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Dragging Canoe was a Cherokee red chief who led a band of Cherokee warriors who resisted colonists and United States settlers in the Upper South. During the American Revolution and afterward, Dragging Canoe's forces were sometimes joined by Upper Muskogee, Chickasaw, Shawnee, and Indians from other tribes, along with British Loyalists, and agents of France and Spain. The Cherokee American Wars lasted more than a decade after the end of the American Revolutionary War.
The Treaty of New Echota was a treaty signed on December 29, 1835, in New Echota, Georgia, by officials of the United States government and representatives of a minority Cherokee political faction, the Treaty Party.
Willstown was an important Cherokee town of the late 18th and early 19th century, located in the southwesternmost part of the Cherokee Nation, in what is now DeKalb County, Alabama. It was near Lookout or Little Wills Creek. It was in Wills Valley, which also incorporated Big Wills Creek. This was within the territory of the Lower Creek, who had crossed into this area in an effort to avoid European-American encroachment.
Black Fox, also called Enola, was a Cherokee leader during the Cherokee–American wars. He was a signatory of the Holston Treaty, and later became a Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation.
Attakullakulla was an influential Cherokee leader and the tribe's First Beloved Man, serving from 1761 to around 1775. His son was Dragging Canoe, the first leader of the Chickamauga faction of the Cherokee tribes.
William Potter Ross, also known as Will Ross, was the Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation 1866-1867 and 1872-1875. Born to a Scottish father and a mixed-blood Cherokee mother, he was raised in a bilingual home. Ross attended English-speaking schools. He attended Princeton University, where he graduated first in his class in 1844.
Lewis Downing, also known by his Cherokee name ᎷᏫ ᏌᏩᎾᏍᎩ ("Lewie-za-wau-na-skie") served as Chief of the Cherokee Nation from 1867 to 1872. After the death of John Ross, he was a compromise candidate who was elected to a full term as Principal Chief. Downing worked to heal divisions in the tribe following removal to the Indian Territory and the American Civil War. He was elected to a second term in 1871, but died in 1872, after a two-week battle with pneumonia. The Cherokee Council chose William P. Ross as his successor.
The Cherokee–American wars, also known as the Chickamauga Wars, were a series of raids, campaigns, ambushes, minor skirmishes, and several full-scale frontier battles in the Old Southwest from 1776 to 1794 between the Cherokee and American settlers on the frontier. Most of the events took place in the Upper South region. While the fighting stretched across the entire period, there were extended periods with little or no action.
This is a timeline of events in the history of the Cherokee Nation, from its earliest appearance in historical records to modern court cases in the United States. Some basic content about the removal of other southeastern tribes to lands west of the Mississippi River is included. In a series of treaties, these tribes ceded land to the United States.
Old Tassel — Reyetaeh in Cherokee language, Koatohee, sometimes Corntassel — was "First Beloved Man" of the Overhill Cherokee after 1783, when the United States gained independence from Great Britain. He worked to try to keep the Cherokee people of the Overhill region out of the Cherokee–American wars being fought between the European-American frontiersmen and the Chickamauga band warriors led by Dragging Canoe. He was murdered in 1788 along with another chief at Chilhowee by white settlers under a flag of truce.
Doublehead (1744–1807) or Incalatanga, was one of the most feared warriors of the Cherokee during the Cherokee–American wars. Following the peace treaty at the Tellico Blockhouse in 1794, he served as one of the leaders of the Chickamauga Cherokee, and he was chosen as the leader of Chickamauga in 1802.
John Watts, also known as Young Tassel, was one of the leaders of the Chickamauga Cherokee during the Cherokee–American wars. Watts became particularly active in the fighting after frontiersmen murdered his uncle, Old Tassel Carpenter (1708–1788), in 1788, while he traveled with Cherokee delegates to a peace conference.
Turtle-at-Home, or Selukuki Wohelengh, was a Cherokee warrior and leader, brother and chief lieutenant of Dragging Canoe, a war-chief in the Cherokee–American wars.
Tsali was a noted leader of the Cherokee during two different periods of the history of the tribe. As a young man, Tsali joined the Chickamauga faction of the Cherokee in the late 18th century, and became a leader in the fight against the American frontiersmen and their constant expansion into tribal lands. Later In 1812, he became known as The Prophet, and urged the Cherokee to ally with the Shawnee warrior, Tecumseh, in war against the Americans. Two decades later, in what seemed a fulfilment of his earlier prophecy, he resisted the forced removal of the Native Americans from their mountainous, western North Carolina towns, and as a result, a large following of like-minded Cherokee gathered to him. Following Tsali's martyrdom, the three hundred fugitive followers of his that remained free after his sacrifice became the forebears of some 14,000 registered members of the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Indians living today in the Qualla Boundary.
The Cherokee people of the southeastern United States, and later Oklahoma and surrounding areas, have a long military history. Since European contact, Cherokee military activity has been documented in European records. Cherokee tribes and bands had a number of conflicts during the 18th century with Europeans, primarily British colonists from the Southern Colonies. The Eastern Band and Cherokees from the Indian Territory fought in the American Civil War, with bands allying with the Union or the Confederacy. Because many Cherokees allied with the Confederacy, the United States government required a new treaty with the nation after the war. Cherokees have also served in the United States military during the 20th and 21st centuries.
Cherokee history is the written and oral lore, traditions, and historical record maintained by the living Cherokee people and their ancestors. In the 21st century, leaders of the Cherokee people define themselves as those persons enrolled in one of the three federally recognized Cherokee tribes: The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, The Cherokee Nation, and The United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians.
The Cherokee Nation was a legal, autonomous, tribal government in North America recognized from 1794 to 1907. It was often referred to simply as "The Nation" by its inhabitants. The government was effectively disbanded in 1907, after its land rights had been extinguished, prior to the admission of Oklahoma as a state. During the late 20th century, the Cherokee people reorganized, instituting a government with sovereign jurisdiction known as the Cherokee Nation. On July 9, 2020, the United States Supreme Court ruled that the Muscogee (Creek) Nation had never been disestablished in the years before allotment and Oklahoma Statehood.
The Chickamauga Cherokee were a Native American group that separated from the greater body of the Cherokee during the American Revolutionary War and up to the early 1800s.
The historic Cherokee settlements were Cherokee settlements established in Southeastern North America up to the removals of the early 19th century. Several settlements had existed prior to and were initially contacted by explorers and colonists of the colonial powers as they made inroads into frontier areas. Others were established later.