Life of the Cherokee Indians Before & After Source: with edits by Mrs. LaToshawww.nativeamericans.mrdonn.org

 Cherokee culture had developed without European influence for almost 1,000 years in the southeastern United States.

 Since first contact with Europeans in the 1500s, the Cherokee were one of the most advanced and powerful among American Indian tribes.

 Life of the traditional Cherokee remained unchanged as late as 1710, which is marked as the beginning of Cherokee trade with the whites.

 The period of frontier contact from , was marked by white expansion and the giving of Cherokee lands to the colonies in exchange for trade goods By the thousands, whites moved west in wagons, and…..

…the creation of the railroad made them move west faster and in larger amounts

Trading things like animal meat, fur, weapons, alcohol, vegetables, etc

 Cherokee culture continued to flourish with the invention of the Cherokee alphabet by Sequoyah in 1821.

 Migration from the original Cherokee Nation began in the early 1800s because Cherokees did not like whites moving west into their area.

 The white communities turned on their Indian neighbors and the U.S. Government decided it was time for the Cherokees to leave behind their farms, their land and their homes

This was mainly due to the discovery of gold on Cherokee lands.

 In 1838 the United States began the removal to Oklahoma.

It is estimated that of the approximately 16,000 Cherokee who were removed between 1836 and 1839

The Cherokee traveled more than 1,200 miles (1,931 km) Forced to continue walking during winter months with snow on the ground.

About 4,000 died.

 The Cherokee nation was not the only Native American culture to be removed westward in the 19th century. Perhaps as many as 100,000 First Peoples were pushed out of their traditional lands, and the death toll from these forced removals reached far into the thousands.

The Five Civilized Tribes

Native American Boarding School

Only 10% of the Native American population remains today in America. This means, since European contact, 90% of Native Americans were killed (From North & South America)