Getting your questions ready
Getting your questions ready
Beat the crowd
10 questions No timer
50 free Cherokee Nation trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
The Cherokee Nation is the largest of the three federally recognised Cherokee tribes and one of the largest tribal nations in the United States, headquartered in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, with a reservation across 14 counties. This quiz covers its whole story: the matrilineal clans of the Southeastern homeland, Sequoyah's syllabary and the Cherokee Phoenix, the gold rush and the Indian Removal Act, the Supreme Court cases and the Treaty of New Echota, the Trail of Tears, John Ross's long chieftaincy, the Civil War and Stand Watie, allotment and near-dissolution, the rebuilding under Wilma Mankiller, the Freedmen citizenship fight and the 2020s court decisions that affirmed the reservation. Easy questions ask where the capital is and who created the writing system; harder ones cover the Cherokee word for the tribe, the 1997 courthouse crisis and how many characters the syllabary has. It suits students of American history, Cherokee citizens and their families, Oklahoma trivia nights and anyone who wants the real story behind a name most Americans know. Every answer has been checked against the Wikipedia articles on the Cherokee Nation, its history and its leading figures, and each question shows its source once you have answered.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which institution of higher education has its main campus in Tahlequah, the Cherokee capital?
Northeastern State
The town was established as the capital of the reunited nation in 1839, at the end of the Trail of Tears.
Q 02How many federally recognised Cherokee tribes are there in the United States?
Three
The Cherokee Nation is the largest; the others are the United Keetoowah Band, also in Tahlequah, and the Eastern Band in North Carolina.
Q 03The Cherokee Nation's reservation spans how many counties in northeastern Oklahoma?
14
They range from Adair and Cherokee counties to Tulsa and Washington.
Q 04Which 2020 Supreme Court ruling on the Muscogee led courts to affirm the Cherokee reservation was never disestablished?
McGirt v. Oklahoma
Hogner v. Oklahoma applied it to the Cherokee in March 2021, and the Principal Chief called it a vindication of the treaties.
Q 05The nation's newspaper, the first ever published by Native Americans, is named after which mythical bird?
The phoenix
Its first issue appeared in English and Cherokee on 21 February 1828 in New Echota, and it was revived in the 20th century.
Q 06Within 25 years of Sequoyah's 1821 syllabary, Cherokee literacy reached roughly what level?
Almost 100 percent
That surpassed the literacy of the surrounding European-American settlers.
Q 07What was Sequoyah's trade before he became famous for the syllabary?
Silversmith
He made items from the silver coins carried by trappers and traders, and dealt regularly with the settlers whose "talking leaves" intrigued him.
Q 08How many characters does the modern Cherokee syllabary have?
85
Each represents a syllable rather than a single sound; there were originally 86 until an editor dropped one to suit printing presses in 1828.
Q 09The Cherokee Nation officially adopted the syllabary in which year?
1825
It helped unify a nation being forcibly divided and gave it a new sense of independence.
Q 10To which country did Sequoyah travel late in life seeking Cherokees who had migrated there?
Mexico
He hoped to spread the syllabary and persuade them to move to Indian Territory.
Q 11The Cherokee language belongs to which language family?
Iroquoian
Oral tradition recorded by James Mooney describes an ancient migration south from the Great Lakes region.
Q 12The Cherokee endonym Aniyvwiya translates as what?
Principal People
Tsalagi is the Cherokee-language name for the people, and Anigiduwagi another endonym.
Q 13Traditional Cherokee society was matrilineal. What did that mean for children?
They were born into their mother's clan
Women controlled property such as dwellings, and a council of elders represented the seven clans.
Q 21How much compensation did the Treaty of New Echota promise the Cherokee for their eastern lands?
$5 million
The whole Louisiana Territory had cost just over $15 million three decades earlier.
Q 22Roughly how many Cherokee and enslaved African Americans died on the Trail of Tears?
About 3,500
The forced march west in 1838–39 was the last removal east of the Mississippi.
Q 23Which Treaty Party leader and newspaper editor was killed in 1839 under the Cherokee Blood Law for signing away land?
Elias Boudinot
Major Ridge and John Ridge were assassinated the same day.
Q 14Nanyehi, known in English as Nancy Ward, held which honoured title among the 18th-century Cherokee?
Beloved Woman
She earned the title Ghigau for her actions at the Battle of Taliwa and became a political leader and diplomat.
Q 15New Echota, the Cherokee capital until removal in the 1830s, was named in honour of what?
Chota, the former chief town of the Overhill towns
It lies in Gordon County in northwest Georgia and is now a state historic site.
Q 16The 1838 Cherokee removal was largely triggered by the 1828 discovery of what near Dahlonega?
Gold
The Georgia Gold Rush that followed intensified pressure on the state's Cherokee lands.
Q 17Which US president signed the Indian Removal Act into law on 28 May 1830?
Andrew Jackson
More than 60,000 people from at least 18 tribes were forced west of the Mississippi under him and Van Buren.
Q 18What phrase did Chief Justice Marshall use for the Cherokee polity in the 1831 case against Georgia?
Domestic dependent nation
The court therefore refused to hear the case, but reversed course the following year in Worcester v. Georgia.
Q 19Worcester v. Georgia (1832) vacated the conviction of Samuel Worcester, a missionary jailed for what?
Living on Cherokee land without a state licence
The court held that Georgia's laws had no force in Cherokee territory; the president is said, probably apocryphally, to have dared Marshall to enforce it.
Q 20Which group signed the 1835 agreement ceding all Cherokee land east of the Mississippi?
The Treaty Party, a minority faction
Over 16,000 Cherokee signed a petition against it, but the US Senate passed it in May 1836 by a single vote.
Q 24Major Ridge was assassinated in 1839 by members of which group, acting under the Cherokee Blood Law?
The Ross faction
He was blamed for ceding communal land and for the deaths on the Trail of Tears.
Q 25What was Principal Chief John Ross's Cherokee name, Guwisguwi, said to mean?
Mysterious Little White Bird
His first wife Quatie died on the Trail of Tears; the people kept re-electing him through the Civil War era.
Q 26The National Holiday, held each Labor Day weekend, celebrates the signing of what on 6 September 1839?
The reunited tribe's founding charter
Begun in 1953, the festival now draws over 70,000 people for stickball, marbles, a pow wow and the Miss Cherokee pageant.
Q 27Stand Watie, a Cherokee brigadier, holds what distinction from the American Civil War?
Last Confederate general to surrender
A Treaty Party leader and nephew of Major Ridge, he survived the 1839 assassination attempts on his family.
Q 28The 1866 treaty with the United States promised the Cherokee Nation what?
A permanent homeland
In exchange the nation gave up parts of its western territory, later organised into Oklahoma Territory.
Q 29Which 1898 law extended allotment to the Five Tribes and broke up their governments before Oklahoma statehood?
The Curtis Act
It was named for Charles Curtis, a Kansas congressman of Kaw descent who later became US vice president.
Q 30From 1919 the US appointed Cherokee chiefs for terms so brief the practice earned what nickname?
Chief for a Day
Six men fell into the category; the first, Andrew B. Cunningham, served from 8 to 25 November.