As of 2023, over 450,000 people were enrolled in the Cherokee Nation. The tribe also includes descendants of Cherokee Freedmen, Absentee Shawnee, and Natchez Nation. It includes people descended from members of the Old Cherokee Nation who relocated, due to increasing pressure, from the Southeast to Indian Territory and Cherokee who were forced to relocate on the Trail of Tears. The Cherokee Nation ( Cherokee: ᏣᎳᎩᎯ ᎠᏰᎵ Tsalagihi Ayeli or ᏣᎳᎩᏰᎵ Tsalagiyehli), also known as the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, is the largest of three Cherokee federally recognized tribes in the United States.
