Prior to the 19th century, Cherokee society was divided into two parts: the “White” and the “Red.” The elders of the White society represented the seven clans of the Cherokee. These elders were effectively the hereditary priests, or Ani Kutani, who led ceremonies and prayers, and performed healing acts and rituals of purification. Warfare was considered by this group to be “unclean.” The Red organization was responsible for warfare; after engaging in combat, the warriors had to be ritually purified and cleansed before they were permitted to re-enter the everyday life of the tribe. For some reason, by the time the Europeans encountered them, this caste-style system had all but disappeared, and the shamans of the Cherokee were chosen according to their skills rather than their birth.
Prior to the 19th century the Cherokee were also polygamous, a practice that was more common among the wealthier male tribal members. The tribe were also matrilineal—any children born were considered to belong to the clan of the mother, not the father. Also, when children were born, the mother’s brother, rather than their father, was considered to be the main influence on the children. Couples were allowed to divorce freely. Women made all the major decisions regarding the family and also with respect to the leadership of the tribe itself.
Alliances between the white settlers and the Cherokee were cemented by marriage even before the 19th century. The offspring from such marriages helped to build a bridge between the two cultures, and none in a more practical and ingenious way than Sequoyah.
It was rarer for a Cherokee man to marry a white woman than for a Cherokee woman to marry a white man. If the former happened their children would be disadvantaged in that, because of the matrilineal law, they would not be considered to belong to either Nation, having been born “outside” the clan and therefore not Cherokee. However, the progressive Cherokee people passed a law in 1825 stating that children born to a Cherokee man and a white woman would be included as full tribal members from then on.
Later in the 1800s, however, the U.S. Government began to impose restrictions on inter-racial marriages. A European man now had to gain the approval of ten blood relatives of his prospective bride. Then, if the marriage still went ahead, the husband’s rights were restricted. He couldn’t hold any sort of tribal position and would also remain subject to the laws of the United States above those of the tribe. Therefore it’s not surprising that common law marriages were popular, being easier in many ways for both parties.
Gold was discovered in Cherokee country, in Georgia, in the 1820s. The Europeans, despite all their respect for the Cherokee, lost all consideration for the Native people in the face of potential wealth, and made moves to eject them from their hereditary lands. Horses and cattle were stolen; homes and farms were destroyed. And in the late 1830s the U.S. Army simply corraled the Cherokee and forced them to march west to the Indian Territory in Oklahoma, as part of the Indian Removal Act. Many Indians perished en route to their newly designated homeland. Once the straggling Cherokee survivors arrived, they found that they had joined Chickasaw, Choctaw, Seminole, and Creek Indians—others of the Five Civilized Tribes—and would go on to fight on the side of the Confederate States in the Civil War.
CHEROKEE PHOENIX
This was the name of the first American Indian newspaper, which was bilingual. It was possible only because of the work of the Cherokee scholar Sequoyah, who devised a syllabary—i.e., an alphabet that rendered the sounds of the language into shapes and symbols. The newspaper was first published in 1828, and was, at the time, relatively short-lived, closing down in 1834. It has, however, been published from time to time since then, and is currently available online.
CHEWING GUM
The origins of our modern chewing gum are from Native American people. As well as chewing the delicately flavored sap of pine trees, a habit that they passed on to the Europeans, the Aztecs chewed a substance called Chicle, a naturally occurring latex substance of the Sapodilla or Naseberry tree from Central America. Chicle itself can be a pink or reddish brown color, and has also been used as a rubber substitute. It was introduced to the United States as the primary ingredient of chewing gum in the late 1880s. In order to collect the chicle, deep V-shaped grooves were cut into the tree to allow the sap to run down the trunk, where it was collected. The word “chicle” is reflected in the brand name of some chewing-gum products.
CHEYENNE
The name Cheyenne was for a while believed to be derived from the French word for “dog,” which is chien, since this people had a noted society of Dog Soldiers. However, the name is actually a Sioux word meaning “people of different speech.” The Cheyenne name for themselves, Tsistsistas, means “beautiful people.” The Cheyenne were part of the large Algonquian language family.
The Cheyenne originally lived in what is now Minnesota, and moved to North Dakota, from which they were driven west by the Ojibwe and the Sioux. The Ojibwe destroyed the Cheyenne settlements, at which point the Cheyenne allied with the Arapaho.
The Cheyenne adopted the horse in the late 16th century, and rapidly became adept at both riding and breeding the animals. The coming of the horse meant a great change in their lifestyle, and the tribe gradually abandoned agriculture—as they put it, they “lost the corn” in favor of hunting buffalo. They also abandoned their former permanent homes in favor of the portable tipi.
The Cheyenne, in general, did not want to have fights with the white settlers, and were party to a treaty signed in 1851 which was intended to guarantee safe passage for the white settlers traveling along the Oregon Trail, which stretched from Missouri to Oregon. But when the settlers continued to encroach upon Native lands, they found themselves attacked by some members of the Southern Cheyenne. The Natives were then attacked by a force of cavalrymen in 1857. Then came the Colorado Gold Rush, which affected Cheyenne and Arapaho lands. Neither tribe wanted to sell their lands, and refused offers which would have involved trading territory and settling on a reservation. However, the governor of the area, John Evans, decided to force the tribes to agree by starting a war against them. The leader of the volunteer army was Colonel John Chivington, a notorious Indian-hater. In early 1864, Chivington started a merciless all-out attack on the Cheyenne and Arapaho. He razed their settlements to the ground, killed women and children, and stole their possessions. The Cheyenne retaliated by attacking white settlements. Matters came to a head at the Battle of Sand Creek.
Negotiations had been held outside Denver, Colorado, at which the tribes were informed that, if they agreed to camp nearby and checked in regularly at army posts, it would be assumed that a truce had been declared. This was agreed by the Cheyenne chief, Black Kettle, who led some 600 of his people to a place called Sand Creek, as agreed. Black Kettle assured the garrison there that he wanted peace. Chivington, however, although informed of what had happened, decided to attack the Indians anyway. Many of his soldiers were drunk when, at dawn on the morning of November 29, 1864, the Cheyenne were attacked. This despite the fact that Black Kettle had flown a white flag as well as the flag of the United States. Some 200 Cheyenne were murdered in one of the most appalling massacres in Native American history; further, half of those who were slaughtered were women, children, and babies. The ensuing outrage forced Chivington to resign.
The Cheyenne unified with the Lakota under Sitting Bull, and were among the force that fought against General Armstrong Custer in 1876. When they were defeated, the Cheyenne were forced to live on a reservation in the Indian Territory in Oklahoma. The Cheyenne chief,