Jeep Cherokee

Jeep Cherokee may refer to:

Jeep

Jeep is a brand of American automobiles that is a division of FCA US LLC (formerly Chrysler Group, LLC), a wholly owned subsidiary of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles. The former Chrysler Corporation acquired the Jeep brand, along with the remaining assets of its owner American Motors, in 1987. Jeep's current product range consists solely of sport utility vehicles and off-road vehicles, but has also included pickup trucks in the past.

The original Jeep was the prototype Bantam BRC. Willys MB Jeeps went into production in 1941 specifically for the military, arguably making them the oldest four-wheel drive mass-production vehicles now known as SUVs. The Jeep became the primary light 4-wheel-drive vehicle of the United States Army and the Allies during World War II, as well as the postwar period. The term became common worldwide in the wake of the war. Doug Stewart notes:

The first civilian models were produced in 1945. It inspired a number of other light utility vehicles, such as the Land Rover. Many Jeep variants serving similar military and civilian roles have since been designed in other nations.

Cherokee

The Cherokee (/ˈtʃɛrəkiː/; Cherokee Ani-Yuⁿwiya (ᎠᏂᏴᏫᏯ) are a Native American tribe indigenous to the Southeastern United States (principally Georgia, Tennessee, North Carolina and South Carolina). They speak Cherokee, an Iroquoian language. In the 19th century, historians and ethnographers recorded their oral tradition that told of the tribe having migrated south in ancient times from the Great Lakes region, where other Iroquoian-speaking peoples were.

By the 19th century, European settlers in the United States called the Cherokee one of the "Five Civilized Tribes", because they had adopted numerous cultural and technological practices of the European American settlers. The Cherokee were one of the first, if not the first, major non-European ethnic group to become U.S. citizens. Article 8 in the 1817 treaty with the Cherokee stated Cherokees may wish to become citizens of the United States. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, the Cherokee Nation has more than 314,000 members, the largest of the 566 federally recognized Native American tribes in the United States. In addition, numerous groups claiming Cherokee lineage, some of which are state-recognized, have members who are among those 819,000-plus people claiming Cherokee ancestry on the US census.