Mark Rifkin
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- February 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195387179
- eISBN:
- 9780199866786
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195387179.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 18th Century and Early American Literature, American, 19th Century Literature
This chapter examines the texts of Cherokee national governance in the 1810s and 1820s (statutes, the Constitution, and memorials to the U.S.), illustrating how they both respond to U.S. pressures ...
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This chapter examines the texts of Cherokee national governance in the 1810s and 1820s (statutes, the Constitution, and memorials to the U.S.), illustrating how they both respond to U.S. pressures and help consolidate the authority of an elite. Under pressure to speak as a "nation" (a centralized political entity with police powers over its population) so that the U.S. could claim consent for land cessions in treaties, the Cherokees developed a constitutional government modelled on that of the U.S. While the institutions of nationalism resisted removal, they also altered the dynamics of Cherokee governance and political self-representation. Using the notion of passive revolution, the chapter explores how administrative discourses and practices of Cherokee nationalism became a vehicle for those Cherokees literate in English and familiar with U.S. law to support forms of market capitalism and patriarchal inheritance at the expense of traditional town and clan formations.Less
This chapter examines the texts of Cherokee national governance in the 1810s and 1820s (statutes, the Constitution, and memorials to the U.S.), illustrating how they both respond to U.S. pressures and help consolidate the authority of an elite. Under pressure to speak as a "nation" (a centralized political entity with police powers over its population) so that the U.S. could claim consent for land cessions in treaties, the Cherokees developed a constitutional government modelled on that of the U.S. While the institutions of nationalism resisted removal, they also altered the dynamics of Cherokee governance and political self-representation. Using the notion of passive revolution, the chapter explores how administrative discourses and practices of Cherokee nationalism became a vehicle for those Cherokees literate in English and familiar with U.S. law to support forms of market capitalism and patriarchal inheritance at the expense of traditional town and clan formations.
William R. Ryan
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- May 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195387285
- eISBN:
- 9780199775774
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195387285.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, American History: early to 18th Century
This chapter illustrates what Charles Town was like in the wake of Jeremiah's execution. Lord Campbell, fearing for his life, was forced to abandon his post and abscond to a dilapidated sloop in the ...
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This chapter illustrates what Charles Town was like in the wake of Jeremiah's execution. Lord Campbell, fearing for his life, was forced to abandon his post and abscond to a dilapidated sloop in the harbor. This was a crucial moment, marking the official end of royal government in South Carolina. In that instant, Campbell had officially joined the ranks of other royal governors who had abandoned their capitals earlier that summer, including Lord Dunmore of Virginia, who had taken refuge aboard the HMS Fowey on Thursday, June 8, and North Carolina's Josiah Martin, who had escaped to the HMS Cruizer on Saturday, July 15. Patriots, quick to interpret Campbell's move, likened the governor's actions to those of King James II, who had fled in 1689 with the Great Seal of England. James II had long symbolized weak and unfit rule and was regarded as a traitor in the eyes of Whigs—who took delight in the fact that he pusillanimously “abdicated” the British throne to William of Orange. Campbell was now in a precarious position. His decaying vessel, along with the Cherokee and the Swallow packet, represented the last vestiges of the king's authority in the province.Less
This chapter illustrates what Charles Town was like in the wake of Jeremiah's execution. Lord Campbell, fearing for his life, was forced to abandon his post and abscond to a dilapidated sloop in the harbor. This was a crucial moment, marking the official end of royal government in South Carolina. In that instant, Campbell had officially joined the ranks of other royal governors who had abandoned their capitals earlier that summer, including Lord Dunmore of Virginia, who had taken refuge aboard the HMS Fowey on Thursday, June 8, and North Carolina's Josiah Martin, who had escaped to the HMS Cruizer on Saturday, July 15. Patriots, quick to interpret Campbell's move, likened the governor's actions to those of King James II, who had fled in 1689 with the Great Seal of England. James II had long symbolized weak and unfit rule and was regarded as a traitor in the eyes of Whigs—who took delight in the fact that he pusillanimously “abdicated” the British throne to William of Orange. Campbell was now in a precarious position. His decaying vessel, along with the Cherokee and the Swallow packet, represented the last vestiges of the king's authority in the province.
William R. Ryan
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- May 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195387285
- eISBN:
- 9780199775774
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195387285.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, American History: early to 18th Century
This chapter deals with the rise of the radical Whig faction and how they, under the leadership of William Henry Drayton, antagonized the governor by trying to blockade the port, thus precipitating ...
