Cherokee leader?

[Zaarin]

You might want to look at their traditions and typical dances for ideas. That where I got the abilities for my Sioux civ from.

Muscogean cultures are also descendants from the Mississippian mound builders. A bonus to wonder construction could be an option. The other bonuses should probably be tied to warfare and agriculture, I suppose.

Not just the Muskogean tribes but virtually all the indigenous peoples of the Southeast are descendants of the Mississippians, including the Cherokee. Most can't be connected with a specific mound site, with a few exceptions like the Chickasaw and Natchez, and indeed most probably don't come from a specific mound site but rather are confederations of post-Mississippian peoples.

 

[Lord Lakely]

I don't think it matters whether you can't pin it to just one site or not. Chocktaw, Muskogee and Cherokee populated different settlements and would have different capitals, none of which could be Cahokia, Moundville, Etowah or other cites in the area. Mound Building could however form the base of a Civ ability if you only plan on adding only one of the Mississipian successor civs, leaving no possible overlap. (and there's no reason to add more than one Southeast Amerindian civ) Similar to how Carthage's UA in CiV was "Phoenician Heritage" as there was no Phoenicia Proper that ability could clash with.

 

[Zaarin]

I don't think it matters whether you can't pin it to just one site or not. Chocktaw, Muskogee and Cherokee populated different settlements and would have different capitals, none of which could be Cahokia, Moundville, Etowah or other cites in the area. Mound Building could however form the base of a Civ ability if you only plan on adding only one of the Mississipian successor civs, leaving no possible overlap. (and there's no reason to add more than one Southeast Amerindian civ) Similar to how Carthage's UA in CiV was "Phoenician Heritage" as there was no Phoenicia Proper that ability could clash with.

That's probably the best way to handle the Mississippians. Though personally my #1 choice for the Southeast is unrelated to the Mississippians, and that's the Powhatan. But Choctaw would be #2.

 

[TyrannusRex]

I voted for Nancy Ward since I found her a tad more interesting but Attakullakulla and Ostenaco would be fine choices too.

@TyrannusRex I was having a similar problem with finding unique units for the Choctaw. The best I could find for them were the mounted rifles during the Civil War and it looks like the Cherokee had mounted rifles as well. For something per-removal, the best I could see were blowguns but they definitely weren't unique to the Cherokee. It is quite difficult finding unique units that could be different enough from a typical warrior.

I'm not sure about a unique improvement but perhaps the ability could be connected to the white and red organizations of their society?

Edit: I saw on a Civ 5 Cherokee mod that their unique unit is the aniwina which replaces the musketman. I don't know much about them so it might be worth taking a closer look.

I couldn't find anything about these "aniwina", which makes me think they might've just taken a word for musket(men) from the Cherokee language.
The mounted rifles could be cool (because I love me some ranged cavalry), but the reason I was looking for pre-removal uniques is because I could only think of UU/UI related to post-removal/Trail of Tears... which wouldn't really fit well with a pre-removal leader. And I didn't want to use John Ross, because... well... I didn't want to copy someone else's mod beat for beat. Besides that, I figured I could bring to light a historical leader people don't know much about (who just happens to be female), like Nanyehi. (Which I'd argue is what they did with Gorgo. Just because we know little about the real person doesn't disqualify them, Gilgamesh. But I'm digressing.)

 

[SammyKhalifa]

Neither. I'd probably go with Sequoya. He's fairly well known and creating an alphabet is a pretty awesome accomplishment.
I'd say that if you need a female leader for the Americas, go with the Iroquois, Apache, or Maya.

I LOVE the Sequoyah story, and what he did has to be one of the greatest individual accomplishments in history.

I just don't know that he ever led anything.

 

[Zaarin]

I LOVE the Sequoyah story, and what he did has to be one of the greatest individual accomplishments in history.

I just don't know that he ever led anything.

Again, not to downplay Sequoyah's accomplishments which were impressive, but I wouldn't call it "one of the greatest individual accomplishments in history." Creating a script based on other scripts has happened many times in history, and the only things that make Sequoyah stand out are A) that we know his name (Sejong sponsored the creation of Hangul and may have been involved, Mesrop Mashtots is generally credited with creating the Armenian and perhaps the Georgian alphabets, but generally the creators of scripts are anonymous or apocryphal) and B) that he was illiterate (but familiar with the concept of writing). Again, I'm not downplaying the significance of his work, but I don't think it stands out as one of the major accomplishments of human history. And, of course, regardless of his accomplishments, he's still not even in the same category as Gandhi or CdM.

 

[awesome]

I LOVE the Sequoyah story, and what he did has to be one of the greatest individual accomplishments in history.

I just don't know that he ever led anything.

I think he was related to a chief, but, no, he wasn't one himself. My suggestion was more based on notoriety than anything else.