Indian policy: The Cherokee nation and the US

Indian policy: The Cherokee nation and the US

INTRODUCTION

The Cherokee nation is an illustration of how federal Indian policy was conducted with Indians in general. Yet, it is roll to generalize by Indians, first we should not talk about Indian culture but about Indian Cultures, and then, even when the federal Indian policy meant to be uniformly implemented on all Indian tribes ,sometimes the government had to adapt his policies to special particular context. And finally, all Indian tribes didn’t not react these policies in the same way. We are going to point out the differences between the Cherokees and other tribes confronted to the same policies.

However, the Cherokee are good to study because they are one of the tribes which just did their best, colonizing model without totally given up their original values and culture. Yet, they were submitted to the federal policies with a relating force specially during the period which is going to be the court of the centre to focus on the intention which is between 1830 and 1934.

        A: Who are the Cherokees?

The origin of the tribe’s name is uncertain, some scholars think it comes from the word meaning “cave people” in Choctaw, “Tchalaqui” appears in the Portuguese Narrative of Hernando de Soto's Expedition which was published originally in 1557. The word Cherokee “cheraqui” appears in French document of 1699 and Cherokee as an English form as early as the 1708.  The Cherokees commonly called themselves “tsalagi”. They are proper name themselves was “Aniyvwiyaʔi” it is more or less the real people or the principal, Money also says that during ceremonies the name frequently used was “aniqutuagi” and “Kituwah”, the Cherokees decent for the inhabitant of the village of Keetoowah

The traditional lands of the Cherokees are in the South East of the US, in the southern Appalachians, in Northern Georgia, East Tennessee, Western North Carolina and North Eastern Alabama. The archaeological record of the human occupancy area goes back at least 10 000 years before Christ but this doesn’t mean the Cherokees were there that early.

The Cherokees as Cherokee are probably only 1 or 2000 years old. There are 2 possibilities to explain their presence in the area, either they developed from other American union peoples already in the South East or they migrated there from another region.

The language of the Cherokee presents similarities with the language of the Iroquois in the North and is not similar to other native peoples in the South East. So, this, along with many migration histories in the Cherokee literature supposed the migration theory.

In any case, the Cherokees occupied lands in the South-East present-day US, at the time Europeans made their first recorded penetration there in 1539-1543 during the expedition led by de Soto.

Today most Cherokees do not live in the south East but in Eastern Oklahoma.

Nowadays, tribes are not only cultural entities, but they are also federally recognized organisations, they are 3 tribes of Cherokees that are officially recognize by the US:

        -The Cherokee nation: in Eastern Oklahoma

        -The united Keetoowah band, they are also in the north Eastern Oklahoma

        -The Eastern band  in North Carolina

        B- Early contacts

Contacts with the Europeans changed the Cherokees as all of Indian people dramatically, both in bad ways but also in good ways.

•Epidemics

In the years of between 1539 and 1543, the first Europeans to come into contact with Cherokees were the members of the expedition led by de Soto. He was an explorer and gold seeker which means that he did not stick around.

For the next century the Cherokees had little contact with the Europeans, whoever the Europeans were on the continent, they were essentially in New Spain (Mexico), it means that the Europeans brought with them among other things, diseases to which the Indians were not immune. So, from New Spain Epidemics spread across the continent, it is estimated that every 4 years during the first 2 century of colonisation, an epidemic broke out somewhere on the continent.

When the English came into contact with tribes of Virginia in 1607 or of New England in 1620, the Indians told their story periods when numerous Indians died mysteriously. Historians explain today that the Indians had probably suffered from epidemics even before they encountered any European because the diseases travelled throughout all continent from one tribe to the other.

According to Francis Jennings, between 1492 and 1607, about 90% of the native population was decimated by epidemics.

The Cherokees suffered from these epidemics likes any other tribe, it probably decimated their population as well, the first document about epidemics among the Cherokees was in 1697. It is estimated that number dropped about  11,000 in 1715 from about 30,000 before the epidemics.

James Adair who is one of the historians of the Cherokees and a trader and then James Mooney tell of one smallpox of epidemics tricking the Cherokees in 1738 and 1739.

The relation of its circumstances is a very good illustration of what might have happened among many tribes strike by these mysterious illnesses.

Among the Cherokees, but also as many other tribes, epidemics killed many more and more with Europeans. There are declining numbers that helped convince Europeans that Indians do not need as much land as they enjoyed. Some even believe that god is responsible for these declining numbers of Indians, that he had send epidemics for the Europeans.

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