[DurryVony]

Origin of the Cherokee Indians

Who were the Cherokee Indians, historically? We hear of this tribe and the first thoughts that come to mind are the enormous testimonies from many people claiming descendancy from them. So many threads abound on the internet with posts and topics about this tribe but do we know of their origins? Never has there been so much question about the origins of the Cherokee tribes.

Many people are not familiar with the Cherokee Indians of today. Currently there are three federally recognized band of Cherokee tribes.

1. The Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma
2. The United Keetoowah Band of Cherokees in Oklahoma
3. The Eastern Band of Cherokee in North Carolina

All three tribes, one must trace an ancestor to the final rolls with the ancestor's blood quantum in order to register or enroll. The Cherokee Nation of Ok will recognize all members regardless of their blood quantum. Just noting, Blood Quantum is tribal blood, not how *Native American* you are. Just for example, one can be ¾ Cherokee blood and the balance Shawnee blood but still be 100% Native American ethnically.

Cherokee territories as historically known. Abt. 1775


Officially recognized by the State of NC, the Cherokee Indians are the inhabitants of Western North Carolina for the at least 1,000yrs. Historically, are from the Iroquoian language family. The Qualla Boundary, the land reserve for the Eastern Band of Cherokee have two rivers named of Muskogean origin the Oconaluftee and Nantahala.

Iroquoian Language – Where the Cherokee dwelt are included as Iroquoian although more historical evidence shows them to possibly be Muskogee.


Muskogee Language


Some sources say there was no Cherokee tribe around the early 1700's and no major Cherokee structures are found prior to 1720. The Cherokee population started to increase after this date. So how did the name Cherokee evolve? From Hernando de Soto expedition, sources say he made mention of a ethnic group similar to the Cherokee called "Chalokee."

"A word similar to Cherokee was recorded by the Hernando de Soto Expedition in the early spring of 1541 as it was passing through what is now the northern South Carolina Piedmont. The ethnic name was “chaloque” which would be pronounced “chalokee” in English. It was ascribed to a small, primitive tribe of hunters and gatherers.
Without consulting dictionaries of the Muskogean family of Native American languages, some mid-20th century scholars decided that chalokee meant “foreign speaker” in the “Creek” language. (Actually there are several Creek languages.) The Chalokees were assumed to be the Cherokees, even though the Cherokees were never known to occupy north central South Carolina. Chalokee actually means “Trout People or Clan” in the Muskogee-Creek Language, and had no meaning in the Hitchiti-Creek language. The word for “foreign speaker” in the Muskogee-Creek languages is “ciliya.” Even though there are at least two million Americans of Muskogean descent – perhaps thrice that number – a consistent trait of Caucasian scholars studying Southeastern colonial history has been to ignore the languages and ancient cultural heritage of the mound-builders’ descendants. An ethnic name similar to Cherokee first appears in British colonial records in 1684. It is Chorakee. The ethnic name was applied to a cluster of towns around the tributaries of the Savannah River in what is now extreme, northwestern South Carolina and extreme northeastern Georgia. Since Chorakee sounded something like Chalokee, 20th century scholars assumed they were the same word with the same meaning. One will often find Cherokee history web sites that state that Chorakee means “foreign speaker.” It does not. Chorakee means “splinter group” in Muskogee-Creek. It is a term applied to villages that have moved away from the territory of the mother town. Splinter groups were in fact, what the Chorakees were. They were Muskogean and Siouan towns that had moved from the coastal and piedmont regions to get away from the Spanish colonies on the South Atlantic Coast. Early 18th century maps show the Chorakees being allies of another, un-named ethnic group (or groups) in the North Carolina Mountains. None of the Chorakee towns had Cherokee (Algonquian-Iroquoian) names. They obviously did not speak a language similar to contemporary Cherokee, but by the mid-18th century were labeled “the Lower Cherokees.” Thus, the Muskogee name for a cluster of Muskogean and Siouan towns in South Carolina was extended by the British to apply to the allies of the Chorakees to the north and west."
.http://www.examiner.com/article/new-...-nation-part-2 This is the Spanish map of 1584 showing the early Chaloque (Chaloke).


