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Cherokee

Sixty-plus towns in the southern Appalachians — Lower, Middle, Valley and Overhill — with hunting grounds reaching Kentucky.

Cessions of 1721, 1755, 1768, 1770-72, 1775, 1777 and 1791 shrank the domain to east Tennessee, the NC mountains, north Georgia and northeast Alabama by 1800.

See it on the interactive map →

Borders over time

The atlas holds 6 border frames for Cherokee — the shape you scrub through changes in 1000 · 1755 · 1775 · 1791 · 1801 · 1838.

Moments from the Chronicle

• 1775 Revolution — and Kentucky War begins at Lexington; the Henderson Purchase buys most of Kentucky from the Cherokee.
• 1776 Independence Thirteen colonies declare independence; the Cherokee towns are burned in the first frontier campaigns.
• 1838 Trail of Tears Cherokee removal kills ~4,000; the Potawatomi Trail of Death crosses to Kansas the same autumn.

Further reading

• The Cherokees: A Population History Russell Thornton · 1990

  The standard demographic history, authoritative on the smallpox losses, war casualties, and Trail of Tears mortality figures cited in this entry.

• The Cherokee Nation: A History Robert J. Conley · 2005

  A readable single-volume narrative written from within the Cherokee Nation, covering the full sweep from origins through removal and rebuilding.

• Cherokee Americans: The Eastern Band of Cherokees in the Twentieth Century John R. Finger · 1991

  The definitive study of the Eastern Band who stayed on the Qualla Boundary, the group referenced in the final frame.

• The Cherokee Frontier: Conflict and Survival, 1740-1762 David H. Corkran · 1962

  Detailed account of the trade, diplomacy and the Anglo-Cherokee War of 1759-61 that frames the 1492-1754 and 1755-1774 captions.

• Pushing the Bear Diane Glancy · 1996 · fiction

  A polyphonic novel of the 1838-39 Trail of Tears, by a Cherokee-enrolled author, set at the defining trauma of the historical Cherokee Nation's removal era.

Sources

• Cherokee — Wikipedia