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This chapter deals with the rise of the radical Whig faction and how they, under the leadership of William Henry Drayton, antagonized the governor by trying to blockade the port, thus precipitating the opening shots of the war in South Carolina. Moreover, this chapter demonstrates how tenuous the position of the Whigs was and how they simultaneously attempted to pacify insurgent white settlers and hostile Cherokee Indians in the backcountry. As the chapter title suggests, it deals with the volatile geopolitics of Revolutionary South Carolina, as well as the regional and class divisions that plagued the province during the fall and winter of 1775.Less
This chapter deals with the rise of the radical Whig faction and how they, under the leadership of William Henry Drayton, antagonized the governor by trying to blockade the port, thus precipitating the opening shots of the war in South Carolina. Moreover, this chapter demonstrates how tenuous the position of the Whigs was and how they simultaneously attempted to pacify insurgent white settlers and hostile Cherokee Indians in the backcountry. As the chapter title suggests, it deals with the volatile geopolitics of Revolutionary South Carolina, as well as the regional and class divisions that plagued the province during the fall and winter of 1775.
William R. Ryan
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- May 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195387285
- eISBN:
- 9780199775774
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195387285.003.0009
- Subject:
- History, American History: early to 18th Century
The book draws to a close with the failed loyalist/Cherokee invasion of the backcountry in July 1776. Paradoxically, at the very same moment that the Cherokee were fighting against South Carolina ...
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The book draws to a close with the failed loyalist/Cherokee invasion of the backcountry in July 1776. Paradoxically, at the very same moment that the Cherokee were fighting against South Carolina patriots in the backcountry, Thomas Jefferson was in Philadelphia putting the finishing touches on the Declaration of Independence. The final grievance that the Virginia Whig leader enumerated—the capstone—was that the king had “excited domestic insurrection amongst us” and had “endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions.”Less
The book draws to a close with the failed loyalist/Cherokee invasion of the backcountry in July 1776. Paradoxically, at the very same moment that the Cherokee were fighting against South Carolina patriots in the backcountry, Thomas Jefferson was in Philadelphia putting the finishing touches on the Declaration of Independence. The final grievance that the Virginia Whig leader enumerated—the capstone—was that the king had “excited domestic insurrection amongst us” and had “endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions.”
Daniel J. Tortora
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781469621227
- eISBN:
- 9781469623382
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469621227.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: early to 18th Century
This book explores how the Anglo-Cherokee War reshaped the political and cultural landscape of the colonial South. The text chronicles the series of clashes that erupted from 1758 to 1761 between ...
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This book explores how the Anglo-Cherokee War reshaped the political and cultural landscape of the colonial South. The text chronicles the series of clashes that erupted from 1758 to 1761 between Cherokees, settlers, and British troops. The conflict, no insignificant sideshow to the French and Indian War, eventually led to the regeneration of a British-Cherokee alliance. The book reveals how the war destabilized the South Carolina colony and threatened the white coastal elite, arguing that the political and military success of the Cherokees led colonists to a greater fear of slave resistance and revolt and ultimately nurtured South Carolinians' rising interest in the movement for independence.Less
This book explores how the Anglo-Cherokee War reshaped the political and cultural landscape of the colonial South. The text chronicles the series of clashes that erupted from 1758 to 1761 between Cherokees, settlers, and British troops. The conflict, no insignificant sideshow to the French and Indian War, eventually led to the regeneration of a British-Cherokee alliance. The book reveals how the war destabilized the South Carolina colony and threatened the white coastal elite, arguing that the political and military success of the Cherokees led colonists to a greater fear of slave resistance and revolt and ultimately nurtured South Carolinians' rising interest in the movement for independence.
Colin G. Calloway
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- September 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195340129
- eISBN:
- 9780199867202
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195340129.003.0008
- Subject:
- History, American History: early to 18th Century
Beginning in the late 18th century and accelerating in the first half of the 19th century thousands of Highlanders were pushed off their lands to make way for commercial sheep farming. Many migrated ...
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Beginning in the late 18th century and accelerating in the first half of the 19th century thousands of Highlanders were pushed off their lands to make way for commercial sheep farming. Many migrated to North America. About the same time, in the first half of the 19th century, the United States moved toward and then implemented a policy of Indian Removals, forcing thousands of Indian peoples from their homelands in the East to new lands in the West. With particular emphasis on the Sutherland Clearances in the north of Scotland and the Cherokee removal from Georgia, this chapter considers both phenomena as products of economic change affecting the Atlantic world, and notes that some of the Creeks, Cherokees and other Indians who were forced west were sons and daughters of Highlanders who had experienced similar dispossession.Less
Beginning in the late 18th century and accelerating in the first half of the 19th century thousands of Highlanders were pushed off their lands to make way for commercial sheep farming. Many migrated to North America. About the same time, in the first half of the 19th century, the United States moved toward and then implemented a policy of Indian Removals, forcing thousands of Indian peoples from their homelands in the East to new lands in the West. With particular emphasis on the Sutherland Clearances in the north of Scotland and the Cherokee removal from Georgia, this chapter considers both phenomena as products of economic change affecting the Atlantic world, and notes that some of the Creeks, Cherokees and other Indians who were forced west were sons and daughters of Highlanders who had experienced similar dispossession.
