Great Plains Studies, Center for
Date of this Version
2006
Abstract
This is an important book if only for the reason that it will make many reconsider what they think they know about the Cherokees. Their early history, like that of any people, is obscured in the dimness of the past. While some of the early story may be reconstructed through surviving myth and modern theory, much uncertainty clouds origins and early migration patterns. After white contact and the chronicles and accounts of traders, missionaries, and adventurers are written, the veil isn't entirely lifted. Many written records pose more questions than they answer. For example, when the British first came upon Cherokee towns, their inhabitants reportedly were already using firearms, although when and from whom they acquired the guns is not documented. Between first European contact and the early nineteenth century, accounts of persons and events come down to us through some unreliable narrators; the roles of Nancy Ward and Dragging Canoe in conflicts with American settlers are a case in point. Only after the introduction of Sequoyah's syllabary and the establishment of the Cherokee press in the 1820s does the Nation's story become clearer and more detailed as the people themselves, rather than outsiders with axes to grind, become the transmitters of information and help to temper "official" accounts.
Comments
Published in GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY 26:3 (Summer 2006). Copyright 0 2006 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska-Lincoln.