Theda Perdue examines the roles and responsibilities of Cherokee women during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, a time of intense cultural change. While building on the research of earlier historians, she develops a uniquely complex view of the effects of contact on Native gender relations, arguing that Cherokee conceptions of gender persisted long after contact. Maintaining traditional gender roles actually allowed Cherokee women and men to adapt to new circumstances and adopt new industries and practices.

An historical survey of the various Southeastern peoples, from the pre-Columbian period of societal development through the invasion by Europeans, the colonial era, the exile of the "Five Civilized Tribes" to Oklahoma and the experience of those who stayed in the Southeast. The book examines not only the history but also the methodologies, attitudes and assumptions common to the historical study of American Indians.

Today, a fraction of the Cherokee people remains in their traditional homeland in the southern Appalachians. Most Cherokees were forcibly relocated to eastern Oklahoma in the early nineteenth century. In 1830 the U.S. government shifted its policy from one of trying to assimilate American Indians to one of relocating them and proceeded to drive seventeen thousand Cherokee people west of the Mississippi. The Cherokee Nation and the Trail of Tears recounts this moment in American history and considers its impact on the Cherokee, on U.S.-Indian relations, and on contemporary society. Guggenheim Fellowship-winning historian Theda Perdue and coauthor Michael D. Green explain the various and sometimes competing interests that resulted in the Cherokee?s expulsion, follow the exiles along the Trail of Tears, and chronicle their difficult years in the West after removal.

The Cherokee Removal of 1838–1839 unfolded against a complex backdrop of competing ideologies, self-interest, party politics, altruism, and ambition. Using documents that convey Cherokee voices, government policy, and white citizens’ views, Theda Perdue continues to present a multifaceted account of this complicated moment in American history. The third edition features new documents, including two contemporary newspaper articles and an interview with a former Cherokee slave. In addition, a new section allows readers to reflect on the legacy of the Trail of Tears and those affected by it. The introduction provides students with succinct historical background. Document headnotes contextualize the selections and draw attention to historical methodology. To aid students’ investigation of this compelling topic, the map and the chronology of the Cherokee Removal have been augmented by new questions for consideration and a selected bibliography.

Considers the history of unions between Europeans and Native Americans on the southern frontier, the resulting integration of "white blood" with that of the Natives, and the differing views of such marriages in each society.

Slavery was practiced in North America long before Europeans arrived on these shores, bringing their own version of this "peculiar institution." Unlike the European institution, however, Native American slavery was a function of warfare among tribes, replenishment of population lost through intertribal conflict or disease, and establishment and preservation of tribal standards of behavior. Theda Perdue here traces the history of slavery among the Cherokee as it evolved from 1540 to 1866. During the colonial period, Cherokees actively began to capture members of other tribes and were themselves captured and sold to Whites as chattels for the Caribbean slave trade. Also during this period, enslaved African people were introduced among the Cherokee, and when intertribal warfare ended, the use of forced labor to increase agricultural and other production emerged within Cherokee society. Well aware that the institution of Black slavery was only one of many important changes that gradually broke down the traditional Cherokee culture after 1540, Professor Perdue integrates her concern with slavery into the total picture of cultural transformation resulting from the clash between European and Amerindian societies. She has made good use of previous anthropological and sociological studies, and presents an excellent summary of the relevant historical materials, ever attempting to see cultural crises from the perspective of the Cherokees. The first overall account of the effect of slavery upon the Cherokees, Perdue's acute analysis and readable narrative provide the reader with a new angle of vision on the changing nature of Cherokee culture under the impact of increasing contact with Europeans.

Theda Perdue examines the roles and responsibilities of Cherokee women during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, a time of intense cultural change. While building on the research of earlier historians, she develops a uniquely complex view of the effects of contact on Native gender relations, arguing that Cherokee conceptions of gender persisted long after contact. Maintaining traditional gender roles actually allowed Cherokee women and men to adapt to new circumstances and adopt new industries and practices.

Discusses what native America was like before the arrival of Europeans; the Indian way of life; Indian-white relations; and Native Carolinians today. Includes separate chapters on the Cherokee and the Lumbee and an appendix listing important dates in North Carolina Indian history.

2019 National Native American Hall of Fame Inductee This stirring memoir is the story of Ada Deer, the first woman to serve as head of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Deer begins, “I was born a Menominee Indian. That is who I was born and how I have lived.” She proceeds to narrate the first eighty-three years of her life, which are characterized by her tireless campaigns to reverse the forced termination of the Menominee tribe and to ensure sovereignty and self-determination for all tribes. Deer grew up in poverty on the Menominee Reservation in Wisconsin, but with the encouragement of her mother and teachers, she earned degrees in social work from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and Columbia University. Armed with a first-rate education, an iron will, and a commitment to justice, she went from being a social worker in Minneapolis to leading the struggle for the restoration of the Menominees’ tribal status and trust lands. Having accomplished that goal, she moved on to teach American Indian Studies at UW–Madison, to hold a fellowship at Harvard, to work for the Native American Rights Fund, to run unsuccessfully for Congress, and to serve as Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Indian Affairs in the Clinton administration. Now in her eighties, Deer remains as committed as ever to human rights, especially the rights of American Indians. A deeply personal story, written with humor and honesty, this book is a testimony to the ability of one individual to change the course of history through hard work, perseverance, and an unwavering commitment to social justice.

A collection of interviews in which Native Americans from the five largest southwestern Indian groups, the Cherokees, Chickasaws, Choctaws, Creeks, and Seminoles, recount the turmoil their tribes faced in the years between the Civil War and Oklahoma statehood.