Becoming the Tsalagi Ayeli: Cherokee Nation Building in the Early Republic

Abstract:This article examines the process of rapid centralization, reorganization, and development undertaken by the Cherokee during the late 18th and early 19th centuries in response to increasing external and internal stressors. In this process the key tenets of Native nation building, referred to as the “nation building approach” by Stephen Cornell and Joseph Kalt of the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development and the Native Nations Institute, can be identified. This represents one of the earliest well-documented processes of Native nation building as it is understood today, as the initial phase of this change occurred over 150 years prior to the introduction of the concept in academia. The analysis of these governance changes in American Indian history using the Native nation building lens could be used to better understand sovereign decisions and developments within Native nations, as well as the development of processes which informed or influenced later economic, social, and governance developments in the last century.