A Comparison of the Oneida and Cherokee Tribes

The Oneida and the Cherokee A general history of Native Americans has been a part of my education for as long as I can remember. I remember how during the week before Thanksgiving, my 1st grade class did a skit about the “First Thanksgiving”. In order to look like Indians we made vests out of paper grocery bags and crumpled them up to look like leather and drew on them with crayons. When I think of my education of Native American culture, I think of going to North Pacific Reservations and seeing 10-12 ft tall totem poles with the shapes of animals carved into them. Most of the Native American tribes that I have learned about have been Western United States tribes because I grew up in California. When I read the list of Wisconsin Native American tribes, I, unlike most of the class, had no idea what they were. I chose the Oneida tribe because my former youth pastor works at the Oneida Reservation. I look forward to learning about the Oneida tribe and comparing them with the Cherokee tribe. The Oneida reside in DePere, Wisconsin. There are about 12,000 registered Oneida members in Wisconsin. Only about 2,500 people live on the actual reservation and another 2,500 live in the surrounding areas. The Oneida are governed by a group of nine people, The Business Committee which has four officers and five council members. Many of the Oneida are members of the Church of Jesus Christ for Latter-Day Saints. They helped to form and strengthen the LDS congregations in Green Bay and Appleton, WI. The Oneida did not always live in Wisconsin. They are originally from a part of New York near Lake Oneida. The Oneida are part of a group of Six Iroquois Nations that lived in the same area of New York. In New York they would set up a village for 10-15 years and once all the resources were depleted, they would move their camp to a different part of the area where the hunting was plentiful and the soil was good for growing food. In this society, the women farmed in the village

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