Cherokee People

The Cherokee are a Native American people historically settled in the Southeastern United States  Georgia, North and South Carolinas and Eastern Tennessee). Linguistically, they are part of the Iroquoian-language family. In the 19th century, historians and ethnographers recorded their oral tradition that told of the tribe having migrated south in ancient times from the Great Lakes region, where other Iroquoian-speaking peoples were located. 

In the 19th century, white settlers in the United States called the Cherokees one of the "Five Civilized Tribes", because they had assimilated numerous cultural and technological practices of European-American settlers. According to the 2000 U.S. Census, the Cherokee Nation has more than 300,000 members, the largest of the 563 federally recognized Native American tribes in the United States. Of the three federally recognized Cherokee tribes, the Cherokee Nation and the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians have headquarters in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. They were forcibly relocated there in the 1830s. The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians is located in Cherokee, North Carolina.

There are two prevailing views about Cherokee origins. One is that the Cherokees are relative latecomers to Southern Appalachia, who may have migrated in late prehistoric times from northern areas, the traditional territory of the Haudenosaunee and other Iroquoian-language people. Researchers in the 19th century talked to elders who recounted an oral tradition of the people's migrating south from the Great Lakes region in ancient times. The other theory is that they had been there for thousands of years.

Some traditionalists, historians and archaeologists believe that Cherokees did not come to Appalachia until the 13th or centuries. They may have migrated from the north and moved south into Muscogee Creek territory and settled at the sites of mounds built by Muscogee ancestors. Initially, archeologists had mistakenly attributed several Mississippian culture sites to the Cherokee, including Moundville and Etowah Mounds. Late 20th century studies have shown instead that the sites are unquestionably related to Muscogeean peoples. Precontact Cherokees are considered to be part of the Pisgah Phase of Southern Appalachia, which lasted from circa 1000 to 1500.

The other possibility is that Cherokee people have lived in western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee for a far longer period of time. During the late Archaic and Woodland Period, Indians in the region began to cultivate plants such as marsh elder, lambsquarters, pigweed, sunflowers and some native squash. People began building mounds, created new art forms like shell gorgets, adopted new technologies, and followed an elaborate cycle of religious ceremonies. During the Mississippian Culture period (800 to 1500 CE), local women developed a new variety of maize called eastern flint. It closely resembled modern corn and produced larger crops. The successful cultivation of corn surpluses allowed the rise of larger, more complex villages with concentrated populations during the Mississippian-culture period. Because of its importance, corn was central to several religious ceremonies, especially the Green Corn Ceremony.

Cherokee removal start and where did it end.