Cherokees.

Native Americans in the Southeast may have had contact with Europeans, or at least the microbes they brought to the New World, as early as 1526. In that year the Spanish conquistador Lucas Vasquez de Ayllon led a slave-raiding party from the Caribbean to the Carolina and Georgia coasts. In 1540 Hernando de Soto and his troops marched through Cherokee country, and in 1566-1567 Capt. Juan Pardo explored Cherokee territory. For nearly a century after that, the Cherokees were free of European interference. In 1654 Cherokees attacked the English colony of Virginia for reasons that are not clear, forcing the settlers to negotiate a peace treaty. Thereafter the Cherokees appeared frequently in the British and Spanish colonial records. Prior to European influences the Cherokees were surrounded by other powerful native groups and were often at war with them. The Cherokees spoke a language classified as part...