My Opera
The Cherokee
Saturday, May 24, 2008 11:41:52 PM
The Cherokee ( ah-ni-yv-wi-ya {Unicode: ᎠᏂᏴᏫᏯ} in the Cherokee language) are a native people from North America, who at the time of European contact in the sixteenth century, inhabited what is now the Eastern and Southeastern United States. Most were forcibly moved westward to the Ozark Plateau in the 1830s. They are one of the tribes referred to as the Five Civilized Tribes. According to the 2000 U.S. Census, they are the largest of the 563 federally recognized Native American tribes in the United States.
The Cherokee refer to themselves as Tsa-la-gi (pronounced "chaw-la-gee") or A-ni-yv-wi-ya (pronounced "ah knee yuh wee yaw", literal translation: "Principle People"). In 1654, the Powhatan were referring to this people as the Rickahockan. The word "Cherokee" may have originally been derived from the Choctaw trade language[citation needed] word "Cha-la-kee" which means "those who live in the mountains" – or (also Choctaw) "Chi-luk-ik-bi" meaning "those who live in the caves".[citation needed] The Cherokee were called "Alligewi" by the Delawares.[citation needed] Iroquois called them Oyata’ge'ronoñ', "inhabitants of the cave country"
Cherokees were displaced from their ancestral lands in northern Georgia and the Carolinas in a period of rapidly expanding white population. Some of the rapid expansion was due to a gold rush around Dahlonega, Georgia in the 1830s. Various official reasons for the removal were given. One official argument was that the Cherokee were not efficiently using their land and the land should be given to white farmers. Others suggest that President Andrew Jackson's reasons for this removal policy were humanitarian. Jackson said that the policy was an effort to prevent the Cherokee from facing the fate of "the Mohegan, the Narragansett, and the Delaware". However there is ample evidence that the Cherokee were adapting modern farming techniques, and a modern analysis shows that the area was in general in a state of economic surplus.
Despite a Supreme Court ruling in their favor, many in the Cherokee Nation were forcibly relocated West, a migration known as the Trail of Tears or in Cherokee Nunna Daul Tsunny (Cherokee:The Trail Where They Cried). This took place during the Indian Removal Act of 1830, although as of 1883, the Cherokee were the last large southern Indian tribe to be removed. Even so, the harsh treatment the Cherokee received at the hands of white settlers caused some to enroll to emigrate west.
Samuel Carter, author of Cherokee Sunset, writes: "Then… there came the reign of terror. From the jagged-walled stockades the troops fanned out across the Nation, invading every hamlet, every cabin, rooting out the inhabitants at bayonet point. The Cherokees hardly had time to realize what was happening as they were prodded like so many sheep toward the concentration camps, threatened with knives and pistols, beaten with rifle butts if they resisted."
The Cherokee refer to themselves as Tsa-la-gi (pronounced "chaw-la-gee") or A-ni-yv-wi-ya (pronounced "ah knee yuh wee yaw", literal translation: "Principle People"). In 1654, the Powhatan were referring to this people as the Rickahockan. The word "Cherokee" may have originally been derived from the Choctaw trade language[citation needed] word "Cha-la-kee" which means "those who live in the mountains" – or (also Choctaw) "Chi-luk-ik-bi" meaning "those who live in the caves".[citation needed] The Cherokee were called "Alligewi" by the Delawares.[citation needed] Iroquois called them Oyata’ge'ronoñ', "inhabitants of the cave country"
Cherokees were displaced from their ancestral lands in northern Georgia and the Carolinas in a period of rapidly expanding white population. Some of the rapid expansion was due to a gold rush around Dahlonega, Georgia in the 1830s. Various official reasons for the removal were given. One official argument was that the Cherokee were not efficiently using their land and the land should be given to white farmers. Others suggest that President Andrew Jackson's reasons for this removal policy were humanitarian. Jackson said that the policy was an effort to prevent the Cherokee from facing the fate of "the Mohegan, the Narragansett, and the Delaware". However there is ample evidence that the Cherokee were adapting modern farming techniques, and a modern analysis shows that the area was in general in a state of economic surplus.
Despite a Supreme Court ruling in their favor, many in the Cherokee Nation were forcibly relocated West, a migration known as the Trail of Tears or in Cherokee Nunna Daul Tsunny (Cherokee:The Trail Where They Cried). This took place during the Indian Removal Act of 1830, although as of 1883, the Cherokee were the last large southern Indian tribe to be removed. Even so, the harsh treatment the Cherokee received at the hands of white settlers caused some to enroll to emigrate west.
Samuel Carter, author of Cherokee Sunset, writes: "Then… there came the reign of terror. From the jagged-walled stockades the troops fanned out across the Nation, invading every hamlet, every cabin, rooting out the inhabitants at bayonet point. The Cherokees hardly had time to realize what was happening as they were prodded like so many sheep toward the concentration camps, threatened with knives and pistols, beaten with rifle butts if they resisted."
