From the Inside Flap Demanding the Cherokee Nation examines nineteenth-century Cherokee political rhetoric to address an enigma in American Indian history: the contradiction between the sovereignty of Indian nations and the political weakness of Indian communities. Making use of a rich collection of petitions, appeals, newspaper editorials, and other public records, Andrew Denson describes the ways in which Cherokees represented their people and their nation to non-Indians after their forced removal to Indian Territory in the 1830s. He argues that Cherokee writings on nationhood document a decades-long effort by tribal leaders to find a new model for American Indian relations in which Indian nations could coexist with a modernizing United States. Most non-Natives in the nineteenth century assumed that American development and progress necessitated the end of tribal autonomy, that at best the Indian nation was a transitional state for Native people on the way to assimilation. As Denson shows, however, Cherokee leaders found a variety of ways in which the Indian nation, as they defined it, belonged in the modern world. Tribal leaders responded to developments in the United States and adapted their defense of Indian autonomy to the great changes transforming American life in the middle and late nineteenth century. In particular, Cherokees in several ways found new justification for Indian nationhood in American industrialization. Andrew Denson is an assistant professor of history at Western Carolina University. Read more About the Author Andrew Denson is an associate professor of history at Western Carolina University. Read more
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An Excellent Book for Those Interested in Cherokee History
In his book, "Demanding the Cherokee Nation: Indian Autonomy And American Culture, 1830-1900", author Andrew Denson explores Cherokee thought and writings during various periods of the 19th century, a time when Cherokee nationhood and autonomy were extensively challenged by the American Government. The book can primarily be read as a study of Cherokee resistance. Denson does a superb job of analyzing arguments that the representatives of the Cherokee tribe used in Washington, DC to preserve their culture and their very existence. The emphasis throughout the book is on what the Cherokee themselves intended for their people and their relationship to America. The perspective of the U.S. government or of European Americans is not addressed to a great extent. The book also explores relationships between the Cherokee themselves, with revealing looks at internecine fighting and contempt between such groups as "full bloods" and "mixed bloods." A further strength of Denson's book is that it reads smoothly and easily even for one not familiar with Cherokee History. Denson provides in-depth historical background to put events and "memorials" (petitions to Washington, DC) in context.Each chapter of the book deals with a different challenge faced by the Cherokees during the 1800s. Denson looks at their thought and responses to Removal (the infamous "Trail of Tears"), the American Civil War, the post-Civil War period when war was made on the Indians in the plains, the incursion of the railroad into Cherokee land, and the devastating event of "allotment" in the late 1800s which dispersed and disorganized the tribe until years later in the 20th century. There is a chapter devoted to "The Okmulgee Council," perhaps the closest the Cherokees ever came to complete autonomy. Another chapter illuminates the International Fairs, unique events which allowed the various Native American tribes to display their culture to the rest of the country. Again, for those not overly familiar with Cherokee History, the epilogue provides a concise summary of events of the 20th century, with an optimistic view of the condition of the tribe in the present day.For the more serious historian, Denson's work is replete with footnotes and an extensive bibliography, along with some of his recommendations for further reading. Though Denson's writing is not at all esoteric, nevertheless the book contains many ideas which show his extensive thought on the subjects and his effort to examine every side of the Cherokee arguments with the U.S. and among themselves. It is an important book in terms of understanding the aims, objectives, hopes and desires of the Cherokee people in the 19th Century.
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