Literacy and Intellectual Life in the Cherokee Nation, 1820–1906
- ISBN-10
- 0806151242
- ISBN-13
- 9780806151243
- Category
- History
- Pages
- 304
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2013-11-04
- Publisher
- University of Oklahoma Press
- Author
- James W. Parins
Description
Many Anglo-Americans in the nineteenth century regarded Indian tribes as little more than illiterate bands of savages in need of “civilizing.” Few were willing to recognize that one of the major Southeastern tribes targeted for removal west of the Mississippi already had an advanced civilization with its own system of writing and rich literary tradition. In Literacy and Intellectual Life in the Cherokee Nation, 1820–1906, James W. Parins traces the rise of bilingual literacy and intellectual life in the Cherokee Nation during the nineteenth century—a time of intense social and political turmoil for the tribe. By the 1820s, Cherokees had perfected a system for writing their language—the syllabary created by Sequoyah—and in a short time taught it to virtually all their citizens. Recognizing the need to master the language of the dominant society, the Cherokee Nation also developed a superior public school system that taught students in English. The result was a literate population, most of whom could read the Cherokee Phoenix, the tribal newspaper founded in 1828 and published in both Cherokee and English. English literacy allowed Cherokee leaders to deal with the white power structure on their own terms: Cherokees wrote legal briefs, challenged members of Congress and the executive branch, and bargained for their tribe as white interests sought to take their land and end their autonomy. In addition, many Cherokee poets, fiction writers, essayists, and journalists published extensively after 1850, paving the way for the rich literary tradition that the nation preserves and fosters today. Literary and Intellectual Life in the Cherokee Nation, 1820–1906 takes a fascinating look at how literacy served to unite Cherokees during a critical moment in their national history, and advances our understanding of how literacy has functioned as a tool of sovereignty among Native peoples, both historically and today.
Get the book
Other editions
-
- 2013-11-04
- 304 pages
- Paperback
- University of Oklahoma Press
Similar books
-
Literacy and Intellectual Life in the Cherokee Nation, 1820-1906
By James W. ParinsLiterary and Intellectual Life in the Cherokee Nation, 1820-1906 takes a fascinating look at how literacy served to unite Cherokees during a critical moment in their national history, and advances our understanding of how literacy has ...
-
The Routledge Companion to Gender and the American West
By Susan BernardinRisk”. and. Legacies. of. Selfhood. in. Contemporary. White. Western. Men's. Memoir. Linda Karell DOI: 10.4324/9781351174282-8 Readers of contemporary Western writing will inevitably come across one or another of Ivan Doig's two memoirs ...
-
Readers' Liberation: The Literary Agenda
By Jonathan RoseAmy Scott-Douglass, Shakespeare Inside: The Bard Behind Bars (New York and London: Continuum, 2007), 4–5. See also Jean Trounstine, Shakespeare Behind Bars: The Power of Drama in a Women's Prison (New York: St Martin's Press, 2001).
-
Literacy in the Mountains: Community, Newspapers, and Writing in Appalachia
By Samantha NeCampDidn't Hunter import you from the accursed spot called Georgetown, in which Caleb Powers has twice been sentenced by Democratic juries, and weren't you a Democrat yourself? We will willingly leave it to the people of Knox county as to ...
-
Monuments to Absence: Cherokee Removal and the Contest over Southern Memory
By Andrew DensonCherokees and the Promotion of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park As visiting the Qualla Boundary grew in ... “the Cherokees have left little to contribute to the history of the Smokies except in the form of myth and legend.
-
Modernity through Letter Writing: Cherokee and Seneca Political Representations in Response to Removal, 1830–1857
By Claudia B. HaakeSupport from the scholarly community also came from David Garrioch and Jan Pinder, Clare Monagle, the “ilas familia,” Sally and David Dammery, Chips Sowerwine and Susan Foley, and Jim Hammerton. I especially thank Jenny Lee for her ...
-
Ties That Bind: The Story of an Afro-Cherokee Family in Slavery and Freedom
By Tiya MilesThe Story of an Afro-Cherokee Family in Slavery and Freedom Tiya Miles ... “Reconstructing the Cherokee and Moravian Story through Early Nineteenth Century Missionary Diaries: Transcending ... Cherokees and Missionaries, 1789–1839.
-
Stoking the Fire: Nationhood in Cherokee Writing, 1907–1970
By Kirby BrownI take this phrase from Hoxie, Talking Back to Civilization. See also Hertzberg, The Search for an American Indian Identity, 22; Maddox, Citizen Indians, 3, 13–14; Holm, Great Confusion in Indian Affairs, 52–53, 58; Martínez, ...
-
Ned Christie: The Creation of an Outlaw and Cherokee Hero
By Devon A. MihesuahYet the author admits that for all this information, we may never know the full story, because Christie’s own voice is largely missing from the written record.
-
Nineteenth-Century American Activist Rhetorics
By Patricia Bizzell, Lisa Zimmerelli“U.S. Indian Policy, 1865–1890 as Illuminated through the Lives of Charles A. Eastman and Elaine Goodale Eastman. ... Parins, James W. Literacy and Intellectual Life in the Cherokee Nation, 1820–1906. U of Oklahoma P, 2013.