The historic homeland of the Cherokee extended over a large swath of the Appalachia region centered in western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee. During the 1820’s and 1830’s the Cherokee were pressured to give up their ancestral land in exchange for lands now in present day Oklahoma. The US Army rounded up the remaining Cherokee from North Carolina, Tennessee, and Georgia who had not voluntarily left before May 1838. At the end of May 1838, more than 15,000 Cherokee were forcibly removed and sent west on the infamous “Trail of Tears”.
Some Cherokee were able to avoid the US Army by either hiding out in the mountains or by other means. The descendants of those Cherokee formed the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI). With the help of their friend William H. Thomas, many of the Cherokee were able to purchase about 50,000 acres along the Oconaluftee River in western North Carolina. This purchased land is now included in the Qualla Boundary of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians along with other land the tribe purchased in the 1870s.
The Qualla Boundary is 82.6 square miles of land held in trust by the US Federal government for the EBCI in western North Carolina and borders the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The capital of the EBCI is the town of Cherokee, which is at the intersection of US 19 and US 441 and is the southern terminus of the Blue Ridge Parkway. The Cherokee Historical Association runs the Oconaluftee Indian Village living history museum and the outdoor drama, Unto These Hills which tells the story of the Cherokee people leading up to the 1838 Trail of Tears.