Daniel R. Maher
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780813062532
- eISBN:
- 9780813051185
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813062532.001.0001
- Subject:
- Archaeology, Historical Archaeology
Mythic Frontiers examines how what we call the American frontier functions as a narrative for silencing the violent, oppressive, colonizing forces of manifest destiny by othering those who stood in ...
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Mythic Frontiers examines how what we call the American frontier functions as a narrative for silencing the violent, oppressive, colonizing forces of manifest destiny by othering those who stood in its way and by elevating its principal architects to mythic heights. The frontier complex is organized into five eras: removal (1804–1848), restraint (1848–1887), reservation (1887–1934), recreation (1920–1980), and redoubling (1980–present). By the time Frederick Jackson Turner declared the frontier closed in 1893, it had been fully constituted in popular mythologies and fantastic frontier narratives such as Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West shows. It was this imagined frontier, converted into Wild West films and television programs, which filled the popular imagination by the mid-twentieth century. The National Park Service, state parks, and museums enshrined the mythologized frontier as history. In Fort Smith, Arkansas, this imagined Wild West frontier is packaged for cultural heritage tourists. Colorful stories of “Hanging Judge” Isaac C. Parker, Deputy US Marshal Bass Reeves, brothel madam Laura Zeigler, “Bandit Queen” Belle Starr, and Cherokee “outlaws” Zeke Proctor and Ned Christie constitute the frontier complex, replete with nooses, gallows, restored bordello, and staged shootouts. These mythic tourist discourses effectively silence imperialism, racism, and sexism in the nation’s history, deny the role Fort Smith played in it, and function as a refuge for contemporary neoliberal ideologies. Meanwhile, disenfranchised peoples are relocated, developers prey upon our fears in a declining manufacturing economy, and “cruel optimism” is placed in the “Bring It Home” campaign of the US Marshals Museum.Less
Mythic Frontiers examines how what we call the American frontier functions as a narrative for silencing the violent, oppressive, colonizing forces of manifest destiny by othering those who stood in its way and by elevating its principal architects to mythic heights. The frontier complex is organized into five eras: removal (1804–1848), restraint (1848–1887), reservation (1887–1934), recreation (1920–1980), and redoubling (1980–present). By the time Frederick Jackson Turner declared the frontier closed in 1893, it had been fully constituted in popular mythologies and fantastic frontier narratives such as Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West shows. It was this imagined frontier, converted into Wild West films and television programs, which filled the popular imagination by the mid-twentieth century. The National Park Service, state parks, and museums enshrined the mythologized frontier as history. In Fort Smith, Arkansas, this imagined Wild West frontier is packaged for cultural heritage tourists. Colorful stories of “Hanging Judge” Isaac C. Parker, Deputy US Marshal Bass Reeves, brothel madam Laura Zeigler, “Bandit Queen” Belle Starr, and Cherokee “outlaws” Zeke Proctor and Ned Christie constitute the frontier complex, replete with nooses, gallows, restored bordello, and staged shootouts. These mythic tourist discourses effectively silence imperialism, racism, and sexism in the nation’s history, deny the role Fort Smith played in it, and function as a refuge for contemporary neoliberal ideologies. Meanwhile, disenfranchised peoples are relocated, developers prey upon our fears in a declining manufacturing economy, and “cruel optimism” is placed in the “Bring It Home” campaign of the US Marshals Museum.
Tiya Miles
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780520285637
- eISBN:
- 9780520961029
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520285637.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
This book, now in its second edition, tells the haunting saga of a quintessentially American family. In the late 1790s, Shoe Boots, a famed Cherokee warrior and successful farmer, acquired an African ...
