The Eastern Band

of the Cherokee Indians

The Eastern Band of the Cherokee live on the Qualla Boundary, a land area comprised of 56,572 acres directly adjacent to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The more than 10,000 members of the Eastern Band are descendants of those Cherokee who, in the late 1830s, remained in the mountains of North Carolina rather than be forced to march along the infamous "Trail of Tears" to Oklahoma.

Today, the Eastern Band of the Cherokee is the only tribe of North Carolina's six recognized tribes which possesses both state and federal recognition, lives on a reservation and is served by the Bureau of Indian Affairs in the US Department of the Interior, the Indian Health Service and the federal departments of Labor, Commerce, and Health and Human Services. The North Carolina Commission of Indian Affairs subcontracts Community Action Partnership Program (CAPP) funding to the Eastern Band of the Cherokee each year.

Favorite local attractions include annual cultural festivals, the Occunaluftee Indian Village, the outdoor drama "Unto these Hills," trout fishing and the Museum of the Cherokee Indian. Traditional Cherokee arts and crafts such as baskets, pottery, beadwork, fingerweavings, stone carvings and wood carvings are sold at the Qualla Arts and Crafts Mutual, and artist cooperative on the Qualla Boundary. The Cherokee Fall Festival is held each October.