Eastern Cherokee Records

For more detailed information about the Eastern Cherokee related records see the BIA Inventory(DC), entries 217-219 and 589-603

Records of the Cherokee Indian Agency in Tennessee, 1801-1835
M208. 14 rolls. DP.

Selected Letters Received by the Office of Indian Affairs Relating to the Cherokees of North Carolina, 1851-1905
M1059. 7 rolls. DP.

This microfilm publication reproduces selected letters received by the Office of Indian Affairs, 1851-1905, relating to the Cherokee of North Carolina, the establishment of their reserves, and related litigation. This file reflects the office's somewhat sporadic involve­ment in matters concerning the North Carolina Cherokee. For this reason, for some years, the file contains few or no records.

The office used two filing systems to arrange the records repro­duced here. Letters received during 1851-75 are arranged by year, thereunder alphabetically by the correspondent's surname or the name of the organization, and thereunder numerically by register number. Letters received after 1875 are arranged by year, thereun­der alphabetically by the writer's sumame or by subject, and there­under chronologically by the date received.

U.S. Court of Claims
(Record Group 123)

The U.S. Court of Claims was established by an act of February 24, 1855 (10 Stat. 612), to hear claims against the United States including those referred to the court by Congress. An act approved July 1, 1902 (32 Stat. 728), gave the Court of Claims jurisdiction over any claim arising under treaty stipulations that the Cherokee Tribe, or any band thereof, might have against the United States. Within 2 years after the act was approved, three suits were brought before the court concerning grievances arising out of the treaties: (1) The Cherokee Nation v. The United States, General Jurisdiction Case No. 23199; (2) The Eastern and Emigrant Cherokees v. The United States, General Jurisdiction Case No. 23212; and (3) The Eastern Cherokees v. The United States, General Jurisdiction Case No. 23214.

On May 18, 1905, the court decided in favor of the Eastern Cherokee and instructed the Secretary of the Interior to identify the persons entitled to participate in the distribution of funds for payment of the claims. On June 30, 1906, Congress appropriated more than $1 million for this purpose. Guion Miller, special agent of the Interior Department, began compiling a roll of all Eastern and Western Cherokee Indians who were alive on May 28, 1906, and could establish that at the time of the treaties they were members or descendants of members of the Eastern Cherokee. They also had to prove that they had not been affiliated with any tribe of Indians other than the Eastern Cherokee or the Cherokee Nation. In his report of May 28, 1909, Miller stated that 45,847 separate applications had been filed, representing a total of about 90,000 individual claimants, 30,254 of whom were entitled to share in the fund.

Eastern Cherokee Applications of the U.S. Court of Claims, 1906-1909.
M1104. 348 rolls. DP.

The applications required each claimant to state full English and Indian names, residence, age, place of birth, name of husband or wife, name of tribe, and names of children. It also required information on the claimant's parents, grandparents, brothers, sisters, uncles, and aunts. The index to the applications is arranged alphabetically by name (either English or Indian) of claimant.

Records Relating to Enrollment of the Eastern Cherokee by Guion Miller, 1908-1910. M685. 12 rolls. DP.

This publication includes Guion Miller's report and his supplemental report as well as the roll of Eastern Cherokee. In certifying the eligibility of the Cherokee, Miller used earlier census lists and rolls that had been made of the Cherokee between 1835 and 1884. Copies of the Chapman, Drennen, and Old Settler rolls of 1851 and the Hester roll of 1884, with the appropriate indexes, are reproduced as the final roll of this publication.