- Title
- State
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-
- Date
- August 09 1958
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-
- Place
- ["North Carolina, United States"]
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State
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Stranger Than Fiction
The story of the Cherokees, their past,
their curious present, and their un¬
certain future.
The theatrics and costumery devised
to entertain their visitors are pale com¬
pared to the realities of the Cherokee
life and history.
Did you know that the “Eastern
Band” is dying out? There were about
3,200 members in 1924; today there
are about 2,800.
And they are an ancient people in
more ways than one. No member of
the band is less than 30 years old. But
it only seems this way, and it is one
of the paradoxes of the curious status
of North Carolina’s Indian Nation.
Read on:
Planned to Disband
You see, in 1924, plans were laid to
divide the tribe’s land to its members
“in severalty.’’ These lands — some
36,000 acres — are held in common
under one deed, though individual In¬
dians occupy, use, and in a sense
“own” parts of them. Indians may sell
land among themselves, but not to non¬
members of the band.
To divide tribal property, a “final”
census of the Eastern Band of Chero¬
kee Indians was made and approved
by the U. S. Department of Interior.
It listed 3,171 names, but contained
the names of 1,222, who, according
to tribal authorities, were not Indians.
The tribe protested against division of
the assets among those on this census
roll.
Consequently, Congress passed an
act which indefinitely postponed allot¬
ment and division of tribal assets, and
the act also stipulated that any person
of less than y16 degree of Cherokee
blood born after 1931 would have no
property rights in the tribe.
The Indian Agency keeps a record
of all children of %6 or greater de¬
gree of Cherokee blood born on the
reservation, and the tribe and the
agency accord to these children the
same rights as accorded to tribal mem¬
bers whose names are on the roll.
And so, while the “final census” is
60
static, the potential number of those
who will participate in the final liqui¬
dation of the tribal property is in¬
creasing. Many of those on the original
roll have died, but about 4,400 in¬
dividuals, living on and off the reser¬
vation are recognized by the agency
office as being Eastern Cherokee. This
number includes all the surviving mem¬
bers of the “final census,” plus all
persons descended from members of
the old roll, born on the reservation,
and being of
1/16
or greater degree of
Indian blood.
Some day, the “full-bloods” say, a
new and final, final roll will be made,
and then only those of Vie degree will
be included.
Are Immigrants
The Cherokee came into the
Smokies relatively late. Some believe
they migrated from the Middle Atlan¬
tic States after a series of wars, and
found here the mounds built by an
earlier race. They spread over much
of South Carolina, Georgia, North
Carolina and Tennessee, and com¬
prised the most numerous, powerful
and civilized tribe in the south, in
colonial days numbering 20,000 or
more. As Indian tribes go, that was a
large group. In 1836 there were
16,542 — 3,644 of them in North Caro¬
lina.
There were three branches, more or
less loosely confederated — the Lower
Towns, Middle Towns and Overhill
Towns. Our Cherokees speak the Mid¬
dle Town dialect. They originally lived
along the valleys of the Little Ten¬
nessee and its tributaries.
They were a war-like people and
fought with neighboring tribes, espe¬
cially the Shawnee and Creek. The
English, who lost most frontier diplo¬
matic skirmishes to the French, man¬
aged to gain the Cherokee as their
allies in the French-Indian Wars and
in the Revolution. The Cherokee were
allies of the Americans in the War of
1812, and of the Confederacy in 1861.
The Moravians, later the Quakers, es¬
tablished missions among them, and
the Cherokees quickly adopted an ag¬
ricultural way of life. Sequoyah, a half-
breed genius, in 1821 perfected a
syllabary of 84 sounds, and this “al¬
phabet” almost overnight turned the
THE STATE, AUGUST 9, 195B