50 Fun Facts About Cherokee Nation

Which institution of higher education has its main campus in Tahlequah, the Cherokee capital?

The town was established as the capital of the reunited nation in 1839, at the end of the Trail of Tears.

How many federally recognised Cherokee tribes are there in the United States?

The Cherokee Nation is the largest; the others are the United Keetoowah Band, also in Tahlequah, and the Eastern Band in North Carolina.

The Cherokee Nation's reservation spans how many counties in northeastern Oklahoma?

They range from Adair and Cherokee counties to Tulsa and Washington.

Which 2020 Supreme Court ruling on the Muscogee led courts to affirm the Cherokee reservation was never disestablished?

Hogner v. Oklahoma applied it to the Cherokee in March 2021, and the Principal Chief called it a vindication of the treaties.

The nation's newspaper, the first ever published by Native Americans, is named after which mythical bird?

Its first issue appeared in English and Cherokee on 21 February 1828 in New Echota, and it was revived in the 20th century.

Within 25 years of Sequoyah's 1821 syllabary, Cherokee literacy reached roughly what level?

That surpassed the literacy of the surrounding European-American settlers.

What was Sequoyah's trade before he became famous for the syllabary?

He made items from the silver coins carried by trappers and traders, and dealt regularly with the settlers whose "talking leaves" intrigued him.

How many characters does the modern Cherokee syllabary have?

Each represents a syllable rather than a single sound; there were originally 86 until an editor dropped one to suit printing presses in 1828.

The Cherokee Nation officially adopted the syllabary in which year?

It helped unify a nation being forcibly divided and gave it a new sense of independence.

To which country did Sequoyah travel late in life seeking Cherokees who had migrated there?

He hoped to spread the syllabary and persuade them to move to Indian Territory.

The Cherokee language belongs to which language family?

Oral tradition recorded by James Mooney describes an ancient migration south from the Great Lakes region.

The Cherokee endonym Aniyvwiya translates as what?

Tsalagi is the Cherokee-language name for the people, and Anigiduwagi another endonym.

Traditional Cherokee society was matrilineal. What did that mean for children?

Women controlled property such as dwellings, and a council of elders represented the seven clans.

Nanyehi, known in English as Nancy Ward, held which honoured title among the 18th-century Cherokee?

She earned the title Ghigau for her actions at the Battle of Taliwa and became a political leader and diplomat.

New Echota, the Cherokee capital until removal in the 1830s, was named in honour of what?

It lies in Gordon County in northwest Georgia and is now a state historic site.

The 1838 Cherokee removal was largely triggered by the 1828 discovery of what near Dahlonega?

The Georgia Gold Rush that followed intensified pressure on the state's Cherokee lands.

Which US president signed the Indian Removal Act into law on 28 May 1830?

More than 60,000 people from at least 18 tribes were forced west of the Mississippi under him and Van Buren.

What phrase did Chief Justice Marshall use for the Cherokee polity in the 1831 case against Georgia?

The court therefore refused to hear the case, but reversed course the following year in Worcester v. Georgia.

Worcester v. Georgia (1832) vacated the conviction of Samuel Worcester, a missionary jailed for what?

The court held that Georgia's laws had no force in Cherokee territory; the president is said, probably apocryphally, to have dared Marshall to enforce it.

Which group signed the 1835 agreement ceding all Cherokee land east of the Mississippi?

Over 16,000 Cherokee signed a petition against it, but the US Senate passed it in May 1836 by a single vote.

How much compensation did the Treaty of New Echota promise the Cherokee for their eastern lands?

The whole Louisiana Territory had cost just over $15 million three decades earlier.

Roughly how many Cherokee and enslaved African Americans died on the Trail of Tears?

The forced march west in 1838–39 was the last removal east of the Mississippi.

Which Treaty Party leader and newspaper editor was killed in 1839 under the Cherokee Blood Law for signing away land?

Major Ridge and John Ridge were assassinated the same day.

Major Ridge was assassinated in 1839 by members of which group, acting under the Cherokee Blood Law?

He was blamed for ceding communal land and for the deaths on the Trail of Tears.

What was Principal Chief John Ross's Cherokee name, Guwisguwi, said to mean?

His first wife Quatie died on the Trail of Tears; the people kept re-electing him through the Civil War era.

