These are Adair, Cherokee, Craig, Delaware, Mayes, McIntosh, Muskogee, Nowata, Ottawa, Rogers, Sequoyah, Tulsa, Wagoner, and Washington counties.

Unlike most reservations, the Cherokee Nation owned fee simple title to its lands, and they were not held in trust by the United States.

[4] In the 1930s, the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration worked to improve conditions by supporting the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, which encouraged tribes to reconstitute their governments and write constitutions.

[7] The Cherokee Nation was seriously destabilized in May 1997 in what was variously described as either a nationalist "uprising" or an "anti-constitutional coup" instigated by Joe Byrd, the Principal Chief.

The crisis came to a head on March 22, 1997, when Byrd said in a press conference that he would decide which orders of the Cherokee Nation's Supreme Court were lawful and which were not.

This was in the wake of the American Civil War, when the US emancipated slaves by passing a constitutional amendment granting freedmen citizenship in the United States.

In reaching peace with the Cherokees, who had sided with the Confederates, the US government required that they end slavery and grant full citizenship to Freedmen living within their nation.

During creation of the Dawes Rolls prior to allotment of tribal communal lands to households, many Freedmen and Afro-Cherokees were listed separately from Cherokee by blood, regardless of their ancestry or culture.

[23] Well-known genealogist, historian, and Freedmen advocate David Cornsilk notes that other historical citizenship bases are still excluded to this day (such as an ancestor tied to an older roll).

[26] In early 2011, the tribal district court ruled that the special election in 2007 on the constitutional amendment was unconstitutional, as it excluded Freedmen from voting.

[27] At the same time, the Cherokee Supreme Court ordered a special run-off election to be held September 24, 2011 to settle the office of Principal Chief.

Earlier voting in this year's election had been so close that the incumbent Chad Smith and challenger Bill John Baker, longtime Cherokee National Council member, had each twice been declared the winner.

The US Department of Housing and Urban Development froze $33 million in funds to the Cherokee Nation while studying the case, pursuant to a stipulation in the 2008 congressional renewal of Self-Determination Act.

[24][32][33] Some people of descent are still excluded, like the author Shonda Buchanan who states in her memoir Black Indian that she has ancestors on Cherokee Rolls that were not the Dawes, so would thus still not be recognized.

[37][38] On July 9, 2020, the United States Supreme Court ruled in a 5–4 decision that the original treaties, and promise of a reservation, with the Five Civilized Tribes (specifically the Muscogee in McGirt v. Oklahoma) were never withdrawn.

The majority opinion was held by justices Sonia Sotomayor, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elena Kagan, Stephen Breyer, and Neil Gorsuch.

"[41] Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin, Jr. said: "We have long held that Cherokee Nation has a reservation, rooted in our treaties, as the Supreme Court of the United States has now affirmed" and "This proposed legislation will cement our reservation boundaries and the broad tribal jurisdiction the Supreme Court recognized in the McGirt decision.

They believe that this "would allow actual indigenous sovereignty and self-determination" and that "history tells us that nations and peoples can be organized in multiple and overlapping ways.

According to the Boston College sociologist and Cherokee, Eva Marie Garroutte, up to 32 separate definitions of "Indian" are used in federal legislation, as of a 1978 congressional survey.

[59] The principal chief is the head of the executive branch of the Cherokee National Government, responsible for overseeing an annual budget of over $600 million and more than 3,000 full-time employees.

The current Principal Chief, elected June 1, 2019, is Chuck Hoskin Jr., who formerly held the office of Cherokee Nation Secretary of State.

The chief is assisted in managing the executive branch by the Secretary of State, the Attorney General, the Marshal, the Treasurer, and several group leaders.

[71] The Cherokee Nation has constructed health clinics throughout Oklahoma, contributed to community development programs, built roads and bridges, constructed learning facilities and universities for its citizens, instilled the practice of Gadugi and self-reliance, revitalized language immersion programs for its children and youth, and is a powerful and positive economic and political force in Eastern Oklahoma.

In the early 21st century, the tribe assumed control of W. W. Hastings Hospital in Tahlequah, previously operated by the US Indian Health Service.

[74] The mission of ITEC is to protect the health of Native Americans, their natural resources and their environment as it relates to air, land and water.

The TCAB was formed as a political organization in 1871 by William Penn Adair and Clement Neely Vann, for descendants of the Texas Cherokees and the Mount Tabor Community.

Although the founding families were Cherokee by blood from 1850 and into contemporary periods the community has evolved into a distinct multitribal band with large percentages of Yowani Choctaw, Chickasaw and Muscogee Creek Indians.

These tribes committed to exposing and assisting state and federal authorities in eradicating any group that attempts or claims to operate as a government of the Cherokee people.

The resolution asked that no public funding from any federal or state government should be expended on behalf of non-federally recognized Cherokee tribes or bands.

The Nation stated it would call for a full accounting of all federal monies given to state-recognized, unrecognized or 501(c)(3) charitable organizations that claimed any Cherokee affiliation.