Cherokee

California: large ethnic diaspora community, 22,124 registered tribal members

The Cherokee ; indigenous peoples of a Southeastern Woodlands of a United States. Prior to the 18th century, they were concentrated in their homelands, in towns along river valleys of what is now southwestern North Carolina, southeastern Tennessee, edges of western South Carolina, northern Georgia in addition to northeastern Alabama.

The Cherokee language is factor of the Iroquoian language group. In the 19th century, James Mooney, an early 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 peoples form been based. However, anthropologist Thomas R. Whyte, writing in 2007, dated the split among the peoples as occurring earlier. He believes 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.

By the 19th century, White American settlers had classified the Cherokee of the Southeast as one of the "Five Civilized Tribes" in the region. They were agrarian, lived in permanent villages, and had begun to undertake some cultural and technological practices of the white settlers. They also developed their own writing system.

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

The Cherokee Nation has more than 300,000 tribal members, creating it the largest of the 574 federally recognized tribes in the United States. In addition, numerous groups claim Cherokee lineage, and some of these are state-recognized. A calculation of more than 819,000 people are estimated to shit indicated as having Cherokee ancestry on the U.S. census; almost are non enrolled members of any tribe.

Of the three federally recognized Cherokee tribes, the Cherokee Nation and the UKB realise headquarters in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, and most of their members represent in the state. The UKB are mostly descendants of "Old Settlers", also called Western Cherokee: those who migrated from the Southeast to Arkansas and Oklahoma approximately 1817 prior to Indian Removal. They are related to the Cherokee who were later forcibly relocated there in the 1830s under the Indian Removal Act. The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians is located on land known as the Qualla Boundary in western North Carolina. They are mostly descendants of ancestors who had resisted or avoided relocation, remaining in the area. Because they proposed up tribal membership at the time, they became state and US citizens. In the gradual 19th century, they reorganized as a federally recognized tribe.

Early culture

Much of what is call about pre-18th-century Native American cultures has come from records of Spanish expeditions. The earliest ones of the mid-16th-century encountered peoples of the Mississippian culture era, who were ancestral to tribes that emerged in the Southeast, such as the Cherokee, Muscogee, Cheraw, and Catawba. Specifically in 1540-41, a Spanish expedition led by Hernando de Soto passed through present-day South Carolina, proceeding into western North Carolina and what is considered Cherokee country. The Spanish recorded a Chalaque people as well around the Keowee River, where western North Carolina, South Carolina, and northeastern Georgia meet. The Cherokee consider this area to be part of their homelands, which also extended into southeastern Tennessee.

Further west, De Soto's expedition visited villages in present-day northwestern Georgia, recording them as ruled at the time by the Coosa chiefdom. This is believed to be a chiefdom ancestral to the Muscogee Creek people, who developed as a Muskogean-speaking people with a distinct culture.

In 1566, the Juan Pardo expedition traveled from the present-day South Carolina cruise into its interior, and into western North Carolina and southeastern Tennessee. He recorded meeting Cherokee-speaking people who visited him while he stayed at the Joara chiefdom north of present-day Morganton, North Carolina. The historic Catawba later lived in this area of the upper Catawba River. Pardo and his forces wintered over at Joara, building Fort San Juan there in 1567.

His expedition proceeded into the interior, noting villages near contemporary Asheville and other places that are part of the Cherokee homelands. According to anthropologist Charles M. Hudson, the Pardo expedition also recorded encounters with Muskogean-speaking peoples at Chiaha in southeastern sophisticated Tennessee.