Cherokee

Hello! We are the Cherokee, or Aniyunwiya, which means the 'Principal People.' For thousands of years, our homes were in the beautiful mountains and valleys of the southeastern United States. We lived in towns and farmed the land. We passed down stories from our grandparents to our children. To keep our people strong and healthy, we grew corn, beans, and squash. We called these special plants the Three Sisters because they grew so well together. They were an important part of our lives and our traditions, helping to feed our communities for many, many years.

We always had our own spoken language, but for a long time, we did not have a way to write it down. That all changed because of a brilliant man from our nation named Sequoyah. Around the year 1821, he created a special set of symbols for all the sounds in our language. It was not an alphabet like the one you might use in school. It was a syllabary, where each symbol stood for a whole sound. It worked so well that soon, almost all of our people could read and write in Cherokee. We were so proud of this. In 1828, we even started our own newspaper, the Cherokee Phoenix, so we could share news and stories with each other in our very own words.

After this happy time, a very hard time began for our people. In the 1830s, the United States government decided they wanted the land where we had always lived. They made a plan to move us far away. In the cold winter of 1838, soldiers forced us to leave our homes behind. We had to walk a very, very long way to a new place called Indian Territory. This sad and difficult journey is remembered as the Trail of Tears. It was cold, and we missed our homes terribly, but we did not give up. We kept going by holding on to our families and our culture.

Even after that hard journey, our spirit was never broken. We worked together to build new homes, new schools, and a new government in our new land. We showed everyone how strong we could be. Today, the Cherokee Nation is still strong. There are three federally recognized Cherokee tribes, and we work hard every day to keep our language, our traditions, and our stories alive for our children and our grandchildren. We are proud of our past and excited about our future. We will always be the Aniyunwiya, the Principal People.