After the Trail of Tears
After the Trail of Tears

Author: William G. McLoughlin

Publisher: UNC Press Books

Published: 2014-07-01

Total Pages: 456

ISBN-13: 146961734X

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This powerful narrative traces the social, cultural, and political history of the Cherokee Nation during the forty-year period after its members were forcibly removed from the southern Appalachians and resettled in what is now Oklahoma. In this master work, completed just before his death, William McLoughlin not only explains how the Cherokees rebuilt their lives and society, but also recounts their fight to govern themselves as a separate nation within the borders of the United States. Long regarded by whites as one of the 'civilized' tribes, the Cherokees had their own constitution (modeled after that of the United States), elected officials, and legal system. Once re-settled, they attempted to reestablish these institutions and continued their long struggle for self-government under their own laws--an idea that met with bitter opposition from frontier politicians, settlers, ranchers, and business leaders. After an extremely divisive fight within their own nation during the Civil War, Cherokees faced internal political conflicts as well as the destructive impact of an influx of new settlers and the expansion of the railroad. McLoughlin brings the story up to 1880, when the nation's fight for the right to govern itself ended in defeat at the hands of Congress.

The Cherokee Nation
The Cherokee Nation

Author: Charles Royce

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-07-12

Total Pages: 511

ISBN-13: 1351485253

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This volume, presents the succession of treaties between 1785 and 1868 that reduced the holdings of the Cherokee Nation east of the Mississippi and culminated in their removal to Indian territory. Each document is accompanied by a detailed description of its antecedent conditions, the negotiations that led up to it, and its consequences. The events described here ended more than a century ago, but the motives and actions of the participants and the effects of the compromises and decisions they made are sadly familiar. The story presented here needs to be understood by everyone concerned with the survival of diverse ways of life and the quality of the relationships among peoples. The impersonal style of Royce's presentation enhances the poignancy of the Cherokee experience. Repeated declarations of peace and perpetual friendship contrast with repeated violations of treaties approved by Congress and the impotence of a people to defend their ancestral lands. The Cherokee "trail of broken treaties" has left us with a heritage of guilt and frustration that we have yet to overcome. The Native American Library, in which this volume appears, has been initiated by the National Anthropological Archives of the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, to publish original works by Indians and reprints selected by the tribes involved. Royce's work, which was included in the Fifth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, is republished at the request of the Governing Body of the Cherokee Nation. The original text is prefaced by an evaluation of Royce and his work by Richard Mack Bettis and contains several illustrations not included in the earlier edition.

Taking Indian Lands
Taking Indian Lands

Author: William Thomas Hagan

Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press

Published: 2003

Total Pages: 308

ISBN-13: 9780806135137

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Examines the Cherokee Commission of 1889 and the U.S. strategies to negotiate the purchase of Indian land thus opening it up to white settlers.

The Cherokee Nation in the Civil War
The Cherokee Nation in the Civil War

Author: Clarissa W. Confer

Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press

Published: 2012-03-30

Total Pages: 236

ISBN-13: 0806184663

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No one questions the horrific impact of the Civil War on America, but few realize its effect on American Indians. Residents of Indian Territory found the war especially devastating. Their homeland was beset not only by regular army operations but also by guerillas and bushwhackers. Complicating the situation even further, Cherokee men fought for the Union as well as the Confederacy and created their own “brothers’ war.” This book offers a broad overview of the war as it affected the Cherokees—a social history of a people plunged into crisis. The Cherokee Nation in the Civil War shows how the Cherokee people, who had only just begun to recover from the ordeal of removal, faced an equally devastating upheaval in the Civil War. Clarissa W. Confer illustrates how the Cherokee Nation, with its sovereign status and distinct culture, had a wartime experience unlike that of any other group of people—and suffered perhaps the greatest losses of land, population, and sovereignty. Confer examines decision-making and leadership within the tribe, campaigns and soldiering among participants on both sides, and elements of civilian life and reconstruction. She reveals how a centuries-old culture informed the Cherokees’ choices, with influences as varied as matrilineal descent, clan affiliations, economic distribution, and decentralized government combining to distinguish the Native reaction to the war. The Cherokee Nation in the Civil War recalls a people enduring years of hardship while also struggling for their future as the white man’s war encroached on the physical and political integrity of their nation.