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This book, now in its second edition, tells the haunting saga of a quintessentially American family. In the late 1790s, Shoe Boots, a famed Cherokee warrior and successful farmer, acquired an African slave named Doll. Over the next thirty years, Shoe Boots and Doll lived together as master and slave and also as lifelong partners who, with their children and grandchildren, experienced key events in American history—including slavery, the Creek War, the founding of the Cherokee Nation and subsequent removal of Native Americans along the Trail of Tears, and the Civil War. This is the story of their lives, in slavery and in freedom. The book vividly portrays the members of the Shoeboots family. Doll emerges as an especially poignant character, whose life is mostly known through the records of things done to her—her purchase, her marriage, the loss of her children—but also through her moving petition to the federal government for the pension owed to her as Shoe Boots's widow. A sensitive rendition of the hard realities of black slavery within Native American nations, the book provides the fullest picture we have of the myriad complexities, ironies, and tensions among African Americans, Native Americans, and whites in the first half of the nineteenth century. Updated with a new preface and an appendix of key primary sources, this remains an essential book for students of Native American history, African American history, and the history of race and ethnicity in the United States.Less
This book, now in its second edition, tells the haunting saga of a quintessentially American family. In the late 1790s, Shoe Boots, a famed Cherokee warrior and successful farmer, acquired an African slave named Doll. Over the next thirty years, Shoe Boots and Doll lived together as master and slave and also as lifelong partners who, with their children and grandchildren, experienced key events in American history—including slavery, the Creek War, the founding of the Cherokee Nation and subsequent removal of Native Americans along the Trail of Tears, and the Civil War. This is the story of their lives, in slavery and in freedom. The book vividly portrays the members of the Shoeboots family. Doll emerges as an especially poignant character, whose life is mostly known through the records of things done to her—her purchase, her marriage, the loss of her children—but also through her moving petition to the federal government for the pension owed to her as Shoe Boots's widow. A sensitive rendition of the hard realities of black slavery within Native American nations, the book provides the fullest picture we have of the myriad complexities, ironies, and tensions among African Americans, Native Americans, and whites in the first half of the nineteenth century. Updated with a new preface and an appendix of key primary sources, this remains an essential book for students of Native American history, African American history, and the history of race and ethnicity in the United States.
Nancy Shoemaker
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780195167924
- eISBN:
- 9780199788996
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195167924.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, American History: early to 18th Century
This chapter traces the expeditions of several parties of American Indians who visited Europe and met with British or French monarchs, beginning with the Four Indian Kings who went to England in 1710 ...
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This chapter traces the expeditions of several parties of American Indians who visited Europe and met with British or French monarchs, beginning with the Four Indian Kings who went to England in 1710 and ending with a Cherokee Delegation that came in the 1760s. At this time, American Indians and Europeans had among them many different forms of government, but they all had a government of some sort, meaning that they invested some individuals with political authority. Although Indians and Europeans recognized in each other systems of government, they found incomprehensible the criteria by which some individuals held political positions, the major difference being money and social class. The sumptuous display of wealth went hand-in-hand with political power in Europe, a practice that repelled American Indians and made them think of European culture as being all about the accumulation of wealth.Less
This chapter traces the expeditions of several parties of American Indians who visited Europe and met with British or French monarchs, beginning with the Four Indian Kings who went to England in 1710 and ending with a Cherokee Delegation that came in the 1760s. At this time, American Indians and Europeans had among them many different forms of government, but they all had a government of some sort, meaning that they invested some individuals with political authority. Although Indians and Europeans recognized in each other systems of government, they found incomprehensible the criteria by which some individuals held political positions, the major difference being money and social class. The sumptuous display of wealth went hand-in-hand with political power in Europe, a practice that repelled American Indians and made them think of European culture as being all about the accumulation of wealth.
Nancy Shoemaker
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780195167924
- eISBN:
- 9780199788996
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195167924.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, American History: early to 18th Century
Eighteenth-century Europeans and eastern Indians of North America shared in how they structured international alliances as being either (1) between nations relatively equal in power, as in peace ...
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Eighteenth-century Europeans and eastern Indians of North America shared in how they structured international alliances as being either (1) between nations relatively equal in power, as in peace treaties that ended European wars and in “one dish and one spoon” alliances among Indians, or (2) between a strong and weak nation, transpiring usually when a weak and battered refugee people moved onto a stronger nation's territory and became tributary to them. German Protestants and French Huguenots, for example, settled in Anglo-America in distinct, autonomous communities but were subordinate in international affairs to whichever English colony their settlement was in. Similarly, the Iroquois Confederacy took in the Tuscaroras and many smaller refugee nations, and the Creek Confederacy included in its network the Yuchis, a self-governing people yet subject to the Muskogean-speaking peoples of the Creek Confederacy in their foreign relations. These arrangements are very similar to the concept of “domestic dependent nations,” a concept put into law by Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall's decisions in Cherokee Nation vs. Georgia (1831) and Worcester vs. Georgia (1832), suggesting that contemporary US Indian law has roots in the ancient traditions of international relations as practiced by both Indians and Europeans.Less
Eighteenth-century Europeans and eastern Indians of North America shared in how they structured international alliances as being either (1) between nations relatively equal in power, as in peace treaties that ended European wars and in “one dish and one spoon” alliances among Indians, or (2) between a strong and weak nation, transpiring usually when a weak and battered refugee people moved onto a stronger nation's territory and became tributary to them. German Protestants and French Huguenots, for example, settled in Anglo-America in distinct, autonomous communities but were subordinate in international affairs to whichever English colony their settlement was in. Similarly, the Iroquois Confederacy took in the Tuscaroras and many smaller refugee nations, and the Creek Confederacy included in its network the Yuchis, a self-governing people yet subject to the Muskogean-speaking peoples of the Creek Confederacy in their foreign relations. These arrangements are very similar to the concept of “domestic dependent nations,” a concept put into law by Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall's decisions in Cherokee Nation vs. Georgia (1831) and Worcester vs. Georgia (1832), suggesting that contemporary US Indian law has roots in the ancient traditions of international relations as practiced by both Indians and Europeans.