According to documents held by early British colonial records, there was a tribe documented up until 1684 called the "Rickohockens." They were noted as a war like tribe, very powerful who dominated southwestern Virginia. They were involved in slaved raids of other Native American tribes for use of slavery as were the Cherokee. They raided villages in the Carolinas.
The English in 1674 had the Rickohockens mapped over territories (Virgina, Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky) Cherokees are shown to have occupied as in the map I had shown about, about 1775.



In the same time this year, in 1684 a group called the "Charakee" soon make an appearance on the English and French maps replacing the former Rickohocken. The Cherokee's started to become part of documented history after 1720.

"There is also no doubt that after the demise of the Westos, the Cherokees were major players in the Native American slave trade. Between 1684 when the Cherokees first make their appearance into documented history, and 1720, Native American slaves were their primary source of trade income. Cherokee slave raiders are documented to have raided as far south as Lake Okeechobee, FL, as far west as the Mississippi, and as far north as Lake Erie. In fact, one of their most famous chiefs, Attakullakulla, was captured as child on a slave raid against the Erie Indians. The English colonies even issued special brands to each Cherokee band so that authorities could make proper payment for branded Native American slaves after their delivery to coastal marketplaces." http://www.accessgenealogy.com/nativ...March-2010.pdf Interested in what others say.

For more reading. I pulled most of my information from the below articles. I do not know how historically accurate this all is. This is all interesting information. Anything you can oppose, please post details. Thanks.

Access Genealogy
http://www.accessgenealogy.com/native/people/index.htm
http://www.accessgenealogy.com/nativ...March-2010.pdf

Articles by Richard Thornton
http://www.examiner.com/article/new-...-nation-part-2
http://www.examiner.com/article/new-...-nation-part-3
http://www.examiner.com/article/cher...ks-of-all-time
http://www.examiner.com/article/sout...h-colonization

[wllsqyuipknczx]

You are Native American, I assume.

[neictscek]

You are Native American, I assume.

1/8 of me is. EB Cherokee descended.

[teentodiefows]

1/8 of me is. EB Cherokee descended.

Fom curiosity, how were you able to determine what tribe you are descendant from.? I'm a little better than 1/8, (according to McDonald 14.6%) but have no clue as to what tribes. It says central American (Maya) on my report. I also did genealogy research too but the Spanish/ Mexican military docs and mission records, etc., simply says "Indio" or "mestizo". I have looked US census records of the western US and they had written a derogatory word, page after page showing the natives and by this, Im thinking the US/Brit/Germ records not very informative either.

[F1grandprix]

I thought the Cherokee were actually a confederation of different tribes?

[Teomaderm]

Fom curiosity, how were you able to determine what tribe you are descendant from.? I'm a little better than 1/8, (according to McDonald 14.6%) but have no clue as to what tribes. It says central American (Maya) on my report. I also did genealogy research too but the Spanish/ Mexican military docs and mission records, etc., simply says "Indio" or "mestizo". I have looked US census records of the western US and they had written a derogatory word, page after page showing the natives and by this, Im thinking the US/Brit/Germ records not very informative either.

This isn't about me, I want to stay on topic. I'm sending you a private message.

---------- Post added 2012-07-15 at 16:02 ----------

I thought the Cherokee were actually a confederation of different tribes?

It seems like a hodge podge of different tribes and is a very broad term, Cherokee so confederation may be correct but also inter-ethnic. These may not be the same Chaloque people that de Soto came across in his expedition noted on his map in 1854. Chaloque/Chalokee were not near the coastline.

So it is true to form that all Cherokee members are descended from other tribes. Even though ones ancestor is documented as a Cherokee, theoretically can be of another tribe. Just a thought.

