Video: Cherokee and Creek people discuss the Allotment Act

After the Trail of Tears, Cherokees and other Southeastern tribe were forced out of their ancestral homeland and moved to Oklahoma. There the Native Americans established towns, schools and tribal communities. 50 years later the United States government enacted the Allotment Act that many tribes in Oklahoma see as a terrible blow to their sovereignty and cohesive tribal communities. The first elected female chairperson of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma Wilma Mankiller and Muskogee Creek Alan Cook discuss the effects of the Allotment Act on the Cherokee, Creek, and other tribal people of Oklahoma. Large sections of the tribal lands the tribes had established were taken away and given to settlers as they pushed westward.