Cherokee Nation Reunited    

1838–1839: Fourteen thousand Cherokee men, women, and children marched westward on the Trail of Tears, forced from their southeastern homelands by US troops. Those who survived arrived in Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma). There they joined about 5,000 other Cherokees who had begun moving west decades earlier.   

Years of separation had created divisions between Eastern and Western Cherokees. Reuniting under such traumatic circumstances stoked tensions and violence. To restore peace, leaders on both sides signed an Act of Union on July 12, 1839. The act officially brought them back together into one Cherokee Nation.   Cherokee citizens looked for ways to rebuild relationships with one another and with a new land. Religion helped guide their efforts. 

Cherokee religious beliefs originate from a shared set of values, passed down through stories and the teachings of elders. These values articulate outlooks on ceremony, sharing, helping others, and communal obligations. Cherokees renewed their commitment to these community values in order to repair and revitalize their relations in a new homeland.

John Mix Stanley (1814–1872)             
International Indian Council (Held at Tallequah, Indian Territory, in 1843), 1843  
Smithsonian American Art Museum

“Therefore we, the people composing the Eastern and Western Cherokee Nation, in National Convention assembled, by virtue of our original and unalienable rights, do hereby solemnly and mutually agree to form ourselves into one body politic, under the style and title of the Cherokee Nation.” 
—Act of Union, 1839

Charles Bird King (1785–1862) 
Sequoyah, 1836–1844 
Patricia D. Klingenstein Library, New-York Historical Society

Sequoyah & The Act of Union  

The well-known Cherokee leader Sequoyah (ca. 1778–1843) helped welcome refugees from the Trail of Tears. Sequoyah was celebrated for inventing the Cherokee syllabary—the basis for a written form of the Cherokee language.  

Born on Cherokee homelands in the southern Appalachian Mountains, Sequoyah joined Western Cherokees in Arkansas Territory to escape white encroachment. He moved farther west with them to Indian Territory in 1829. When thousands of displaced Cherokees arrived a decade later, Sequoyah urged his fellow Cherokees to come together peacefully “with pure hearts and clean hands.”  

Sequoyah and other leaders hoped the 1839 Act of Union Between the Eastern and Western Cherokees would rejoin “the two branches of the ancient Cherokee family.” They wrote a new constitution two months later.

Early Departures: 1780s to 1830s     
Multiple groups of Cherokees departed from southeastern homelands following intrusions and depredations by white citizens and federal and state governments hungry for Cherokee land. Many left in accordance with the Treaties of 1817 and 1819, which included land cessions and provisions for removal west. Collectively, these “Old Settlers,” or Western Cherokees, established their own government in Indian Territory.  

The Trail of Tears: 1838–39   
The highly contested Treaty of New Echota (1835) ceded what was left of Cherokee lands in the East, and the treaty signers joined the Western Cherokees in Indian Territory (now Oklahoma). President Martin Van Buren then dispatched the Army to forcibly remove the remaining Eastern Cherokees to Indian Territory. The suffering and death began in the internment camps and continued on the 900-mile Trail of Tears. About 14,000 Cherokees and a number of enslaved people of African descent traveled the trail. Far fewer survived the journey. 

Cherokee Community Values (ᏍᎦᏚᎩᏗᎧᏃᏩᏛᏍᏗ)

Fulfilling the promises in the Act of Union meant recommitting to community values. These values express the relational worldview at the heart of Cherokee spirituality.  

Behaving as a “good relative” is the central theme of traditional Cherokee religion. Cherokee traditions teach that all life is interdependent: humans are part of a web of kinship that also includes plants, animals, and other animate and inanimate things. Leading a religious life means honoring these connections and accepting one’s responsibilities within this extended “family.” Cherokee beliefs emphasize that all daily actions have a spiritual dimension and can strengthen or disrupt the harmony in one’s relationships.  

Since traditional Cherokee religion does not demand exclusivity, Cherokees who practiced Christianity could also participate in this longstanding belief system.  

Stories about three community values that influenced Cherokee history are shared here.

America Meredith   

America Meredith (Cherokee Nation) created these three paintings. Meredith is the publishing editor of First American Art Magazine and a writer, art critic, visual artist, and independent curator. Based in Norman, Oklahoma, she earned her MFA degree from the San Francisco Art Institute and has taught Native art history at colleges and in community courses.

A Colorado Prospect and Civil War