There were some exceptions to removal. Those Cherokee who lived on private, individually owned lands (rather than communally owned tribal land) were not subject to removal. In North Carolina, about 400 Cherokee led by [[Yonaguska]] lived on land along the [[Oconaluftee River]] in the [[Great Smoky Mountains]] owned by a white man named [[William Holland Thomas]] (who had been adopted by Cherokee as a boy), and were thus not subject to removal, and these were joined by a smaller band of about 150 along the Nantahala River led by Utsala. Along with a group living in Snowbird and another along the [[Cheoah River]] in a community called Tomotley, these North Carolina Cherokee became the [[Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians|Eastern Band of the Cherokee Nation]], numbering approximately 1000. According to a roll taken the year after the removal (1839), there were in addition some estimated about 400 of Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Alabama, and these also joined the EBCI.