CHAPTER ONE THE CHEROKEE NATION in the early 1800s Native American people known as Cherokees lived in the southeast United States But many European immigrants were arriving or had already arrived in America They wanted land of their own Between 1830 and 1839 the Cherokee people were forced to leave their homelands The US government moved them west to Oklahoma The journey was long and hard Thousands of Cherokees The Trail of Tears was a devastating and tragic time for the Cherokee
died on the trail The Cherokees call the journey Alannah-duna-Dlo-Hilu-I In Cherokee this means the trail where they cried The Cherokees in the Southeast The first written records of the Cherokees date to 1540 European settlers wrote about the native people of America However the Cherokee lived in these areas long before that The Cherokees survived on what they could find in nature The men hunted and fished They used every part of the animals Deer provided meat for food Deer also provided leather for blankets and clothing People used animals bones or antlers to make 6 Cherokee Farmers Farming was an important part of the Cherokee lifestyle The Cherokees likely began farming as early as 3000 BCE Women who harvested wild plants learned how to take the seeds from plants and grow them This made for more dependable crops The farmers could keep seeds from year to year They no longer had to search for wild plants
Corn was very important to many Native Americans as they ate it at almost every meal and even had religious ceremonies based on the vegetable tools Sinews were used for thread to sew and weave Some items such as teeth and feathers could not be used in practical ways The Cherokees used them as decorations or in religious ceremonies The Cherokee women grew crops These included corn beans and squash They wove river canes a bamboo-like plant into baskets and mats 7
