The Georgia Tribe of Eastern Cherokee was recognized as a tribe by the State of Georgia in 2007.[2] It is one of two state-recognized Cherokee tribes in Georgia, the other being the Cherokee of Georgia Tribal Council.[3]
On May 6, 2016, the Office of Federal Acknowledgement (OFA) denied the organization's request for federal recognition as an American Indian tribe. The petition was denied on the basis that the organization had not "been identified as an American Indian entity on a substantially continuous basis since 1900". The report concluded that the Georgia Tribe of Eastern Cherokee is a "recently organized group" and that "there are no contemporary identifications of the petitioner or any Indian entity in Lumpkin County."[4] According to OFA, "The petitioner claims to have evolved from the pre-Removal Cherokee Nation and to represent a specific Cherokee family that did not remove westward with the Tribe in the 19th century...The vast majority of the petitioner's members identify descent from Rachel Martin, a Cherokee woman, her husband Daniel Davis, and primarily their three children who remained near Dahlonega, Georgia, after the Cherokee Nation removed to Indian Territory in the 1830s."[5]