Songfacts®:

• This song is about the plight of the Cherokee people, a native American tribe based in what is now Oklahoma. White Lion's lead singer Mike Tramp wrote the lyric. He's from Denmark but had moved to New York City and learned about the history of America's native people. As he explained to Songfacts, Denmark is a very politically aware country, so he was attuned to tales of injustice.
• "Cherokee" is part of White Lion's debut album, Fight To Survive, issued in Japan in 1985 and in America in 1986, the same year the band Europe released a song of the same name with a similar sentiment.
  
  The word Cherokee sings really well, so you're more likely to hear it in songs than, say, Sioux (although Navajo sings pretty well too). Other songs to use the word include "Indian Reservation (The Lament of the Cherokee Reservation Indian)" by Raiders, and "Cherokee Maiden" by Merle Haggard.
• This empathetic ballad was precursor to "When The Children Cry," the biggest hit from White Lion's next album, Pride. That album got them on MTV and put them into the conversation of top hair bands, but their next album, Big Game, disappointed, and they broke up a few years later.