Nancy Shoemaker
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780195167924
- eISBN:
- 9780199788996
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195167924.003.0007
- Subject:
- History, American History: early to 18th Century
Eighteenth-century Indians and Europeans meeting on the council grounds relied on the human body as a resource for metaphors that could explain their relationship: that because they were all people ...
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Eighteenth-century Indians and Europeans meeting on the council grounds relied on the human body as a resource for metaphors that could explain their relationship: that because they were all people with arms, legs, eyes, and ears, they would join in one body with one heart and one mind and become one people. This was the language of peace negotiations, but as conflicts erupted over broken agreements and European expansion, increasingly the human body provided the metaphors to explain why they were not one people — they had different skin colors. In particular, Indians began to claim an identity as “red people” sometime in the early 18th century, a trend originating among Southeastern Indians such as the Cherokees and Creeks, probably because it made sense within an existing color symbolism organized around “red” (the color for war) and “white” (the color for peace) and because Europeans settling in the Southeast at that time had identified as “white people,” instead of “Christians” which was still the prevalent term in the Northeast, to distinguish themselves from their “black” slaves. Indians adopted the same racial terminology as Europeans (and vice versa) but endowed the terms with different meanings, so that “red” came to be a source of pride and supremacy, for the “red people” were here first, and “white” came to be associated with the accumulation of wealth and greed.Less
Eighteenth-century Indians and Europeans meeting on the council grounds relied on the human body as a resource for metaphors that could explain their relationship: that because they were all people with arms, legs, eyes, and ears, they would join in one body with one heart and one mind and become one people. This was the language of peace negotiations, but as conflicts erupted over broken agreements and European expansion, increasingly the human body provided the metaphors to explain why they were not one people — they had different skin colors. In particular, Indians began to claim an identity as “red people” sometime in the early 18th century, a trend originating among Southeastern Indians such as the Cherokees and Creeks, probably because it made sense within an existing color symbolism organized around “red” (the color for war) and “white” (the color for peace) and because Europeans settling in the Southeast at that time had identified as “white people,” instead of “Christians” which was still the prevalent term in the Northeast, to distinguish themselves from their “black” slaves. Indians adopted the same racial terminology as Europeans (and vice versa) but endowed the terms with different meanings, so that “red” came to be a source of pride and supremacy, for the “red people” were here first, and “white” came to be associated with the accumulation of wealth and greed.
Gregory D Smithers
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780300169607
- eISBN:
- 9780300216585
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300169607.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Native American Studies
The Cherokee are one of the largest Native American tribes in the United States, with more than 300,000 people across the country claiming tribal membership and nearly one million people ...
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The Cherokee are one of the largest Native American tribes in the United States, with more than 300,000 people across the country claiming tribal membership and nearly one million people internationally professing to have at least one Cherokee Indian ancestor. This book uncovers the origins of the Cherokee diaspora and explores how communities and individuals have negotiated their Cherokee identities, even when geographically removed from the Cherokee Nation headquartered in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. Beginning in the eighteenth century, the book transports the reader back in time to tell the poignant story of the Cherokee people migrating throughout North America, including their forced exile along the infamous Trail of Tears (1838–1839). The book tells a remarkable story of courage, cultural innovation, and resilience, exploring the importance of migration and removal, land and tradition, culture and language in defining what it has meant to be Cherokee for a widely scattered people.Less
The Cherokee are one of the largest Native American tribes in the United States, with more than 300,000 people across the country claiming tribal membership and nearly one million people internationally professing to have at least one Cherokee Indian ancestor. This book uncovers the origins of the Cherokee diaspora and explores how communities and individuals have negotiated their Cherokee identities, even when geographically removed from the Cherokee Nation headquartered in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. Beginning in the eighteenth century, the book transports the reader back in time to tell the poignant story of the Cherokee people migrating throughout North America, including their forced exile along the infamous Trail of Tears (1838–1839). The book tells a remarkable story of courage, cultural innovation, and resilience, exploring the importance of migration and removal, land and tradition, culture and language in defining what it has meant to be Cherokee for a widely scattered people.
Andrew Denson
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781469630830
- eISBN:
- 9781469630854
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469630830.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Native American Studies
The 1830s forced removal of Cherokees from their southeastern homeland became the most famous event in the Indian history of the American South, an episode taken to exemplify a broader experience of ...
