Like other Southeastern American Indians, the Cherokees were farmers whose primary crops were maize (corn), beans, squash, and tobacco. The Cherokee farmers also raised pumpkins, sunflowers, watermelons, potatoes, and peas.
The Cherokee homelands spread over 40,000 square miles. In his book In the Courts of the Conqueror: The 10 Worst Indian Law Cases Ever Decided, Walter Echo-Hawk reports:
“The aboriginal Cherokee homeland extends throughout the mountainous Allegheny region of the American Southeast in present-day Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, Virginia, Kentucky, and the Carolinas.”
During the first part of the nineteenth century, the American policy was to remove Indians from east of the Mississippi River and to “give” them reservations in Indian Territory west of the Mississippi. By 1824, the Cherokees were facing increasing pressure to migrate to new lands so that the lands which they had farmed for centuries could be given to non-Indians. In their book The Columbia Guide to American Indians of the Southeast, Theda Perdue and Michael Green write:
“Much of the Indian-owned land in the South was extraordinarily fertile and capable of producing enormous crops of cotton.”
While the Cherokees adopted many European customs—using the plow for farming and the spinning wheel for making cloth—they still were not accepted in American society. In an article in the Chronicles of Oklahoma, Morgan Gibson reports:
“Leaders of the Southern tribes did not understand that the nineteenth century Anglo-American society was obsessively monistic—it feared, scorned and rejected people unlike themselves in culture and physical characteristics.”
By 1824, there were two primary Cherokee nations: one in the east in the traditional Cherokee homelands and one west of the Mississippi where Cherokee settlers had established villages in American or Spanish territories.
Briefly described below are a few Cherokee events of 200 years ago, 1824.
Cherokee Census
In 1824, the federal government completed a new census of the Cherokee Nation. It found that the Cherokee population had increased by 30% since the 1809 census and now stood at 16,060. The number of Negro slaves in the Cherokee nation had increased by 119% and was now 1,277. Spinning wheels were now found in nearly all Cherokee homes; the number of wagons had increased by 473%; and the number of plows had increased by 416%. According to geographer Douglas Wilms, in his chapter in Cherokee Removal: Before and After:
“The character of the material goods possessed by the Cherokee clearly suggests that, by the mid-1820s, they were becoming a nation of Anglo-style farmers.”
Land
Unlike the Europeans, the Cherokees did not view land as private property. Land was held in common with individuals and families having use rights. These farming rights were held as long as they continued to use the land. Use rights were generally respected and an individual or family would not seek access to a piece of land until it had been abandoned. In their book The Cherokee Nation and the Trail of Tears, Theda Perdue and Michael Green put it this way:
“Cherokees owned their land in common, and individuals had the right to clear and use land as long as they did not infringe on their neighbors.”
With the expansion of the plantation system during the first part of the nineteenth century, non-Indians were demanding that the Cherokees give up their land, particularly the good Cherokee farmlands.
In Washington, D.C., President James Madison addressed Congress in 1824 regarding the Cherokee land rights in Georgia:
“I have no hesitation, however, to declare it as my opinion that the Indian title was not affected in the slightest circumstance by the compact with Georgia, and that there is no obligation on the United States to remove the Indians by force. An attempt to remove them by force would, in my opinion, be unjust.”
In North Carolina, in Euchella versus Welsh the state supreme court upheld the validity of the 1819 treaty with the Cherokees and Indian title to private reservations. Having acknowledged that Cherokee lands were sold illegally, the state sought to buy the land from the Cherokee claimants and allow them to settle elsewhere in the area. Yonaguska (1760-1839), the peace chief of the Mountain Cherokees, and his followers remained apart from the Cherokee nation and settled at a site which would later be called Quallatown. According to historian John Finger, in his book The Eastern Band of Cherokees 1819-1900:
“The Qualla Indians lived quietly, abided by the law of North Carolina, and received no annuities from either the federal government or the Cherokees.”
West of the Mississippi
By 1824, some Cherokees had left their aboriginal homelands and migrated west of the Mississippi River. In Oklahoma, the Cherokee “Old Settlers” (those who had moved from the southeast in 1810 and in 1817) formed a constitutional government with an elected chief and legislature. John Jolly was chosen as president, Takatoka as vice-president, and Black Fox as speaker.
In Arkansas, U.S. military authorities informed Cherokee leader Captain Dutch that his people were living on the wrong side of the Arkansas River. The Cherokee responded by moving to Texas which was a Spanish colony at this time. They followed the example of Cherokee leader Bowl, whose people had moved to Texas in 1819. Captain Dutch and his people established two settlements outside the jurisdiction of the United States.
Missionaries
In Georgia, the Cherokee chiefs of the town of Etowa asked the Christian missionaries to leave their town because the minister would not allow converts to attend meetings in the council house.
Marriage
In American society in 1824, interracial marriage was discouraged and in some areas it was illegal.
In Connecticut, John Ridge , a Cherokee student at the Cornwall Foreign Mission School, married Sarah Bird Northrup, a non-Indian. According to James Parins, in his book John Rollin Ridge: His Life and Works:
“The couple was denounced by area newspapers and castigated on racial grounds by preachers from their pulpits.”
Following the marriage ceremony, the couple immediately left the area to avoid being mobbed.
In Georgia, Shoe Boot asked the Cherokee Council for free status for his slave wife and their children. The petition was granted, but the Council then passed an ordinance making interracial marriage between the Cherokees and their black slaves unlawful.
Witches
In Tennessee, the Cherokee National Council heard testimony about witches. As a result, the Council passed a law forbidding the killing of a human to expunge the spirit of a witch, but it allowed a bewitched animal to be killed.
Smallpox
The Cherokee towns in North Carolina and Tennessee were struck by smallpox. One Christian missionary—Moody Hall—attempted to obtain the cowpox vaccine and tried to persuade the Cherokee to be inoculated.
More about the Cherokees
American Indian Biography: John Rollin Ridge, Cherokee Writer
Indians 201: Dragging Canoe, Cherokee Leader
Indians 101: John Payne and the Cherokee
Indians 101: The Republic of Texas & the Cherokee
Indians 101: The Cherokee Prior to the Trail of Tears
Indians 101: Writing in Cherokee
Indians 101: Cherokee Government and the English
Indians 101: Interference with Cherokee Government