[Imihooniump]

I agree with the hodge-podge theory. For one, the Cherokee were once cave-dwelling clans closely related to the Iroquois. However even before interaction with Europeans and Africans, they were known to absorb different tribal scragglers as they developed. In fact, the Long Hair Clan was known to take in clanless individuals and abandoned Amerinds who had lost their tribal or family connections due to disease, warfare, displacement, etc. So it is more than clear to me that the Cherokee have since adopted other tribes' people over the centuries.

Also the Cherokee language which is said to be linguistically related to Iroquois has since drifted from Five Lakes Iroquoian. In fact, I can't remotely understand spoken Five Lakes Iroquoian and no words are familiar when I have heard it. Not one word clicks. So I believe there are indeed other Amerind influences at work in the language and that would thereby suggest much more of a complex cultural absorption picture than one would believe. I argue in fact that the Cherokee have remained a politically viable people to this day because of that very feature: Absorbing other Amerinds, Europeans, and Africans enabled them to develop a collective mentality that they used to leverage their sociopolitical power and increase numbers and strength. It is not a mere coincidence that they were extremely prolific in Lower Appalachia and that they were economically an important Amerind group. Their nation once covered lands where a number of other tribes dwelled -- they could only have achieved supremacy by genetically and culturally absorbing these people. There would have been far too many to dispatch alone by old fashioned warfare.

[VottCetaVeivE]

I agree with the hodge-podge theory. For one, the Cherokee were once cave-dwelling clans closely related to the Iroquois. However even before interaction with Europeans and Africans, they were known to absorb different tribal scragglers as they developed. In fact, the Long Hair Clan was known to take in clanless individuals and abandoned Amerinds who had lost their tribal or family connections due to disease, warfare, displacement, etc. So it is more than clear to me that the Cherokee have since adopted other tribes' people over the centuries.

Also the Cherokee language which is said to be linguistically related to Iroquois has since drifted from Five Lakes Iroquoian. In fact, I can't remotely understand spoken Five Lakes Iroquoian and no words are familiar when I have heard it. Not one word clicks. So I believe there are indeed other Amerind influences at work in the language and that would thereby suggest much more of a complex cultural absorption picture than one would believe. I argue in fact that the Cherokee have remained a politically viable people to this day because of that very feature: Absorbing other Amerinds, Europeans, and Africans enabled them to develop a collective mentality that they used to leverage their sociopolitical power and increase numbers and strength. It is not a mere coincidence that they were extremely prolific in Lower Appalachia and that they were economically an important Amerind group. Their nation once covered lands where a number of other tribes dwelled -- they could only have achieved supremacy by genetically and culturally absorbing these people. There would have been far too many to dispatch alone by old fashioned warfare.

Great information as always Spark. I think, from what I've been reading from this Thornton, the Cherokee came into the area a little bit later

"The actual descendants of the “Southeastern mound-builders” were members of the Alabama, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, Miccosukee, Natchez and Koasati tribes – labeled the Muskogeans by anthropologists. The Cherokees were relative late comers to the Southeast. Cherokee Principal Chief Charles Hicks had written in 1824 that the Cherokees did not build the mounds, but either killed or drove off the peoples who did. Many people seemed to know this fact, but the National Park Service evidently did not. Muskogean leaders and scholars bitterly protested the travesty. The NPS countered with a proposal to create multi-tribe advisory councils for two famous Creek sacred town sites in Georgia, Etowah Mounds and Ocmulgee National Monument, but did not change the jurisdictional map."http://www.baconsrebellion.com/Issue...4/Thornton.php I want to email him to see where this information is coming from. I really can't seem to find too much over the internet, just bits and pieces. We are trying to get this topic going at 23andme https://www.23andme.com/you/community/thread/14263/

Get some other input as well.

Here are one of the mounds but believed to be made prior to the Cherokee.

[polleroy]

There is a thread mande in 23andme about this topic and they even mentioned this board lol!

