It was like Baltimore," said one visitor to New E. Chote, a capital of a nation that

is no longer visible, though it still exists.

The Cherokee Nation in what is now Georgia, slightly north of present-day Atlanta.

There were streets, there were buildings, courthouses, schools, a government center.

The Cherokee Nation had a constitution, a supreme court.

It had a language that was previously oral in the 1820s translated into a written form,

and in newspaper the Cherokee Phoenix was printed.

It was not as some people might think merely roaming bands of Indians living in TPs or something

like that.

It was a civilization as people knew it in the 1820s.

There would be lots of pressure on this community, but they also had a lot of friends

in the United States and agreements with the federal government, and they'd be okay

for a while, until a discovery was made.

I want to take on this topic because I think the view of Native Americans

in modern time really falls into two categories, and one is, in a lot of literature and history,

a desire to learn about the stories of Native Americans, to learn about their culture,

to learn about what happened to them, and with that maybe a bit of regret that there

isn't more of it in the fabric of American life and regret over things that happened

in history.

And there's another school, and that's the inevitability.

In other words, you'll hear things like, well, in Europe, the Celts or numerous tribes

were driven out, numerous places in the world, people were conquered, there were battles,

...