|First Posted: July 10, 2010| Mar 6, 2011 Cherokee Indians and
Horses The Cherokee are a Native American people historically
settled in the Southeastern United States (principally Georgia,
the Carolinas and Eastern Tennessee). Linguistically, they are
part of the Iroquoian-language family. In the 19th century,
historians and ethnographers recorded their oral tradition that
told of the tribe having migrated south in ancient times from
the Great Lakes region, where other Iroquoian-speaking peoples
were located. In the 19th century, white settlers in the United
States called the Cherokees one of the "Five Civilized Tribes,"
because they had assimilated numerous cultural and technological
practices of European-American settlers. According to the 2000
U.S. Census, the Cherokee Nation has more than 300,000 members,
the largest of the 563 federally recognized Native American
tribes in the United States. Of the three federally recognized
Cherokee tribes, the Cherokee Nation and the United Keetoowah
Band of Cherokee I