[xgnuwdd]

It is certain that the Muscogean area was once much larger and more organized (see Mississipian Culture). However, by the end of the Medieval Warm Period and the beginning of the Little Ice Age, there was a significant change in the social arrangement of the region. The large cities and connected towns of the Middle Mississipian Period were being replaced by smaller, fortified settlements and many areas were declining in population. This was most likely due to climate shifts, droughts, flooding, etc. Then a short while later, in the early 1500's, a second and more devastating blow came to the region, introduced diseases.

In the period that followed, there was heavy reorganization among the survivors. Many Muscogean speaking peoples banded together creating the Creek Confederacy. In other areas, Iroquoian peoples from up north readily moved into recently depopulated, fertile lands to the south. They pushed out and/or intermarried with local Muscogean (and others) and eventually became the Tsalagi or Cherokee.

I would not call them an "invented" tribe. They are, like many other cultures, a product of migration and reorganization after the changes that took place at the end of the Medieval Warm Period and again with the introduction of Old World diseases. If the Cherokee are "invented", then so are the Creek, Seminole, Comanche, or any other tribe that traces their origins to the same period or later.

[uchetrip]

I've met many fake Cherokees. lol

[casinoboneerer]

I've met many fake Cherokees. lol

Understood. But we aren't talking about that. We are discussing the actual pluralistic ethnogenesis of the Cherokee people.

[poekfpojoibien]

I received a response from Richard Thornton after I emailed him and will post his reply.


Since I first did research for the Creek Nation in 2004 I have learned something new almost every day. It has a snowballing effect. So now when our team of Native American researchers around the nation talk about something, it is often so far over the head of archaeologists, that they have no clue what we are talking about.

So - in regard to your question. This is our understanding of the past as of July 15, 2012.

All of the confusion about the origins of the Cherokees and Creeks has been caused by historians and anthropologists making assumptions about Southeastern Native Americans without ever talking to us. The assumptions are printed in books, which converts them into facts. Now the false information is all over the internet and it is really hard to get them corrected.

Chaloki is the Totonac (NE Mexico) word for the nomadic barbarians who once roamed northern Mexico. The Aztecs called them chichimecs, which means "coyote people."

The ancestors of the Creeks adopted this word when some Mexican refugees came to the Southeast. To the Creeks it meant someone living a Stone Age hunter-gatherer lifestyle.

The Chalokees mentioned by de Soto's chroniclers drifted southwestward afterward. In 1718 they are shownon maps near the Okefenokee Swamp in SE Georgia. In 1755, they are show on maps living at the southern tip of the Flint River in SW Georgia. After then they either joined the Creek Confederacy or drifted southward and joined the Florida Creeks, who are now called Seminoles. It is possible that they were originally Chichimecs from northern Mexico, but migrated into the Southeast.

The Chorakees were an alliance of several small towns in NW South Carolina, who did not want to join the Creek Confederacy. Chorakee means "splinter group" in Creek. Most of the towns spoke a dialect of the Itsate-Creek language. Cheorkees will tell you that Lower Cherokee is an extinct language and that no one knows its words. Creeks can understand the Lower Cherokee words even today. Chorakees originally spoke a dialect of Creek. The names of most of the original Chorakee towns are Itsate Creek words.

In 1784 the King of France published a map in which he claimed all of North America west of the Blue Ridge Mountains. That area included all of North Carolina west of Asheville.

The British freaked out. They invited the warlike, powerful Rickhockens to migrate south into Tennessee and North Carolina and be the core of an alliance of mountain tribes. The British orignally called this new alliance the Charakees, but it evolved to Cherokee. The 14+ bands of the Cherokees spoke several languages. Most of the people who migrated to North America after then, did not realize that the Cherokees were a "man-made" tribe composed of many ethnic groups.

[Affolfembonge]

^Interesting info

[Signabeademia]

It's always good to hear a different perspective. Sometimes we forget history was written by the winners and the other perspective never becomes common knowledge.