Cherokee Nation

I wanted to take a look at possibly one of the most famous tribes in North America today, Cherokee Nation. What I noticed as I was looking at a number of websites of Native American tribes was that they tended to have their name followed by 'Nation' or 'Reservation'. From this I took that the Native American peoples want to hold on to the fact that they are separate from the U.S. government. I understand that they are legally separate or 'foreign' land and I also understand why they differentiate themselves from the Federal government by being named as nations and reservations because of their past with the U.S. but what strikes me as peculiar is that Cherokee nation rarely referred to themselves as a tribe apart from in historical context. Why that stood out to me was it brought up the question, do they not want to keep that part of their history or is it simply that as they have grown in population they feel much bigger than a tribe now and much more like a 'Nation'. 

In the our history page on Cherokee Nation's website they obviously discuss their relocation by the order of President Andrew Jackson. Even though what happened to the Cherokee tribe they don't post anything that sounds resentful of the United States Government but this is possibly due to the amount of aid and support that the federal government have given to the Cherokee nation in recent years. Even so it doesn't excuse this;
'The Cherokee were herded at bayonet point in a forced march of 1,000 miles ending with our arrival in "Indian Territory", which is today part of the state of Oklahoma. Thousands died in the internment camps, along the trail itself and even after their arrival due to the effects of the journey.'

This journey is commonly and popularly referred to as 'The Trail of Tears'
As seen here;

I would like to focus on the use of the term 'herded' for me this points out the idea that they were treated like cattle rather than human beings which does explain why they were able to go about relocating the Cherokee tribe because I don't believe you could relocate and cause the death of so many humans without a great amount of guilt, so treating them like animals or 'savages' makes that process much easier just as they did with enslaved African as well.

Finally I will discuss the success of the the Cherokee Nation. To put it simply I didn't expect any Native American tribes to have a website (how wrong was I!). The Cherokee Nation have a very comprehensive website which includes information about their taxation system, healthcare system, education sector, census data and many more articles. This to me seems more like a very developed country rather than a small Nation within the state of Oklahoma, and the Cherokee nation takes pride in their advancement over other tribes in a similar situation and under the 'Proud Heritage' sub heading within their 'Our History' section it says "The Cherokee shaped a government and a society matching the most civilized cultures of the day." This is a very proud achievement for the Cherokee Nation and still today they have a similar government and society to those of countries such as the United Kingdom and United States.

Emblem Image: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e7/Great_seal_of_the_cherokee_nation.svg/2000px-Great_seal_of_the_cherokee_nation.svg.png
ToT image: http://voices.nationalgeographic.com/files/2013/08/815_NGS_TrailOfTears.png
Cherokee Nation: http://www.cherokee.org/Home.aspx
Cherokee Nation History page: http://www.cherokee.org/AboutTheNation/History/Facts/OurHistory.aspx