The Eastern tribes have fascinated me and lately I've began to study them more. What I am learning and was only dimly aware of in the past is how, for lack of a better term, "civilized" they were. I had known that they farmed and lived in settled communities instead of teepees like the plains indians, but I had never really grasped the full depth of it. Not only did they live in towns, but many in many of these towns they had actual cabins with streets. And in some of the towns closest to the British trading posts, some of the chiefs actually had cabins with glass windows and furnishings and goods imported from Europe.
That knowledge brings a whole new perspective on things. Part of this was undoubtedly due to the fact that by the late 18th Century they had been living cheek to jowl with whites for the better part of 200 years and as a result, they had adopted some of their ways. But, a bigger part of it was that they were simply more advanced than we ever think of North American Indians being when we think of them today.
Had they been able to unite more effectively as a single force and had their British allies been more constant and reliable, they may have been able to hold white immigration in check and if they couldn't force the whites back across the mountains, at least they may have been able to carve out a large territory for themselves in the East. It wasn't, as it seems today, a dream necessarily doomed from the start. It could have been done.
If you ever have the opportunity, go to Cherokee, NC. and learn about the tribe. Those of the Eastern Band of the Cherokee, in the Cherokee, NC. area their ancesters fled to the mountains versus being rounded up and relocated to the West when gold was dicovered in N.GA. There's also places in SE.TN. & N.GA. that has a lot of history on the Cherokees.
Some of your Western Tribes, along the WA. & OR. Coast and Columbia River were traders with the British and lived a prosperous life also.