The National Holiday, held each Labor Day weekend, celebrates the signing of what on 6 September 1839?

Begun in 1953, the festival now draws over 70,000 people for stickball, marbles, a pow wow and the Miss Cherokee pageant.

Stand Watie, a Cherokee brigadier, holds what distinction from the American Civil War?

A Treaty Party leader and nephew of Major Ridge, he survived the 1839 assassination attempts on his family.

The 1866 treaty with the United States promised the Cherokee Nation what?

In exchange the nation gave up parts of its western territory, later organised into Oklahoma Territory.

Which 1898 law extended allotment to the Five Tribes and broke up their governments before Oklahoma statehood?

It was named for Charles Curtis, a Kansas congressman of Kaw descent who later became US vice president.

From 1919 the US appointed Cherokee chiefs for terms so brief the practice earned what nickname?

Six men fell into the category; the first, Andrew B. Cunningham, served from 8 to 25 November.

W. W. Keeler, chief of the Cherokee Nation, was also president of which oil company?

He was succeeded by Ross Swimmer, and a new constitution was ratified in 1976.

Wilma Mankiller, first woman Principal Chief of the Cherokee, was later awarded which national honour?

She died of pancreatic cancer in 2010 after a career as an activist, social worker and community developer.

What does the surname Mankiller, Asgaya-dihi in Cherokee, refer to?

It is comparable to a captain or major, or a shaman able to avenge wrongs by spiritual means; schoolmates teased her about it.

Which Principal Chief triggered a 1997 constitutional crisis by having a militia seize the tribal courthouse?

He was forced by the Bureau of Indian Affairs to reopen the courts and lost the 1999 election to Chad Smith.

To be a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, a person needs a direct ancestor listed on what?

Unlike the other two Cherokee tribes, the nation does not use blood quantum as a citizenship criterion.

The Cherokee Freedmen are descendants of whom?

A 2007 vote to strip their citizenship was overturned after a decade of litigation ending in 2017.

Which two words did the Cherokee Nation Supreme Court strike from the constitution in 2021?

The ruling followed the federal court decision that Freedmen descendants are entitled to citizenship.

Same-sex marriage was legalised in the Cherokee Nation in December 2016 by what means?

Todd Hembree found that a 2004 law defining marriage violated the constitution's guarantee of equal treatment.

Who became Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation in 2019?

He was re-elected to a second term in 2023.

Roughly how many enrolled citizens did the tribe report in 2026?

That makes it one of the two most populous tribal nations alongside the Navajo Nation.

The Eastern Band of Cherokee descends mainly from about 800 Cherokee who avoided removal along which river?

Their land, the Qualla Boundary in North Carolina, is not technically a reservation because the tribe bought it outright.

The word Keetoowah, in the name of the United Keetoowah Band, refers to what?

The mound of Kituwa lies in the eastern homeland of the Cherokee.

The Cherokee Female Seminary in Tahlequah, opened in 1851, was modelled on which Massachusetts college?

Its first two teachers were alumnae of that school, and the building later became a state normal school.

The 1906 Five Tribes Act contemplated dissolving the tribes but included a clause stating what?

Courts read it as dissolving the governments until the late 1970s, when interpretations shifted.

Which people joined the Cherokee in the 18th century and, like Cherokee Freedmen, have descendants in today's tribe?

The tribe's citizens include people of African, Latino, Asian and European ancestry as well.

The Cherokee removal of 1838 came after which other Southeastern peoples had already been forced west?

The Choctaw went first, then the Creek in 1834 and the Chickasaw in 1837.

In 2019, Kimberly Teehee was appointed the Cherokee Nation's first-ever delegate to which body?

The right to send a delegate was written into the 1835 Treaty of New Echota, the same treaty that led to removal, and went unused for 184 years.

Under which name was the tribe's 1975 constitution ratified on June 26, 1976?

It was ratified on June 26, 1976, after Ross Swimmer succeeded oil executive W. W. Keeler as chief; a new constitution followed in 2003.

The Durbin Feeling Language Center in Tahlequah, announced in 2020, is housed in a converted what?

The plan puts all of the tribe's language programmes under one roof, with five nearby houses for native speakers.

The Cherokee Nation's principal chief oversees an annual budget of roughly what size?

That comes with more than 3,000 full-time employees; the tribe's holding company spans gaming, aerospace, healthcare and more.