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During the winter of 1838 and early spring of 1839, the U.S. Federal government relocated approximately 11,000 Cherokee from lands in North Carolina, in what was known as the Trail of Tears. Some of the Cherokee were able to evade the initial removal and hide themselves in the Great Smokey Mountains, some were free to stay due to earlier treaties, but the majority of the Cherokee people were removed from the land. This was when the main struggle for the boundary began.

In the 1840’s and 1850’s, a white Cherokee chief named William Thomas purchased the lands for the Cherokee people under his own name. In the 1860’s the U.S. government recognized the right of the Cherokee to own and control the lands, and in the 1870’s the land was demarcated as Cherokee land, which means it is outside of state and federal government jurisdiction. These Cherokee that were allowed to live in North Carolina were seen as a separate organization than the Cherokee living in Oklahoma.

William Holland Thomas had lived and worked among the Cherokee people for a good portion of his life. He had a knowledge of their traditions and language, and was close friends with some members of the tribe. The Cherokee valued and respected Thomas, he even served as the only white chief in their history. Thomas purchased lands around the Oconaluftee River for the tribe, the total area adding up to around 50,000 acres; this land is still a large part of what makes up the boundary today.

57,000 acres of the Qualla boundary is technically not a reservation because individual tribal members hold the titles to the land

The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians was created from a small group of around 800 Cherokee Indians that resisted or hid during removal and stayed on their homelands within what is now the Qualla Boundary.