The Cherokee (who call themselves the Tsalagi or the principal people or the first) originally occupied a large portion of the Alleghany mountains. Their territory covered what is today the states of Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama. They had long-running, highly ritualistic feuds with the Iroquois and other eastern tribes such as the Tuscarora, Catawba, Creeks, and the Shawnee.

However, their most tragic war was with the the US government. In 1839, after a long series of conflicts during which they were pushed westward towards the Mississippi, the Cherokees were forcibly evicted from their land and marched to Oklahoma in the dead of winter by the US Army. This is today known as the "Trail of Tears", one of the most shameful actions ever taken by the Unites States government. More than 20,000 Natives died during the land take over.

Many white Americans today claim to trace descent from a Cherokee ancestor (typically a 'Cherokee Princess', which is bizarre because the Cherokee do not have any sort of titular nobility). This has become a running joke for actual Native Americans.

Possibly for this reason, the Cherokee tribe has become a focal point for a lot of white guilt. In this context, the spiritual traditions of the Cherokee have in recent years become the subject of several very popular books.

The Myths of the Cherokee, excerpted from the 19th Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, is a nineteenth century collection of Cherokee myths, legends and folklore by the noted anthropologist James Mooney (1861-1921), who lived for several years with the Cherokee.