n ( pl -kees or -kee )
a member of a Native-American people who lived by farming and trading. Their language was written in 1826 by Sequoyah , and they had a form of government called the Cherokee Nation . The US government moved them in 1838 from Georgia to Oklahoma , and many died on the journey, called the Trail of Tears . Some Cherokees still live in the eastern US in the Great Smoky Mountains .