The 1670s marked the beginning of sustained contact between the two cultures, and that contact influenced Cherokee lives in many ways. They established a constitutional government with a senate, a house of representatives, and an elected chief. The Cherokees had a written language devised by the tribe's syllabary genius, Sequoyah. They valued education and often maintained schools for their children. The dress of the Cherokees also reflected their acculturative tendencies.
Women wove cotton cloth and adopted a European style of dress.
Men traditionally wore a turban, cloth tunic, or coat bound at the waist by a sash, skin leggings with garters below the knees, and moccasins. Although the Cherokees derived some advantages from interaction with European cultures, those were far outweighed by the negative effects of that contact. Throughout the eighteenth century the process of European empire building subjected the Cherokees to calamitous wars, epidemics, and food shortages, all of which resulted in declining population, shrinking territory, and weakening group identity. Between 1790 and 1820, many Cherokees, hoping to preserve what remained of their traditional culture, voluntarily migrated west of the Mississippi River and settled in the future Missouri, Arkansas, and Texas. Those who chose to remain on their ancestral land in the Southeast were ultimately forced to move west by the United States Indian removal policy, which was initiated in 1830.