CHRONOLOGY

at least 18,000 B.C		Indigenous people are living in the Americas.
A.D. 800		The Spiro culture appears south of the Arkansas River in present eastern Oklahoma during the mound-builder period.
1492		Christopher Columbus lands in the Americas. Contact between Native Americans and the Spanish results in the first permanent American settlement by Europeans.
1500		An estimated seventy-five million indigenous people are living in the Western Hemisphere, including six million in the present United States. The Cherokees are the indigenous holders of more than seventy million acres in present Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia.
1519		Hernán Cortés introduces the horse in Mexico. Half the Santo Domingo Nation is killed by smallpox, a disease new to North America.
1532		The Spanish conclude that the indigenous peoples possess true title to the Americas. To acquire ownership of the New World, the Spanish will be required to conquer the lands in a “just war,” or to persuade the native peoples to relinquish ownership of their own volition.
1538		Mapmakers use the term America to designate provinces of the New World for the first time.
1540		When the first Europeans in the de Soto expedition venture into the “Province of the Chelaque,” the Cherokees are settled along streams and waterways, pursuing trade and navigation.
1541		Coronado journeys onto the Great Plains and introduces horses, mules, pigs, cattle, and sheep to the North American continent.
1609		Santa Fe is settled by whites following missionaries into lands claimed by Spain.
1626		Native Americans sell Manhattan Island to Dutch settlers for approximately twenty-four dollars in trade goods.
1673		Cherokees bargain with itinerant British traders for British use of rivers through Cherokee lands as trade routes.
1680		The Pueblo nations of present New Mexico revolt against the Spanish, driving soldiers and settlers back to Mexico. Europeans do not return to the area until the 1690s, when De Vargas negotiates a peaceful agreement with the Pueblos.
1721		The Cherokees sign a treaty with the colony of South Carolina to establish formal boundaries between Cherokee and South Carolina settlements. The governor of South Carolina requests that a principal chief be appointed to facilitate the whites’ dealings with the various groups of Cherokees.
1730		A delegation of six Cherokees visits London to cement the Cherokee Nation’s relations with the British Crown. While they are there, the unofficial Treaty of Dover is negotiated, containing provisions for eternal friendship between the two sovereign nations and exclusive British trade rights.
1752		Christian missionaries initiate the first attempts to influence the Cherokees.
1754		Benjamin Franklin proposes a union of American colonies to assure central control over Indian policy and agreements. The French and Indian War begins, pitting Native American nations against one another in the service of Great Britain and France. As a result, the British Crown assumes control over relations with native peoples, taking the responsibility from individual colonial governments.
1760		An ill-fated war between the Cherokees and the British begins. The conflict will last a year, ending with surrender by the Cherokees.
1761		Two successive Cherokee delegations visit London. British-Cherokee relations are improved by creation of two “Indian districts” and appointment of agents to serve them.
1763		Mass migration of settlers onto Native American lands occurs. King George III of Great Britain issues the Proclamation of 1763, setting aside all lands west of the Appalachians as “Indian country” and ordering all British subjects to remove themselves from tribal holdings.
1776		The American colonies declare their independence. Many Native American nations are allied with Great Britain because of agreements made with the Crown.
1776–1777		Successful Revolutionary War raids on Cherokee towns provoke the execution of a peace treaty with the Americans. The treaty cedes to the whites nearly all Cherokee lands in South Carolina and large tracts in North Carolina and Tennessee. Cherokees led by Dragging Canoe refuse to sign the treaty, and they secede from the Cherokee Nation, removing themselves to Chickamauga Creek, where they continue to wage hostilities against the Americans.
1781		The United States adopts the Articles of Confederation, giving the Continental Congress sole power over all Indian affairs providing that no state’s legislative rights are infringed.

