part 2, chapter 13.

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AMERICAN ABORIGINES: Caripuna.

See below: GUCK OR COCO GROUP.

AMERICAN ABORIGINES: Cat Nation, or Eries.

See below: HURONS, &c., and IROQUOIS CONFEDERACY: THEIR CONQUESTS, &c.

AMERICAN ABORIGINES: Catawbas, or Kataba.

See below: SIOUAN FAMILY; also, TIMUQUANAN.

AMERICAN ABORIGINES: Cayugas.

See below: IROQUOIS CONFEDERACY.

AMERICAN ABORIGINES: Chancas.

See PERU.

AMERICAN ABORIGINES: Chapas, or Chapanecs.

See below: ZAPOTECS, ETC.

AMERICAN ABORIGINES: Cherokees.

"The Cherokee tribe has long been a puzzling factor to students of ethnology and North American languages. Whether to be considered an abnormal offshoot from one of the well-known Indian stocks or families of North America, or the remnant of some undetermined or almost extinct family which has merged into another, appear to be questions yet unsettled."

_C. Thomas, Burial Mounds of the Northern Sections of the United States (Fifth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, 1883-4)_.

Facts which tend to identify the Cherokees with the ancient "mound-builders" of the Ohio Valley--the Alleghans or Talligewi of Indian tradition--are set forth by Professor Thomas in a later paper, on the Problem of the Ohio Mounds, published by the Bureau of Ethnology in 1889 [see above: ALLEGHANS] and in a little book published in 1890, entitled "The Cherokees in Pre-Columbian Times." "The Cherokee nation has probably occupied a more prominent place in the affairs and history of what is now the United States of America, since the date of the early European settlements, than any other tribe, nation, or confederacy of Indians, unless it be possible to except the powerful and warlike league of the Iroquois or Six Nations of New York. It is almost certain that they were visited at a very early period [1540] following the discovery of the American continent by that daring and enthusiastic Spaniard, Fernando de Soto. ... At the time of the English settlement of the Carolinas the Cherokees occupied a diversified and well-watered region of country of large extent upon the waters of the Catawba, Broad, Saluda, Keowee, Tugaloo, Savannah, and Coosa rivers on the east and south, and several tributaries of the Tennessee on the north and west. ... In subsequent years, through frequent and long continued conflicts with the ever advancing white settlements, and the successive treaties whereby the Cherokees gradually yielded portions of their domain, the location and names of their towns were continually changing until the final removal of the nation [1836-1839] west of the Mississippi. ... This removal turned the Cherokees back in the calendar of progress and civilization at least a quarter of a century. The hardships and exposures of the journey, coupled with the fevers and malaria of a radically different climate, cost the lives of perhaps 10 per cent. of their total population. The animosities and turbulence born of the treaty of 1835 not only occasioned the loss of many lives, but rendered property insecure, and in consequence diminished the zeal and industry of the entire community in its accumulation. A brief period of comparative quiet, however, was again characterized by an advance toward a higher civilization. Five years after their removal we find from the report of their agent that they are again on the increase in population. ... With the exception of occasional drawbacks--the result of civil feuds--the progress of the nation in education, industry and civilization continued until the outbreak of the rebellion. At this period, from the best attainable information, the Cherokees numbered 21,000 souls. The events of the war brought to them more of desolation and ruin than perhaps to any other community. Raided and sacked alternately, not only by the Confederates and Union forces, but by the vindictive ferocity and hate of their own factional divisions, their country became a blackened and desolate waste. ... The war over, and the work of reconstruction commenced, found them numbering 14,000 impoverished, heart-broken, and revengeful people. ... To-day their country is more prosperous than ever. They number 22,000, a greater population than they have had at any previous period, except perhaps just prior to the date of the treaty of 1835, when those east added to those west of the Mississippi are stated to have aggregated nearly 25,000 people. To-day they have 2,300 scholars attending 75 schools, established and supported by themselves at an annual expense to the nation of nearly $100,000. To-day, 13,000 of their people can read and 18,000 can speak the English language. To-day, 5,000 brick, frame and log-houses are occupied by them, and they have 64 churches with a membership of several thousand. They cultivate 100,000 acres of land and have an additional 150,000 fenced. ... They have a constitutional form of government predicated upon that of the United States. As a rule their laws are wise and beneficent and are enforced with strictness and justice. ... The present Cherokee population is of a composite character. Remnants of other nations or tribes [Delawares, Shawnees, Creeks, Natchez] have from time to time been absorbed and admitted to full participation in the benefits of Cherokee citizenship."

_C. C. Royce, The Cherokee Nation of Indians (Fifth Annual Reportt of the Bureau of Ethnology, 1883-84)._

This elaborate paper by Mr. Royce is a narrative in detail of the official relations of the Cherokees with the colonial and federal governments, from their first treaty with South Carolina, in 1721, down to the treaty of April 27, 1868.--"As early as 1798 Barton compared the Cheroki language with that of the Iroquois and stated his belief that there was a connection between them. ... Mr. Hale was the first to give formal expression to his belief in the affinity of the Cheroki to Iroquois. Recently extensive Cheroki vocabularies have come into possession of the Bureau of Ethnology, and a careful comparison of them with ample Iroquois material has been made by Mr Hewitt. The result is convincing proof of the relationship of the two languages."

_J. W. Powell, Seventh Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, page 77._

See Note, Appendix: E.

ALSO IN _S. G. Drake, The Aboriginal Races of North America, book 4, chapter 13-16._

See, above: ALLEGHANS.

See, also, for an account of the Cherokee War of 1759-1761, SOUTH CAROLINA: A. D. 1759-1761; and for "Lord Dunmore's War," OHIO (VALLEY): A. D. 1774.

AMERICAN ABORIGINES: Cheyennes, or Sheyennes.

See above; ALGONQUIAN FAMILY

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AMERICAN ABORIGINES: Chibchas.

The most northerly group of the tribes of the Andes "are the Cundinamarca of the table lands of Bogota. At the time of the conquest the watershed of the Magdalena was occupied by the Chibcha, or, as they were called by the Spaniards, Muyscas. At that time the Chibcha were the most powerful of all the autochthonous tribes, had a long history behind them, were well advanced toward civilization, to which numerous antiquities bear witness. The Chibcha of to-day no longer speak the well-developed and musical language of their forefathers. It became extinct about 1730, and it can now only be inferred from existing dialects of it; these are the languages of the Turiero, a tribe dwelling north of Bogota, and of the Itoco Indians who live in the neighborhood of the celebrated Emerald mines of Muzo."

_The Standard Natural History (J. S. Kingsley, editor)