Eastern Band of Cherokee: Homeland After the Storm

The land around you was established by the United States government for the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, the people who refused to leave when the forced removal of eighteen thirty-eight swept most of the Cherokee Nation westward to Indian Territory.

Some hid deep in these mountains. Others, led by a man named Tsali, resisted and paid with their lives, but their resistance bought time. A chief named Yonaguska and hundreds of followers had already become North Carolina citizens, which gave them legal standing to stay. When the removal was over, roughly eight hundred to one thousand Cherokee remained in the Smokies. Today the Eastern Band numbers over fifteen thousand citizens, and their reservation, called the Qualla Boundary, covers more than fifty-six thousand acres. The Cherokee were here ten thousand years before European contact. They are still here.