Examines how architecture and other aspects of the built environment, such as hearths, burials, and earthen mounds, formed center places within the Cherokee cultural landscape In Center Places and Cherokee Towns, Christopher B. Rodning opens a panoramic vista onto protohistoric Cherokee culture. He posits that Cherokee households and towns were anchored within their cultural and natural landscapes by built features that acted as “center places.” Rodning investigates the period from just before the first Spanish contact with sixteenth-century Native American chiefdoms in La Florida through the development of formal trade relations between Native American societies and English and French colonial provinces in the American South during the late 1600s and 1700s. Rodning focuses particularly on the Coweeta Creek archaeological site in the upper Little Tennessee Valley in southwestern North Carolina and describes the ways in which elements of the built environment were manifestations of Cherokee senses of place. Drawing on archaeological data, delving into primary documentary sources dating from the eighteenth century, and considering Cherokee myths and legends remembered and recorded during the nineteenth century, Rodning shows how the arrangement of public structures and household dwellings in Cherokee towns both shaped and were shaped by Cherokee culture. Center places at different scales served as points of attachment between Cherokee individuals and their communities as well as between their present and past. Rodning explores the ways in which Cherokee architecture and the built environment were sources of cultural stability in the aftermath of European contact, and how the course of European contact altered the landscape of Cherokee towns in the long run. In this multi-faceted consideration of archaeology, ethnohistory, and recorded oral tradition, Rodning adeptly demonstrates the distinct ways that Cherokee identity was constructed through architecture and other material forms. Center Places and Cherokee Towns will have a broad appeal to students and scholars of southeastern archaeology, anthropology, Native American studies, prehistoric and protohistoric Cherokee culture, landscape archaeology, and ethnohistory.

Examines how architecture and other aspects of the built environment, such as hearths, burials, and earthen mounds, formed center places within the Cherokee cultural landscape In Center Places and Cherokee Towns, Christopher B. Rodning opens a panoramic vista onto protohistoric Cherokee culture. He posits that Cherokee households and towns were anchored within their cultural and natural landscapes by built features that acted as “center places.” Rodning investigates the period from just before the first Spanish contact with sixteenth-century Native American chiefdoms in La Florida through the development of formal trade relations between Native American societies and English and French colonial provinces in the American South during the late 1600s and 1700s. Rodning focuses particularly on the Coweeta Creek archaeological site in the upper Little Tennessee Valley in southwestern North Carolina and describes the ways in which elements of the built environment were manifestations of Cherokee senses of place. Drawing on archaeological data, delving into primary documentary sources dating from the eighteenth century, and considering Cherokee myths and legends remembered and recorded during the nineteenth century, Rodning shows how the arrangement of public structures and household dwellings in Cherokee towns both shaped and were shaped by Cherokee culture. Center places at different scales served as points of attachment between Cherokee individuals and their communities as well as between their present and past. Rodning explores the ways in which Cherokee architecture and the built environment were sources of cultural stability in the aftermath of European contact, and how the course of European contact altered the landscape of Cherokee towns in the long run. In this multi-faceted consideration of archaeology, ethnohistory, and recorded oral tradition, Rodning adeptly demonstrates the distinct ways that Cherokee identity was constructed through architecture and other material forms. Center Places and Cherokee Towns will have a broad appeal to students and scholars of southeastern archaeology, anthropology, Native American studies, prehistoric and protohistoric Cherokee culture, landscape archaeology, and ethnohistory.

Focusing on the American Cherokee people and the South Carolina settlers, this book traces the two cultures and their interactions from 1680, when Charleston was established as the main town in the region, until 1785, when the Cherokees first signed a treaty with the United States. Hatley retrieves the unfamiliar dimensions of a world in which Native Americans were at the center of Southern geopolitics and in which radically different social assumptions about the obligations of power, the place of women, and the use of the land fed the formative cultural psychology of the colonial South. Weaving together firsthand accounts, journals, and letters to give a human reality to the facts of war, politics, and the economy, he pinpoints the revolutionary decade--from the little known but decisive Cherokee war through the Revolution itself--in which both societies struggled over their own identities. Rather than focusing on the Cherokees and Carolinians separately, this book focuses on contacts, encounters, exchanges, intersections: their mutual history. Hatley argues that Cherokee and colonial histories cannot be understood separately--that they are inextricably linked--and that the origins of distinctive features of Native American and colonial ethnicity and seemingly unrelated twists in the political history of each society are rooted in this encounter.

Focusing on the American Cherokee people and the South Carolina settlers, this book traces the two cultures and their interactions from 1680, when Charleston was established as the main town in the region, until 1785, when the Cherokees first signed a treaty with the United States. Hatley retrieves the unfamiliar dimensions of a world in which Native Americans were at the center of Southern geopolitics and in which radically different social assumptions about the obligations of power, the place of women, and the use of the land fed the formative cultural psychology of the colonial South. Weaving together firsthand accounts, journals, and letters to give a human reality to the facts of war, politics, and the economy, he pinpoints the revolutionary decade--from the little known but decisive Cherokee war through the Revolution itself--in which both societies struggled over their own identities. Rather than focusing on the Cherokees and Carolinians separately, this book focuses on contacts, encounters, exchanges, intersections: their mutual history. Hatley argues that Cherokee and colonial histories cannot be understood separately--that they are inextricably linked--and that the origins of distinctive features of Native American and colonial ethnicity and seemingly unrelated twists in the political history of each society are rooted in this encounter.

An introduction to the locale, history, way of life, and culture of the Cherokee Indians.

When James Mooney lived with and studied the Cherokee between 1887 and 1900, they were the largest and most important Indian tribe in the United States. His dispassionate account of their history from the time of their fi rst contact with whites until the end of the nineteenth century is more than a sequence of battles won and lost, treaties signed and broken, towns destroyed and people massacred. There is humanity along with inhumanity in the relations between the Cherokee and other groups, Indian and non-Indian; there is fortitude and persistence balanced with disillusionment and frustration. In these respects, the history of the Cherokee epitomizes the experience of most Native Americans. The Cherokee Nation ceased to exist as a political entity seven years after the initial study was done, when Oklahoma became a state.

"Footsteps of the Cherokees divides the Cherokees' eastern homeland into 19 geographical sections and explores many of the historic Cherokee sites in these areas. Sites range from Moccasin Bend in Chattanooga, inhabited by Cherokees and earlier Indian cultures and considered one of the most important archaeological complexes within a United States city, to the Qualla Boundary, the home of the Eastern Cherokee reservation, where visitors can still experience the historic Cherokee culture. For each site, Rozema gives historical background, directions to the site, and the hours of operation and telephone numbers if the site is located within a park or museum area. The book also includes an overview of Cherokee history that sets the stage for the tours of the historic sites."--Back cover.