TREATY OF HOPEWELL—1838

1785		The Treaty of Hopewell, the first between the United States and the Cherokee Nation, is signed. The treaty places the Cherokees under the protection of the United States government and “no other sovereign,” and pledges to keep them from oppression.
1787		Congress passes the Northwest Ordinance, which promises that Native American territories “shall never be taken from them without their consent” and that “they shall never be invaded or disturbed, unless in just and lawful wars authorized by Congress.”
1789		The United States Constitution is adopted, and one article empowers the president to make treaties, including those with Native American nations, with the consent of the Senate.
1790		The Trade and Intercourse Act is enacted by Congress, restricting whites from entering Indian lands and selling alcoholic beverages there, and establishing standards of justice for crimes by one race against another.
1791		The Treaty of Holston is signed, initiating the first complete peace between the United States and the Cherokee Nation. The treaty states that the United States “solemnly guarantees to the Cherokee Nation, all their lands not hereby ceded.” In exchange, the Cherokees officially place themselves “under the protection of the said United States of America, and of no other sovereign whatsoever.”
1792		The Cherokee capital is moved from Echota in present Tennessee to Oostanaula in Georgia because of a shift of population farther south.
1794		The Spanish negotiate a treaty with the Choctaws, Chickasaws, Creeks, and Cherokees. The Cherokees cede more land to the United States. A Cherokee group led by Chief Bowl immigrates to present Arkansas.
1801		The first mission school is opened on Cherokee lands. The school had been requested by the Cherokee National Council.
1802		Thomas Jefferson signs the Georgia Compact, which includes support of Indian removal.
1803		The United States doubles in size with the Louisiana Purchase. The pursuit of Manifest Destiny begins. Thomas Jefferson initiates the first removal policy, proposing that all eastern tribes of Native Americans be removed to the newly acquired lands. Congress appropriates funds for the action, which is unpopular with the majority of native nations, including a significant majority of Cherokees. There are already some Cherokee settlements west of the Mississippi.
1804		The Cherokees cede land in Georgia. Lewis and Clark begin their historic expedition to chart the course of the Missouri River.
1805		The Cherokees agree to decrease their tribal holdings. The United States reaffirms its guarantee of protection for the Cherokee Nation.
1806		A treaty in January cedes tracts of Cherokee lands in Tennessee and Alabama to the United States.
1808		The Cherokees adopt a written legal code. Portions of the code have been in use since 1797 and before.
1810		The Supreme Court hears the first case on Indian law. Its decision in Fletcher vs. Peck is that states can grant land subject to Indian title. The validity of Indian title is to be based on occupancy.
1812		The War of 1812 begins. When the British withdraw from American soil, native nations lose the option of allying with another nation. Future treaties will become unilateral instruments to advance western expansion of the United States.
1813		The Western Cherokees establish a capital at Tahlonteeskee, near the Illinois River in present Oklahoma. Cherokees ally with Americans during the war in which the Creeks fight against white domination. Seven million acres of Cherokee land between the Verdigris River in present Oklahoma and the boundary of the Western Cherokees is sold to the United States.
1814		A Cherokee soldier saves the life of Andrew Jackson at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend.
1817		The General Crimes Act comes into effect, providing for federal prosecution of crimes by non-Indians against Native Americans on Indian lands. It is the first law to provide for federal criminal jurisdiction over Native Americans on their own lands. U.S. mail service is inaugurated throughout Cherokee lands. The Exchange Treaty sets aside eastern lands for the Cherokees and equal holdings in present Arkansas. A clause pertaining to reservations gives ceded lands to heads of families who become citizens of the United States.
1819		In February, the Old Settler Cherokees agree to a treaty that provides for land-exchange agreements and their removal to Arkansas Territory. A fund is created by Congress for the “civilization of the Indians.”
1820		The year marks the beginning of the United States Indian removal policy, which will remain official until 1861. The policy calls for removal of Native American nations beyond states’ boundaries and west of the Mississippi River.
1821		Sequoyah (George Guess or Gist) completes the eighty-five-character syllabary of the Cherokee language. Use of the syllabary spreads rapidly throughout the Cherokee Nation and to the Western Cherokees.
1824		The secretary of war creates an Office of Indian Affairs in the U.S. War Department.
1825		The United States begins removal of Native Americans to western lands.
1827		A written Cherokee constitution is adopted by elected delegates at New Echota, Georgia.
1828		The first issue of the Cherokee Phoenix, a national, bilingual Cherokee newspaper, appears. Gold is discovered in the eastern portion of the Cherokee Nation. More than ten thousand gold seekers flood the area. The Georgia legislature enacts edicts negating Cherokee sovereignty and extending state authority over the Cherokee Nation’s lands.
1830		The Indian Removal Act is passed by Congress, initiating the systematic, forced relocation of native nations in the East to Indian Territory, west of the Mississippi, in an effort to prevent altercations with white settlers.
1831		In a landmark decision in Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, the U.S. Supreme Court holds that Indian tribes are not foreign nations but domestic dependent nations.
1832		The U.S. Supreme Court hands down another landmark decision in Worcester v. Georgia. A Georgia state lottery parcels out land claimed by the state in Cherokee territory. The Supreme Court holds that the Cherokee Nation is a distinct and independent community that Georgia has no right to enter except with consent of the Cherokees.
1835		Despite overwhelming Cherokee opposition to a treaty intended to facilitate the tribe’s removal, members of the Ridge or Treaty Party sign the Treaty of New Echota, giving up title to all Cherokee lands in the Southeast in exchange for land in Indian Territory.
1836		Congress ratifies the treaty of New Echota despite the protests of Cherokee Chief John Ross and thousands of Cherokees.

