WI: The Cherokee join the Haudenosaunee

Unlike their Muskogean neighbors in the Southeastern woodlands of North America, the Cherokee spoke an Iroquoian language, their ancestors having traveled south long before Europeans arrived. There's precedent for the Iroquois Confederacy incorporating distant Iroquoian branches; after the southern Tuscarora were defeated in war, they traveled north and were folded back into the ranks of the Haudenosaunee. The Cherokee were one of the larger and more successful tribes, and stayed in the Southeast until they were forcibly removed along the Trail of Tears. By then, the Haudenosaunee was essentially gone, so in this TL they'd have to move earlier.

I'm thinking some POD in the Anglo-Cherokee war that puts Dragging Canoe in a greater position of power, and sooner; in the 1770s he convinces all the Cherokee to move north, rather than taking some west. In particular, I'm wondering if additional Cherokee population, as well as their literacy rates, legal systems, and so on, would have been helpful in securing Iroquois control over the future Northwest Territory, which they often had some form of legal claim over, but in practice were never able to settle. On the other hand, I'm not sure a nation as large and organized as the Cherokee would be welcomed by the decentralized Confederacy.
 
A problem with this idea is that, like with the tuscarora, they'd have to join as a subordinate member to maintain the status quo.
 
there too far away to make this work

They'd definitely have move north, as the Tuscarora did, they can't join the Confederacy and stay in Tennessee. The problem is that they, as stated above, would need to join as junior members because of the way the Confederacy was structured. It is because of this it only makes sense for them to join, not in a position of strength, but a position of weakness. Say the Cherokee get absolutely curb stomped in the Anglo-Cherokee War and they are forced to flee north as refugees, taking refuge with the
Iroquois.
 
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They'd definitely have move north, as the Tuscarora did, they can't join the Confederacy and stay in Tennessee. The problem is that they, as stated above, would need to join as junior members because of the way the Confederacy was structured. It is because of this it only makes sense for them to join, not in a position of strength, but a position of weakness. Say the Cherokee get absolutely curb stomped in the Anglo-Cherokee War and they are forced to flee north as refugees, taking refuge with the
Iroquois.

If that happened, how likely do you think the Cherokee would be to ally with the revolutionaries against Britain?
 
Well the Oneida and the Tuscarora sided with the Americans while the rest of the Iroquois remained loyal to the British. Maybe if the Cherokee settle in lands close to The Oneida and the Tuscarora they side with the Americans as well. Remember, siding with the Americans isn't going to generate any good will, just like in OTL I imagine Native Americans end up getting screwed either way.
 
If that happened, how likely do you think the Cherokee would be to ally with the revolutionaries against Britain?
Considering that the reason for such a war would have been pushed for/caused by the colonists who want to keep expanding westward even if the mother country is a lot more hesitant about it?
 
It's an interesting idea, and purely on language, sort of make sense, but they are very different, even incongruent cultures.
 
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