page_title: Cherokee Nation (1794–1907)
section_title: Civil War and Reconstruction
hierarchical_section_title: Cherokee Nation (1794–1907) / History / Civil War and Reconstruction
context_page_description: The Cherokee Nation was a legal, autonomous, tribal government in North America recognized from 1794 to 1907. It was often referred to simply as "The Nation" by its inhabitants. The government was disbanded in 1907, after its land rights had been extinguished, prior to the admission of Oklahoma as a state. During the late 20th century, the Cherokee people reorganized, instituting a government with sovereign jurisdiction known as the Cherokee Nation.
  It consisted of the Cherokee people of the Qualla Boundary and the southeastern United States; those who relocated voluntarily from the southeastern United States to the Indian Territory; those who were forced by the Federal government of the United States to relocate by way of the Trail of Tears; descendants of the Natchez, the Lenape and the Shawnee peoples, and, after the Civil War and emancipation of slaves, Cherokee Freedmen and their descendants.
  The nation was recognized as a sovereign government until after the American Civil War. It was partially occupied by United States.
context_section_description: Numerous skirmishes took place in the Trans-Mississippi area, which included the Cherokee Nation–West. There were seven officially recognized battles involving Native American units, who were either allied with the Confederate States of America or loyal to the United States government.
  Several prominent members of the Cherokee Nation made contributions during the war: William Penn Adair (1830–1880), a Cherokee senator and diplomat, served as a Confederate colonel; Nimrod Jarrett Smith, Tsaladihi (1837–1893), a future Principal Chief of the Eastern Band, also served during the war; and hold-out Confederate Brig. General Stand Watie (also known as Degataga, (1806–1871), a signer of the Treaty of New Echota) raided Union positions in the Indian Territory with his 1st Cherokee Mounted Rifles Regiment of the Army of Trans-Mississippi well after the Confederacy had abandoned the area. He became the last Confederate general to surrender—on June 25, 1865.
  The main body of the Cherokee people had sided with the Confederacy during the American Civil War. After the war, the United States negotiated a new treaty with them, establishing peace and requiring them to emancipate their slaves and to offer them citizenship and territory within the reservation if the freedmen chose to stay with the tribe, as the US had done for enslaved African Americans. The area was made part of the reconstruction of the former Confederate States overseen by military officers and governors appointed by the federal government.
  A 2020 study contrasted the successful distribution of free land to former slaves in the Cherokee Nation with the failure to give former slaves in the Confederacy free land. The study found that even though levels of inequality in 1860 were similar in the Cherokee Nation and the Confederacy, former black slaves prospered in the Cherokee Nation over the next decades. The Cherokee Nation had lower levels of racial inequality where blacks saw higher incomes, higher literacy rates, and greater school attendance.
caption: The Cherokee Braves Flag, as flown by Stand Watie's troop.