TRAIL OF TEARS—1893

1838		The Cherokee Trail of Tears begins. The forced migration will claim the lives of more than four thousand Cherokees.
1839		Treaty Party leaders Major Ridge, John Ridge, and Elias Boudinot are assassinated, partly for having signed the Treaty of New Echota. The Convention of 1839 reunites the Old Settlers, Treaty Party, and Ross Party Cherokees in Indian Territory. A constitutional convention follows.
1849		Congress transfers the Office of Indian Affairs from the War Department to the newly created Department of the Interior.
1861		The Confederacy courts the Cherokee Nation for support of its cause against the Union, despite strenuous attempts by Chief John Ross to keep the Nation neutral. A treaty is signed between the Cherokee Nation and the Confederate government. The Cherokee Nation fields two regiments to fight in the Civil War. A violent struggle will separate Cherokees loyal to the Union from proponents of the Confederacy.
1862		President Abraham Lincoln signs the Homestead Act into law, offering anyone older than twenty-one a free 160-acre tract of land in the West.
1863		In February, the Cherokee Nation abolishes slavery within its boundaries and abrogates its Confederate treaty.
1866		To punish the Five Tribes for having supported the Confederacy, the United States government compels them to accept new treaties surrendering the western half of Indian Territory, where about twenty tribes from Kansas and Nebraska are to be settled on thirteen reservations.
1868		Members of the Cheyenne Nation are massacred by George Custer and his troops in Indian Territory at the Battle of the Washita.
1871		The Appropriations Act provides for the termination of treaty making with Native American nations. The act recognizes all treaties enacted before 1871 as remaining in force.
1872		Wholesale slaughter of the American bison begins. In the next two years, more than four million buffalo will be annihilated.
1876		The U.S. Seventh Cavalry and northern Plains Indians clash in the Battle of the Little Bighorn in present Montana, during the United States’ centennial year. The battle, in which the Indians were victorious, will become widely known as “Custer’s Last Stand.”
1878		Boarding schools are established for Native American children off reservation lands. Students are punished for speaking their native languages and practicing their own religious beliefs.
1883		The practice of traditional Native American religions becomes a federal offense.
1885		The Major Crimes Act provides for federal jurisdiction over seven major criminal acts between Native Americans on reservations. The list will later be expanded to include fourteen crimes.
1887		The Dawes Severalty Act or General Allotment Act comes into effect, preparing Native Americans for eventual termination of tribally held land by granting 160-acre allotments to each male, promoting private farming with the intention of easing “assimilation.” Teddy Roosevelt will call the Dawes Act “a mighty pulverizing engine to break up the tribal mass.”
1889		“Unassigned lands” in Oklahoma Territory (formed from western Indian Territory) are opened to white settlers.
1890		The Battle or Massacre at Wounded Knee occurs near Wounded Knee Creek in present South Dakota when members of the Seventh Cavalry kill more than 150 members of Big Foot’s band of Lakotas. The event draws the Indian wars to a tragic close. The Organic Act officially establishes Oklahoma Territory.
1891		Ethnologist James Mooney arrives in present Oklahoma to study Native American societies and cultures.

DAWES COMMISSION—1945

1893		Congress establishes the Dawes Commission to work for the negation of tribal title to lands held by the Choctaw, Chickasaw, Cherokee, Seminole, and Creek nations. James Mooney prepares a Native American exhibit for the World’s Fair in Chicago. Lands in the Cherokee Outlet in present Oklahoma are opened for white settlement.
1898		The Curtis Act abolishes tribal courts and laws but allows Native American nations to retain mineral rights to their lands, and extends the allotment policy to the Five Tribes in Indian Territory. The Dawes Commission begins to enroll members on tribal rolls.
1901		Congress confers United States citizenship on all Native Americans residing in Indian Territory.
1902		The secretary of the interior authorizes the first oil and gas leases on Indian lands in present Oklahoma.
1903		W. C. Rogers is elected chief of the Cherokees. It will be sixty-eight years before another chief is selected by vote of the people of the tribe.
1905		The Sequoyah Constitutional Convention meets in Muskogee, Indian Territory, in the interest of proposing that Indian Territory become an Indian state.
1907		Oklahoma statehood combines Indian and Oklahoma territories into a single state.
1912		Sac and Fox athlete Jim Thorpe of Oklahoma wins the Olympic pentathlon and decathlon in Stockholm, Sweden.
1924		Congress passes the Indian Citizenship Act, granting voting rights and United States citizenship to all Native Americans born in the country’s territorial limits, although indigenous Americans are still considered to be outside the protection of the Bill of Rights. Indians will not receive the right to vote in all states until 1948.
1928		The Meriam Report reveals in detail the massive failure of federal Indian policies since the late nineteenth century.
1934		The Wheeler-Howard Act, sometimes called the “Indian New Deal,” replaces the Dawes Act, ending the allotment policy and providing for political and economic development of reservations and creation of autonomous tribal governments, all under increased supervision by the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
1936		The Indian Welfare Act becomes law, allowing Native American nations to adopt constitutions and receive charters of incorporation.
1944		The National Congress of American Indians is established in Denver, Colorado.

