The Cherokee Culture

Paper Summary:

The paper overviews the Cherokee tribe and shows how religious intolerance has virtually destroyed the cultural foundations of the culture. The paper explains the two points of view with regard to the causes of this situation and believes that both these points of view have to be taken into account to understand how various influences led to the decline of the Cherokee culture.

Outline:
Introduction and Background
Religious Aspects and Intolerance
Conclusion

From the Paper:

"The Cherokee are one of the largest North American indigenous tribes. They are linked to the Iroquoian linguistic family and the Southeast culture area. (Cherokee) "The Cherokee are the only surviving representative of the southern Iroquoian peoples, the split between the ancestral Cherokee and the Northern Iroquoian occurring about 3,500-4,000 years ago" ( Cherokee Religion).
"Archeological evidence suggests that the Cherokee migrated in the distant past from Texas or northern Mexico as well as the area surrounding the Great Lakes. (Cherokee) They then moved south to the Allegheny and Appalachian mountain regions in modern North and South Carolina, Tennessee, and northern Georgia and Alabama. This was where they were first encountered by Europeans when the Spanish explorer Hernando De Soto arrived in the area in 1540. It is also significant to note that this first encounter with the European culture was a smallpox epidemic that killed approximately eleven thousand Cherokees (Cherokee)."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Cherokee. May 11, 2008.<http://www.nativeamericans.com/Cherokee.htm>
• Cherokee Religion. May 11, 2008. <http://philtar.ucsm.ac.uk/encyclopedia/nam/cherok.html>
• Filler, Louis, and Allen Guttmann, eds. The Removal of the Cherokee Nation: Manifest Destiny or National Dishonor?. Lexington, MA: D. C. Heath, 1962. Questia. 13 May 2008 <http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=804330>.
• Kreyche, Gerald F. "The Cherokee Nation A History." USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education) May 2006: 81. Questia. 13 May 2008 <http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=5018073577>.
• Minges, Patrick N. Slavery in the Cherokee Nation: The Keetoowah Society and the Defining of a People, 1855-1867. New York: Routledge, 2003. Questia. 13 May 2008 <http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=105582251>.

More papers on The Cherokee Culture:

• Argumentative Essay # 74764 : "Removal of the Cherokee"
• Term Paper # 122387 : "A History of the Cherokee"
• Essay # 59281 : "The Cherokee and the Native American Gender Spectrum"

APA Citation:

MLA Citation: