cape Fear Indians, who were the first encountered by the English; the Iroquoian-speaking Meherrin, Cherokee, and Tuscarora of the interior; and Southeastern Siouan tribes, such as the Cheraw, Waxhaw, Saponi, Waccamaw, and Catawba.

In the 19th century, James Mooney, an 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-speaking peoples lived; however, anthropologist Thomas R. Whyte writes 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.

James Mooney (February 10, 1861 – December 22, 1921) was an American ethnographer who lived for several years among the Cherokee.

Of the three federally recognized Cherokee tribes, the Cherokee Nation and the UKB have headquarters in Tahlequah, Oklahoma.

It is part of the Green Country region of Oklahoma and was established as a capital of the 19th-century Cherokee Nation in 1839, as part of the new settlement in Indian Territory after the Cherokee Native Americans were forced west from the American Southeast on the Trail of Tears.

The Iroquois Five Nations based in New York have historically called the Cherokee Oyata'ge'ronoñ ("inhabitants of the cave country"). One is that the Cherokee, an Iroquoian-speaking people, are relative latecomers to Southern Appalachia, who may have migrated in late prehistoric times from northern areas around the Great Lakes, the traditional territory of the Haudenosaunee nations and other Iroquoian-speaking peoples.

In addition, Cherokee is an Iroquoian language: the Cherokee people are believed to have migrated south from the Great Lakes in ancient times, settling in the backcountry of the Southeast United States, including what is now Tennessee.

In the 19th century, James Mooney, an 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-speaking peoples lived; however, anthropologist Thomas R. Whyte writes 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.

At the time of first European contact, speakers of Iroquoian languages ranged from the Cherokee in the Great Smoky Mountains, to the Tuscarora and Nottoway near the modern Virginia/North Carolina border, then further north the Five Nations in Upstate New York and the Huron and Neutral in modern-day Ontario.

In the 19th century, European-American settlers mistakenly attributed several Mississippian culture sites in Georgia to the Cherokee, including Moundville and Etowah Mounds.

In the 19th century, European-American settlers mistakenly believed that the mounds had been built by the historic Cherokee, who occupied the region at the time.

The Cherokee (ᎠᏂᏴᏫᏯ, or ᏣᎳᎩ) are one of the indigenous people of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States.

One is that the Cherokee, an Iroquoian-speaking people, are relative latecomers to Southern Appalachia, who may have migrated in late prehistoric times from northern areas around the Great Lakes, the traditional territory of the Haudenosaunee nations and other Iroquoian-speaking peoples.

By the time English explorers arrived in Appalachia in the late 17th century, the central part of the region was controlled by Algonquian tribes (namely the Shawnee) and the southern part of the region was controlled by the Cherokee.

The American writer John Howard Payne wrote about pre-19th-century Cherokee culture and society.

After his return to the United States, Payne spent time with the Cherokee Indians.

Another major source of early cultural history comes from materials written in the 19th century by the didanvwisgi, Cherokee medicine men, after Sequoyah's creation of the Cherokee syllabary in the 1820s.

undefined1770–1843), was a Native American polymath of the Cherokee Nation.

The Cherokee have claimed the ancient settlement of Kituwa on the Tuckasegee River as the original Cherokee settlement in the Southeast.

The Cherokee believe the ancient settlement of Kituwa (also spelled Kituwah, Keetoowah, Kittowa, Kitara and other similar variations) or giduwa (Cherokee:ᎩᏚᏩ), on the Tuckasegee River is their original settlement and is one of the "seven mother towns" in the Southeast.

The earliest ones of the mid-16th-century encountered people of the Mississippian culture, the ancestors to later tribes in the Southeast such as the Muscogee and Catawba.

These were primarily the tribes of different language families: the Iroquois, who ranged south from the Great Lakes area and New York; the Algonquian Shawnee and Lenape (Delaware); and the Iroquoian Cherokee, who fought for control over the large Ohio Valley (including what is in present-day West Virginia).

In January 1716, Cherokee murdered a delegation of Muscogee Creek leaders at the town of Tugaloo, marking their entry into the Yamasee War.

Tugaloo was a Cherokee town on the Tugaloo River, at the mouth of Toccoa Creek, near present-day Toccoa, Georgia and Travelers Rest in Stephens County, Georgia.

In 1730, at Nikwasi, a former Mississippian culture site, a Scots adventurer, Sir Alexander Cuming, crowned Moytoy of Tellico as "Emperor" of the Cherokee.

Nikwasi (also Nequasee, Nucassee) comes from the Cherokee word for "star", Noquisi (No-kwee-shee), and is the site of the Cherokee town which is first found in colonial records in the early 18th century, but is much older.

Some historians believe the decline in priestly power originated with a revolt by the Cherokee against the abuses of the priestly class known as the Ani-kutani.

The Ani-kutani were the ancient priesthood of the Cherokee people.

In January 1716, Cherokee murdered a delegation of Muscogee Creek leaders at the town of Tugaloo, marking their entry into the Yamasee War.

The Yamassee War was a conflict fought in South Carolina from 1715–1717 between British settlers from the Province of Carolina and the Yamasee and a number of other allied Native American peoples, including the Muscogee, Cherokee, Catawba, Apalachee, Apalachicola, Yuchi, Savannah River Shawnee, Congaree, Waxhaw, Pee Dee, Cape Fear, Cheraw, and others.

Prior to the 18th century, they were concentrated in what is now southwestern North Carolina, southeastern Tennessee, edges of western South Carolina, northeastern Georgia and northeastern Alabama.

At the time Europeans arrived, marking the end of the Pre-Columbian era around 1600, there were many separate Native American tribes, the largest being the Cherokee, and the Catawba, and the total population being up to 20,000.

Cuming arranged to take seven prominent Cherokee, including Attakullakulla, to London, England.

1708–1777) was an influential Cherokee leader and the tribe's First Beloved Man, serving from 1761 to around 1775.