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The 1830s forced removal of Cherokees from their southeastern homeland became the most famous event in the Indian history of the American South, an episode taken to exemplify a broader experience of injustice suffered by Native peoples. In this book, Andrew Denson explores the public memory of Cherokee removal through an examination of memorials, historic sites, and tourist attractions dating from the early twentieth century to the present. White southerners, Denson argues, embraced the Trail of Tears as a story of Indian disappearance. Commemorating Cherokee removal affirmed white possession of southern places, while granting them the moral satisfaction of acknowledging past wrongs. During segregation and the struggle over black civil rights, removal memorials reinforced whites' authority to define the South's past and present. Cherokees, however, proved capable of repossessing the removal memory, using it for their own purposes during a time of crucial transformation in tribal politics and U.S. Indian policy. In considering these representations of removal, Denson brings commemoration of the Indian past into the broader discussion of race and memory in the South.Less
The 1830s forced removal of Cherokees from their southeastern homeland became the most famous event in the Indian history of the American South, an episode taken to exemplify a broader experience of injustice suffered by Native peoples. In this book, Andrew Denson explores the public memory of Cherokee removal through an examination of memorials, historic sites, and tourist attractions dating from the early twentieth century to the present. White southerners, Denson argues, embraced the Trail of Tears as a story of Indian disappearance. Commemorating Cherokee removal affirmed white possession of southern places, while granting them the moral satisfaction of acknowledging past wrongs. During segregation and the struggle over black civil rights, removal memorials reinforced whites' authority to define the South's past and present. Cherokees, however, proved capable of repossessing the removal memory, using it for their own purposes during a time of crucial transformation in tribal politics and U.S. Indian policy. In considering these representations of removal, Denson brings commemoration of the Indian past into the broader discussion of race and memory in the South.
Gregory D. Smithers
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780300169607
- eISBN:
- 9780300216585
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300169607.003.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Native American Studies
This chapter explores the origins of the Cherokee diaspora, with particular emphasis on the Cherokee oral traditions that seek to make sense of their historical origins and of travel and migration. ...
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This chapter explores the origins of the Cherokee diaspora, with particular emphasis on the Cherokee oral traditions that seek to make sense of their historical origins and of travel and migration. It begins with an overview of Cherokee Country prior to the Cherokee people’s dispersal before turning to a discussion of the challenges faced by the Cherokee people during the latter half of the eighteenth century with respect to their established modes of life, including the matrilineal and matrilocal social structures that gave Cherokee life its meaning and purpose, due to an overlapping series of imperial political, commercial, military, and cultural pressures. It then considers the major social and political changes that reshaped Cherokee life during this period, and how the Cherokee became Indigenous agents of settlement and resettlement. It also examines the diasporic Cherokees’ self-conscious struggle to maintain a sense of Cherokee identity rooted in traditional town and matrilineal kinshipties.Less
This chapter explores the origins of the Cherokee diaspora, with particular emphasis on the Cherokee oral traditions that seek to make sense of their historical origins and of travel and migration. It begins with an overview of Cherokee Country prior to the Cherokee people’s dispersal before turning to a discussion of the challenges faced by the Cherokee people during the latter half of the eighteenth century with respect to their established modes of life, including the matrilineal and matrilocal social structures that gave Cherokee life its meaning and purpose, due to an overlapping series of imperial political, commercial, military, and cultural pressures. It then considers the major social and political changes that reshaped Cherokee life during this period, and how the Cherokee became Indigenous agents of settlement and resettlement. It also examines the diasporic Cherokees’ self-conscious struggle to maintain a sense of Cherokee identity rooted in traditional town and matrilineal kinshipties.
Gregory D. Smithers
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780300169607
- eISBN:
- 9780300216585
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300169607.003.0002
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Native American Studies
This chapter examines the impact of Christianity and colonialism on the Cherokees’ established modes of life. At the opening of the nineteenth century, the Cherokee struggled to rebuild their ...
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This chapter examines the impact of Christianity and colonialism on the Cherokees’ established modes of life. At the opening of the nineteenth century, the Cherokee struggled to rebuild their communities amid the devastation caused by the Revolutionary War. During this period, tribal nationalism was deeply influenced by the teachings of Christian missionaries. This chapter considers how the Cherokee people wrestled with the possible uses and limitations of both Christianity and nationalism in their quest to define Cherokee identity in terms recognizable not only to themselves but also to Euroamericans. It also explores how influential Cherokee leaders viewed education and literacy, as well as trade and economic prosperity, with respect to Cherokee identity and migration. Finally, it discusses the Cherokee syllabary as an example of cultural syncretism, along with issues of race and sex in relation to the Cherokee diaspora.Less
This chapter examines the impact of Christianity and colonialism on the Cherokees’ established modes of life. At the opening of the nineteenth century, the Cherokee struggled to rebuild their communities amid the devastation caused by the Revolutionary War. During this period, tribal nationalism was deeply influenced by the teachings of Christian missionaries. This chapter considers how the Cherokee people wrestled with the possible uses and limitations of both Christianity and nationalism in their quest to define Cherokee identity in terms recognizable not only to themselves but also to Euroamericans. It also explores how influential Cherokee leaders viewed education and literacy, as well as trade and economic prosperity, with respect to Cherokee identity and migration. Finally, it discusses the Cherokee syllabary as an example of cultural syncretism, along with issues of race and sex in relation to the Cherokee diaspora.
