Cherokee

Hello. We are the Cherokee people. Our name for ourselves is Aniyunwiya, which means the 'Principal People.' For thousands of years, our ancestral homelands were nestled in the beautiful mountains and valleys of the Southeastern Woodlands, in places that are now called Georgia, Tennessee, and the Carolinas. We lived in towns, and our communities were strong. We were farmers who grew the 'Three Sisters'—corn, beans, and squash—which grew together and helped each other thrive, just like our people. We honored the natural world, understanding that we were a part of the forests, rivers, and mountains around us. Our traditions and our families were the center of our lives.

For a long time, we passed our stories and knowledge down by speaking and listening. But one of our most brilliant minds, a man named Sequoyah, wanted us to have a way to read and write in our own language. Around 1821, after years of hard work, he created a syllabary, which is a special kind of alphabet where each symbol stands for a sound in our language. It was a wonderful invention. Very quickly, our people learned to use it. In 1825, our Cherokee Nation officially adopted the syllabary. This new skill allowed us to do amazing things. In 1827, we wrote our own constitution and created a government much like the United States. The very next year, in 1828, we started our own newspaper, the Cherokee Phoenix, to share news and ideas with everyone.

Even as we built our nation and lived peacefully, many American settlers wanted our land for themselves. The U.S. government supported them and passed a law called the Indian Removal Act in 1830. This law was created to force us and other Native nations from our homes. We tried to fight this unfairness, but in the end, we were not successful. In 1838, soldiers came to our towns and forced us to leave everything behind. We were made to march over a thousand miles west to a new, unfamiliar territory. The journey was long and incredibly difficult. There was not enough food, and sickness spread quickly. Many of our people, especially our beloved elders and our children, did not survive the trip. Because of all the sorrow and loss we experienced, we will forever remember this journey as the Trail of Tears.

After we reached the new land, which is now part of Oklahoma, we had to start over with almost nothing. But the Cherokee spirit is strong, and we did not give up. We worked together to rebuild our nation from the ground up. We established a new capital city called Tahlequah, and there we re-established our government, just as we had in our homelands. We built new schools to educate our children and new farms to feed our families. Even after losing so much of our land and so many of our people, we refused to let our culture die. Our community came together to keep our traditions alive and build a future for generations to come.

Today, the Cherokee Nation is one of the largest Native American tribes in the United States. We are a sovereign nation, which means we have our own government, schools, hospitals, and businesses. We honor our ancestors by speaking our language, telling our stories, creating our traditional art, and celebrating our ceremonies. Our history includes great sadness and injustice, but it is also a powerful story of incredible strength, resilience, and survival. We are still here, and our story continues to this day.