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Cherokee Nation
The largest of the Five Tribes, centered on Tahlequah
The Cherokee Nation's reservation covers about 7,000 square miles across 14 counties of northeastern Oklahoma, the land the Cherokee were forced onto after removal from their homeland in the Southeast. The Treaty of New Echota in 1835, signed by a small faction, led to the Trail of Tears of 1838 and 1839, on which thousands died. Survivors rebuilt their government at Tahlequah, which has been the Cherokee capital since 1839. The Cherokee Supreme Court Building there, from 1844, is described as the oldest public building in Oklahoma.
With about 477,000 citizens, the Cherokee Nation is one of the largest tribes in the country. In 2021, applying the Supreme Court's McGirt v. Oklahoma decision, an Oklahoma appeals court confirmed that its reservation was never dissolved. The Nation has upheld full citizenship for the descendants of Cherokee Freedmen, people the Cherokee once enslaved, and in 2019 it named a delegate to the U.S. House under the 1835 treaty, though Congress has not seated her. It is one of three federally recognized Cherokee tribes.