Walini was among the Cherokees living on the Qualla Reservation in North Carolina when James Mooney visited in 1888.
Smithsonian Institution
A Band of Cherokees Holds On
The Cherokees who remained in the East endured many changes in the early 1800s.
As their Nation dwindled in size to cover only portions of Georgia, Alabama, North Carolina, and Tennessee, the influence of growing white settlements began to encroach on the old ways, the accepted beliefs. Settlers intermarried with Indians. Aspects of the Nation’s civilization gradually grew to resemble that of the surrounding states.
The Cherokees diversified and improved their agricultural economy. They came to rely more heavily on livestock. Herds of sheep, goats, and hogs, as well as cattle, grazed throughout the Nation. Along with crops of aromatic tobacco, and such staples as squash, potatoes, beans, and the ever-present corn, the Cherokees were cultivating cotton, grains, indigo, and other trade items. Boats carried tons of export to New Orleans and other river cities. Home industry, such as spinning and weaving, multiplied; local merchants thrived.
Church missions and their attendant schools were established. As early as 1801, members of the Society of United Brethren set up a station of missionaries at a north Georgia site called Spring Place. And within five years, the Rev. Gideon Blackburn from East Tennessee persuaded his Presbyterians to subsidize two schools.
In 1817, perhaps the most famous of all the Cherokee missions was opened on Chickamauga Creek at Brainerd, just across the Tennessee line from Georgia. Founded by Cyrus Kingsbury and a combined Congregational-Presbyterian board, Brainerd Mission educated many Cherokee leaders, including Elias Boudinot and John Ridge. Samuel Austin Worcester, a prominent Congregational minister from New England, taught at Brainerd from 1825 until 1834. He became a great friend of the Cherokees and was referred to as “The Messenger.”
In 1821, a single individual gave to his Nation an educational innovation as significant and far-reaching as the influx of schools. A Cherokee named Sequoyah, known among whites as George Gist, had long been interested in the “talking leaves” of the white man. After years of thought, study, and hard work, he devised an 86-character Cherokee alphabet. Born about 1760 near old Fort Loudoun, Tennessee, Sequoyah had neither attended school nor learned English. By 1818, he had moved to Willstown in what is now eastern Alabama and had grown interested in the white man’s ability to write. He determined that he would give his own people the same advantage.