MANKILLER’S BIRTH—1993

1945		Wilma Pearl Mankiller, future principal chief of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, is born at Mankiller Flats near Rocky Mountain, Oklahoma.
1946		The Indian Claims Commission is created to deal with Native American claims for compensation. The commission’s work will continue until 1978, when the remaining 102 cases will be transferred to the United States Court of Claims.
1948		Cherokee Chief J. B. Milam, a U.S. presidential appointee, calls a Cherokee convention to discuss revitalization of the Cherokee Nation.
1949		The Hoover Commission recommends in its report on Indian affairs that Native Americans be fully assimilated “into the mass of the population as full, tax-paying citizens.” W. W. Keeler is appointed chief of the Cherokees by President Harry Truman.
1953		Congress adopts the “termination policy” as the new solution to the “Indian problem” by passing House Concurrent Resolution 108, which is intended to “end [Native Americans’] status as wards of the United States.” During the next thirteen years, Congress will enact statutes terminating federal relationships with more than one hundred Native American nations, causing more than eleven thousand people to lose their status as “recognized” Native Americans. More than a million acres of land are removed from trust protection.
1956		The Mankiller family moves from rural Adair County, Oklahoma, to San Francisco, California, as part of the U.S. government’s relocation program. The Bureau of Indian Affairs had instituted the program, which relocated thousands of Native Americans in the late 1950s. The program’s goal was to abolish native people’s ties to their lands and cultures. More than one-third of those who were relocated returned home, marking the program’s failure.
1962		Native American nations are made eligible for benefits under the Manpower Development and Training Act.
1964		The Economic Opportunity Act extends benefits to native people for the first time, through the Office of Economic Opportunity Indian desk.
1968		Congress enacts the Indian Civil Rights Act, which extends the Bill of Rights to Native Americans for the first time. Religious freedom will not be legislated until 1978.
1969		Native Americans seize Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay, beginning an occupation that will last nineteen months. The group hopes to bring attention to Native American concerns and the growing problems faced by indigenous people in the United States.
1970		The termination era ends and the self-determination era of Indian policy begins. Election of chiefs to lead the Five Tribes replaces the practice of federal appointments of tribal leaders. A U.S. Supreme Court ruling confirms Cherokee, Choctaw, and Chickasaw ownership of bed and banks of a ninety-six-mile segment of the Arkansas River in Oklahoma. The official end of the termination policy did not occur until House Concurrent Resolution 108 was repudiated by Congress on April 28, 1988.
1971		W. W. Keeler becomes the first elected principal chief of the Cherokees since Oklahoma statehood.
1972		Members of the civil-rights organization known as the American Indian Movement occupy BIA offices in Washington, D.C., culminating a march known as the “Trail of Broken Treaties.” Their actions are intended to focus national attention on Native American issues.
1973		AIM members take over Wounded Knee, South Dakota, beginning a sixty-nine-day siege. The group demands a full U.S. Senate investigation of conditions on reservations. AIM also demands the return of the Black Hills to the Lakota Nation.
1975		Ross O. Swimmer is elected to the first of three terms as principal chief of the Cherokee Nation. A fifteen-member Cherokee tribal council is seated. Congress passes the Indian Self-Determination and Assistance Act.
1976		Cherokee Nation voters ratify a new constitution.
1978		The American Indian Religious Freedom Act grants Native Americans protection for the exercise of traditional religions and religious practices. The BIA establishes criteria by which Native American nations can be federally acknowledged as tribes.
1983		United States Indian policy recognizes a government-to-government relationship with Native American nations, but emphasizes the need for less reliance on federal support and more development of reservation economies. Ross Swimmer and Wilma Mankiller, a political “odd couple,” are elected as principal chief and deputy chief of the Cherokee Nation, respectively.
1984		The first joint council meeting in 146 years occurs at Red Clay, Tennessee, between the Eastern Band of Cherokees and the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma.
1985		Wilma Mankiller becomes the first woman principal chief of the Cherokees when Ross Swimmer resigns to head the BIA.
1986		Senate Concurrent Resolution 76 reaffirms the constitutionally recognized government-to-government relationship between the United States and Native American nations. The resolution acknowledges the need for utmost good faith in upholding treaties as the legal and moral duty of the United States.
1989		The Brendale opinion of the U.S. Supreme Court states that whenever a piece of land in a reservation passes out of trust, tribal sovereignty is negated.
1990		Chief Mankiller signs the historic self-governance agreement authorizing the Cherokee Nation to assume responsibility for funds formerly administered by the BIA. Tribal courts and tribal police are revitalized, and a Cherokee Nation tax commission is established.
1991		Chief Mankiller wins her third term in office, receiving 82 percent of the vote. The fifteen-member Cherokee tribal council includes six women.
1992		Chief Mankiller is selected by President-elect Bill Clinton to represent Native American nations at a national economic summit in Little Rock, Arkansas.
1993		The United Nations declares this the “Year of the Indigenous People.”
1994		Saying “her season at the Cherokee Nation has ended” Chief Mankiller announces she will not seek re-election in 1995
1995		Joe Byrd becomes principal chief after his run-off opponent, George Bearpaw, was removed from the ballot because of an ancient expunged felony conviction for assault
1997		The Cherokee Nation becomes embroiled in crisis when Principal Chief Joe Byrd fires all 15 Cherokee Nation marshals as well as the tribal prosecutor and tries to have all three supreme court justices impeached after marshals serve a search warrant on the chief’s office
1998		Wilma Mankiller receives the Presidential Medal of Freedom at a White House ceremony
1999		Chad Smith, grandson of Cherokee traditionalist Redbird Smith, is elected principal chief, defeating Joe Byrd and ending a divisive and controversial four years