Tennessee Overhill Experience

A Timeline of Cherokee History

10000 B.C-8000 B.C. Stone tools, small groups traveling to seasonal campsites in the southern Appalachians
8000 B.C.-1000 B.C. Semipermanent villages, baskets, fishhooks, cooking bowls, early cultivation of wild plants
1000 B.C.-A.D. 900 Settled villages, corn and agriculture, pottery
A.D. 900-1600 Cherokee towns with mounds
1540	De Soto expedition, first contact with Europeans
1731	Cherokee leaders to London with Cuming
1738	Smallpox epidemic
1756	French and Indian War
1760-61	Montgomery and Grant expeditions-the Cherokee War
1762	Cherokee leaders to London with Timberlake
1763	King George’s Proclamation
1776	Revolutionary War
1783	Smallpox epidemic
1794	End of Dragging Canoe’s war
1808	Broomestown Council
1814	Cherokee aid Jackson at Battle of Horseshoe Bend
1821	Cherokee Council approves Seqyouah’s syllabary
1828	Cherokee Phoenix begins publication
	Gold discovered in Georgia
1830	Indian Removal Act passed
1832	Supreme Court rules on sovereignty
1835	Treaty of New Echota signed
1836	Treaty of New Echota ratified by Congress
1838-39	Removal and Trail of Tears
1861-65	Thomas Legion fights with Confederacy
1868	Eastern Band recognized by federal government, has voting rights, pays property tax
1870	First principal chief of Eastern Band elected
1889	North Carolina recognizes Eastern Band as legal corporation
1893	First boarding school
1917-18	Cherokee men serve in military in World War I
1924	Lands held by Cherokee individuals taken and held in trust by federal government, Baker Roll
1941-46	Cherokee men serve in military in World War II
1946	Cherokee men and women allowed to register to vote
1948	Boarding school closes in Cherokee, North Carolina
1948-49	Unto These Hills, Oconaluftee Indian Village, Qualla Arts and Crafts Mutual and the Museum of the Cherokee Indian founded
1984	First Joint Council of Eastern and Western Cherokee since removal
1988	Indian Gaming Act followed by Cherokee Bingo
1990	Eastern Band begins operating their own schools
1996	Eastern Band elects first woman principal chief
	Eastern Band opens casino
1997	Eastern Band purchases Kituhwa Mound

Reprinted online by permission of the publisher.

Barbara R. Duncan and Brett H. Riggs. Cherokee Heritage Trails Guidebook.
Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press in association with the Museum of the Cherokee Indian, 2003.
Any unauthorized use of contained material, or crosslinking of content without the express permission of the owner is strictly prohibited.