Gregory D. Smithers
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780300169607
- eISBN:
- 9780300216585
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300169607.003.0005
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Native American Studies
This chapter examines the impact of the American Civil War on Cherokee identity and diaspora. A little over two decades had passed since thousands of Cherokees were forced to relocate from their ...
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This chapter examines the impact of the American Civil War on Cherokee identity and diaspora. A little over two decades had passed since thousands of Cherokees were forced to relocate from their homeland in the Southeast and create a new homeland in Indian Territory, the Cherokee people found themselves embroiled in the Civil War. The war became an economic, social, and legal calamity for the Cherokee Nation and gave rise to tens of thousands of Cherokee refugees. Most Cherokees considered the prospect of a large-scale war in the trans-Mississippi West as a threat to the future well-being of the diaspora’s political homeland. Others, especially wealthier Cherokees and Cherokee slave owners, believed they shared a social and economic stake in the fate of the Confederacy. This chapter considers how the American Civil War defined Cherokee identity in different legal ways in various parts of the Cherokee diaspora.Less
This chapter examines the impact of the American Civil War on Cherokee identity and diaspora. A little over two decades had passed since thousands of Cherokees were forced to relocate from their homeland in the Southeast and create a new homeland in Indian Territory, the Cherokee people found themselves embroiled in the Civil War. The war became an economic, social, and legal calamity for the Cherokee Nation and gave rise to tens of thousands of Cherokee refugees. Most Cherokees considered the prospect of a large-scale war in the trans-Mississippi West as a threat to the future well-being of the diaspora’s political homeland. Others, especially wealthier Cherokees and Cherokee slave owners, believed they shared a social and economic stake in the fate of the Confederacy. This chapter considers how the American Civil War defined Cherokee identity in different legal ways in various parts of the Cherokee diaspora.
Gregory D. Smithers
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780300169607
- eISBN:
- 9780300216585
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300169607.003.0007
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Native American Studies
This chapter examines how Cherokee slaves gained freedom following the American Civil War. On the eve of the Civil War, approximately fifteen percent of the Cherokee Nation’s total population were ...
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This chapter examines how Cherokee slaves gained freedom following the American Civil War. On the eve of the Civil War, approximately fifteen percent of the Cherokee Nation’s total population were slaves held by Cherokee slave owners. The war, however, provided an opportunity for slaves to flee the Cherokee plantations and homes that had once prescribed the parameters of daily life. In refugee camps, former Cherokee slaves waited for the war to end and their new life of freedom to begin. When the war ended, the 1866 treaty between the United States and Cherokee Nation confirmed the Cherokee Nation’s Act of Emancipation (1863) and the Thirteenth Amendment to the US Constitution: slavery was finally abolished. The treaty established the legal foundation on which Cherokee freedpeople, or freedmen, claimed citizenship in the Cherokee Nation. This chapter explores issues of Cherokee identity, race, intermarriage, and residency within the Cherokee diaspora’s political homeland in the post-Civil War era.Less
This chapter examines how Cherokee slaves gained freedom following the American Civil War. On the eve of the Civil War, approximately fifteen percent of the Cherokee Nation’s total population were slaves held by Cherokee slave owners. The war, however, provided an opportunity for slaves to flee the Cherokee plantations and homes that had once prescribed the parameters of daily life. In refugee camps, former Cherokee slaves waited for the war to end and their new life of freedom to begin. When the war ended, the 1866 treaty between the United States and Cherokee Nation confirmed the Cherokee Nation’s Act of Emancipation (1863) and the Thirteenth Amendment to the US Constitution: slavery was finally abolished. The treaty established the legal foundation on which Cherokee freedpeople, or freedmen, claimed citizenship in the Cherokee Nation. This chapter explores issues of Cherokee identity, race, intermarriage, and residency within the Cherokee diaspora’s political homeland in the post-Civil War era.
Gregory D. Smithers
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780300169607
- eISBN:
- 9780300216585
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300169607.003.0009
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Native American Studies
This book has explored the origins of the Cherokee diaspora and the reasons for the Cherokee people’s movement, migration, and relocation after World War II. Among these reasons were the impact of ...
