Cherokees

Cherokees, one of the most civilised of the American Indian tribes, of the Appalachian stock, and formerly the owners of a wide tract of country on either side of the southern Appalachian Mountains. In 1838 the great majority of the tribe were deported from Georgia to west of the Mississippi, and now they occupy the north-east angle of Indian Territory (q.v.; and for the Cherokee Outlet, bought by government and thrown open to settlement in 1893, see OKLAHOMA). The Cherokees have a syllabic alphabet of eighty-five characters, invented in 1826 by George Guess or Sequoyah, a half-breed. They number about 17,000.