The Cherokee are one of the indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States. Prior to the 18th century, they were concentrated in their homelands, in towns along river valleys of what is now southwestern North Carolina, southeastern Tennessee, southwestern Virginia, edges of western South Carolina, northern Georgia and northeastern Alabama.
The term Five Civilized Tribes was applied by European Americans in the colonial and early federal period in the history of the United States to the five major Native American nations in the Southeast, the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee, and Seminoles. Americans of European descent classified them as "civilized" because they had adopted attributes of the Anglo-American culture.
Tribal sovereignty in the United States is the concept of the inherent authority of Indigenous tribes to govern themselves within the borders of the United States.
The Qualla Boundary or The Qualla is territory held as a land trust by the United States government for the federally recognized Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, who reside in western North Carolina. The area is part of the large historic Cherokee territory in the Southeast, which extended into eastern Tennessee, western South Carolina, northern Georgia and Alabama. Currently, the largest contiguous portion of the Qualla lies in Haywood, Swain, and Jackson counties and is centered on the community of Cherokee, which serves as the tribal capital of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. Smaller, discontiguous parcels also lie in Graham and Cherokee counties, near the communities of Snowbird and Murphy respectively.
The Lumbee are a Native American people primarily centered in Robeson, Hoke, Cumberland, and Scotland counties in North Carolina.
The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI), is a federally recognized Indian Tribe based in Western North Carolina in the United States. They are descended from the small group of 800–1000 Cherokee who remained in the Eastern United States after the US military, under the Indian Removal Act, moved the other 15,000 Cherokee to west of the Mississippi River in the late 1830s, to Indian Territory. Those Cherokee remaining in the East were to give up tribal Cherokee citizenship and to assimilate. They became US citizens.
The Yuchi people, also spelled Euchee and Uchee, are a Native American tribe based in Oklahoma. Their original homeland was in the southeast of the present United States.
State-recognized tribes in the United States are organizations that identify as Native American tribes or heritage groups that do not meet the criteria for federally recognized Indian tribes but have been recognized by a process established under assorted state government laws for varying purposes or by governor's executive orders. State recognition does not dictate whether or not they are recognized as Native American tribes by continually existing tribal nations.
Ysleta del Sur Pueblo, also Tigua Pueblo, is a Native American Pueblo and federally recognized tribe in the Ysleta section of El Paso, Texas. Its members are Southern Tiwa people who had been displaced from Spanish New Mexico from 1680 to 1681 during the Pueblo Revolt against the Spaniards.
The Wassamasaw Tribe of Varnertown Indians or Wassamasaw Tribe is a state-recognized tribe and 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization headquartered in Berkeley County, South Carolina. The organization was awarded the status of a state-recognized tribe by the South Carolina Commission of Minority Affairs in November 2009, becoming the sixth state-recognized tribe within South Carolina. The Tribe is not federally recognized as a Native American tribe by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The Catawba Indian Nation is the only Tribe in South Carolina that is federally recognized by the U.S. Government.
The Cherokee Nation, also known as the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, is the largest of three Cherokee federally recognized tribes in the United States. It includes people descended from members of the Old Cherokee Nation who relocated, due to increasing pressure, from the Southeast to Indian Territory and Cherokee who were forced to relocate on the Trail of Tears. The tribe also includes descendants of Cherokee Freedmen, Absentee Shawnee, and Natchez Nation. As of 2023, over 450,000 people were enrolled in the Cherokee Nation.
Native American recognition in the United States, for tribes, usually means being recognized by the United States federal government as a community of Indigenous people that has been in continual existence since prior to European contact, and which has a sovereign, government-to-government relationship with the Federal government of the United States. In the United States, the Native American tribe is a fundamental unit of sovereign tribal government. This recognition comes with various rights and responsibilities. The United States recognizes the right of these tribes to self-government and supports their tribal sovereignty and self-determination. These tribes possess the right to establish the legal requirements for membership. They may form their own government, enforce laws, tax, license and regulate activities, zone, and exclude people from tribal territories. Limitations on tribal powers of self-government include the same limitations applicable to states; for example, neither tribes nor states have the power to make war, engage in foreign relations, or coin money.
The Muscogee Nation, or Muscogee (Creek) Nation, is a federally recognized Native American tribe based in the U.S. state of Oklahoma. The nation descends from the historic Muscogee Confederacy, a large group of indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands. Official languages include Muscogee, Yuchi, Natchez, Alabama, and Koasati, with Muscogee retaining the largest number of speakers. They commonly refer to themselves as Este Mvskokvlke. Historically, they were often referred to by European Americans as one of the Five Civilized Tribes of the American Southeast.
The Poarch Band of Creek Indians are a federally recognized tribe of Native Americans with reservation lands in lower Alabama. As Mvskoke people, they speak the Muscogee language. They were formerly known as the Creek Nation East of the Mississippi. The Poarch Band of Creek Indians are a sovereign nation of Muscogee (Creek) people with deep ancestral connections to lands of the Southeast United States.
Several Native American tribes within the United States register motor vehicles and issue license plates to those vehicles.
Pan-Indianism is a philosophical and political approach promoting unity, and to some extent cultural homogenization, among different Indigenous groups in the Americas regardless of tribal distinctions and cultural differences.
The Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina is a state-recognized tribe in North Carolina. The tribe represents Lumbee people. They do not hold federal recognition as a Native American tribe.
The Echota Cherokee Tribe of Alabama is a state-recognized tribe in Alabama and Cherokee heritage group. It is based in northern Alabama and gained state-recognition under the Davis-Strong Act in 1984.
The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Native American tribes and tribal communities has been severe and has emphasized underlying inequalities in Native American communities compared to the majority of the American population. The pandemic exacerbated existing healthcare and other economic and social disparities between Native Americans and other racial and ethnic groups in the United States. Along with black Americans, Latinos, and Pacific Islanders, the death rate in Native Americans due to COVID-19 was twice that of white and Asian Americans, with Native Americans having the highest mortality rate of all racial and ethnic groups nationwide. As of January 5, 2021, the mortality impact in Native American populations from COVID-19 was 1 in 595 or 168.4 deaths in 100,000, compared to 1 in 1,030 for white Americans and 1 in 1,670 for Asian Americans. Prior to the pandemic, Native Americans were already at a higher risk for infectious disease and mortality than any other group in the United States.
