CHEROKEE

The Trail of Tears occupies a special place in Native American history. Many tribes have similar incidents from their history, as this book shows, such as the CHICKASAW, CHOCTAW, CREEK, and SEMINOLE. Yet this event, the name of which originally was applied to the Cherokee, has come to symbolize the land cessions and relocations of all Indian peoples, just as the Wounded Knee Massacre of 1890, involving the SIOUX (DAKOTA, LAKOTA, NAKOTA), has come to represent the numerous massacres of Indian innocents.

When Europeans first arrived in North America, the Cherokee occupied a large expanse of territory in the Southeast. Their homeland included mountains and valleys in the southern part of the Appalachian chain. They had villages in the Great Smoky Mountains of present-day western North Carolina and the Blue Ridge of present-day western Virginia and West Virginia, as well as in the Great Valley of present-day eastern Tennessee. They also lived in the Appalachian high country of present-day South Carolina and Georgia, and as far south as present-day northern Alabama. Cherokee people also probably lived in territory now part of Kentucky. At one time, they had more than 60 villages.

In Native American studies, this region of North America is classified within the Southeast Culture Area (see SOUTHEAST INDIANS). The Cherokee were the southernmost Iroquoian-speaking people. Their ancestral relatives, the IROQUOIS (haudenosaunee), as well as most other Iroquoians, lived in what is defined as the Northeast Culture Area.

The Cherokee Native name is Ani-Yun’wiya, meaning “principal people.” The name Cherokee, pronounced CHAIR-uh-kee, probably is derived from the Choctaw name for them, Tsalagi, meaning “people of the land of caves.” The LENNI LENAPE (Delaware) version of the same name is Tallageni. Some linguists theorize, however, that Cherokee is derived from the Creek name for them, Tisolki, or Tciloki, meaning “people of a different speech.”