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This book has explored the origins of the Cherokee diaspora and the reasons for the Cherokee people’s movement, migration, and relocation after World War II. Among these reasons were the impact of the federal government’s termination and relocation program. Through the Bureau of Indian Affairs, government officials tried to complete the work of assimilation by relocating Native Americans to urban centers and integrating them into the labor force. They also sought to liquidate tribal assets. Some Cherokees worked within the American political system to change the relationship between the Cherokee people and the U.S. government. In 1971, the Cherokee Nation achieved sovereignty and self-government. Political success, cultural revitalization, and language immersion programs resulted in increased visibility for Cherokees and Cherokee culture, with significant implications for Cherokee identity. This epilogue discusses the challenges faced by Cherokees in the twentieth century, including political controversies over questions of identity and tribal membership.Less
This book has explored the origins of the Cherokee diaspora and the reasons for the Cherokee people’s movement, migration, and relocation after World War II. Among these reasons were the impact of the federal government’s termination and relocation program. Through the Bureau of Indian Affairs, government officials tried to complete the work of assimilation by relocating Native Americans to urban centers and integrating them into the labor force. They also sought to liquidate tribal assets. Some Cherokees worked within the American political system to change the relationship between the Cherokee people and the U.S. government. In 1971, the Cherokee Nation achieved sovereignty and self-government. Political success, cultural revitalization, and language immersion programs resulted in increased visibility for Cherokees and Cherokee culture, with significant implications for Cherokee identity. This epilogue discusses the challenges faced by Cherokees in the twentieth century, including political controversies over questions of identity and tribal membership.
Roger G. Kennedy
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195140552
- eISBN:
- 9780199848775
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195140552.003.0015
- Subject:
- History, American History: early to 18th Century
Along the routes traveled by adventurers such as Aaron Burr, a century of interaction between Europeans and Indians had made commonplace the appearance at treaty conferences of Cherokees and Muskogee ...
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Along the routes traveled by adventurers such as Aaron Burr, a century of interaction between Europeans and Indians had made commonplace the appearance at treaty conferences of Cherokees and Muskogee chiefs named McQueen, McIntosh, MacGillivray, Ross, and Weatherford. However, there were no chiefs named Jefferson, Randolph, or Skipwith because the Scots, not the English, had a long history of merging clan to clan through marriage. Burr's middle ground, a composite culture of Indians and whites, had been formed during the 18th century around Stockbridge, in the Berkshire Mountains of Massachusetts. After 1770, a new middle ground formed between the Mississippi River and the Appalachians. Burr's experience with Indians was in the North, where the Iroquois Confederacy had broken apart during the Revolutionary War in a civil conflict contemporary to that between Whigs and Tories. Mohawks led by Joseph Brant sided with the British, joined by some Senecas and Cagas and by most of the Onondagas. After the war was over, George Washington and Burr did not form an alliance.Less
Along the routes traveled by adventurers such as Aaron Burr, a century of interaction between Europeans and Indians had made commonplace the appearance at treaty conferences of Cherokees and Muskogee chiefs named McQueen, McIntosh, MacGillivray, Ross, and Weatherford. However, there were no chiefs named Jefferson, Randolph, or Skipwith because the Scots, not the English, had a long history of merging clan to clan through marriage. Burr's middle ground, a composite culture of Indians and whites, had been formed during the 18th century around Stockbridge, in the Berkshire Mountains of Massachusetts. After 1770, a new middle ground formed between the Mississippi River and the Appalachians. Burr's experience with Indians was in the North, where the Iroquois Confederacy had broken apart during the Revolutionary War in a civil conflict contemporary to that between Whigs and Tories. Mohawks led by Joseph Brant sided with the British, joined by some Senecas and Cagas and by most of the Onondagas. After the war was over, George Washington and Burr did not form an alliance.
Daniel Ingram
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780813037974
- eISBN:
- 9780813042169
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813037974.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, American History: early to 18th Century
This chapter studies Fort Loudoun, built by South Carolina in 1756 in the remote Overhill region of what is now eastern Tennessee, to protect their western frontier from French and Indian attack. ...
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This chapter studies Fort Loudoun, built by South Carolina in 1756 in the remote Overhill region of what is now eastern Tennessee, to protect their western frontier from French and Indian attack. However, the purpose of the fort was not to provide military might or intimidation, but to please the province's powerful Cherokee allies. The Cherokee had requested the fort for protection and status, and would provide the defense South Carolina wanted if their demands were properly satisfied. Fort Loudoun's creation, and the participation of leaders Little Carpenter and Old Hop, shows that Cherokee culture and ambitions were more important than troops and bulwarks in managing and defending the colonial backcountry.Less
This chapter studies Fort Loudoun, built by South Carolina in 1756 in the remote Overhill region of what is now eastern Tennessee, to protect their western frontier from French and Indian attack. However, the purpose of the fort was not to provide military might or intimidation, but to please the province's powerful Cherokee allies. The Cherokee had requested the fort for protection and status, and would provide the defense South Carolina wanted if their demands were properly satisfied. Fort Loudoun's creation, and the participation of leaders Little Carpenter and Old Hop, shows that Cherokee culture and ambitions were more important than troops and bulwarks in managing and defending the colonial backcountry.
