"According to tribal history, Cherokee people have existed since time immemorial. Our oral history extends back through the millennia. It’s recorded that our first European contact came in 1540 with Hernando DeSoto’s exploration of the southeastern portion of our continent. Trade and intermarriage with various European immigrants soon followed, most notably with the English, Scots and Irish... In time, missionaries and European influences created a strong educational and spiritual framework, with many Cherokees becoming Christians and sending their children to missionary schools to be educated in English. By the time gold was discovered in the Cherokee Nation in 1828 near Dahlonega, Georgia, the Cherokee Nation had a written language, a newspaper that published in both Cherokee and English and a Constitutional government. A few Cherokees had even emulated their southern U.S. counterparts by building plantations worked by slaves." - https://www.cherokee.org/about-the-nation/history/
"One quiet line marked the beginning of my healing: 'No more will I follow any rules that splits my soul.' Not for society or for government or for education or for any power whatsoever would I depart from the traditional teacher of my elders: 'All of creation is one family, sacred.' I also remembered that when I was young and said 'I want to be a poet,' Mother always said, 'That's good. And what will you do for the people?'" - Marilou Awiakta
Poem: Song of Grandmothers (pg 471)