essay

Women, men and American Indian policy: the Cherokee response to 'civilization'

Negotiators of change : historical perspectives on Native American womenNew YorkPublished In 1995 • Pages: 90-114

By: Perdue, Theda.

AbstractBrief abstract written by HRAF anthropologists who have done the subject indexing for the document
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the Cherokees became active in the deerskin trade introduced into the Southeast by Europeans, but by the late 1700s, Euro-Americans were more interested in land than in trading for hides. From the end of the Revolutionary War through the 1830s, the United States pressured the Cherokees to cede more of their land. As Perdue discusses, the Cherokees were at the same time subjected to a 'benevolent' effort on the part of the U.S. to 'civilize' them; that is, to remake them in its image. The Cherokees willingly accommodated certain aspects of American culture, but were still forced to cede their lands in the Southeast and to remove to Indian Territory in the winter of 1838-39. The Cherokees built a new nation in the West, in what is now Oklahoma, while a small number of Cherokees who had avoided removal also reorganized as a tribe and today have a reservation in western North Carolina (p. 90).
SubjectsDocument-level OCM identifiers given by the anthropology subject indexers at HRAF
Acculturation and culture contact
Domesticated animals
Tillage
Division of labor by gender
External relations
Public welfare
cultureCulture name from the Outline of World Cultures (OWC)
Cherokee
HRAF PubDateThe date HRAF published the document
2000
RegionThe area the document pertains to
North America
Sub RegionThe more specific area the document pertains to, which is located within the Region
Eastern Woodlands
Document TypeMay include journal articles, essays, collections of essays, monographs, or chapters/parts of monographs
essay
Evaluation
Creator TypeThe type of person writing the document, e.g. Ethnographer, Missionary, Archaeologist, Folklorist, Linguist, Indigenous Person, and so on.
Historian
Document Rating A ranking done by HRAF anthropologists based on the strength of the source material on a scale of 1 to 5, as follows: 1 - poor; 2 - fair; 3 - good, useful data, but not uniformly excellent; 4 - excellent secondary data; 5 - excellent primary data.
4: Excellent Secondary Data
AnalystThe HRAF anthropologist who subject indexed the document and prepared other materials for the eHRAF culture/tradition collection
John Beierlec; 2006
Field DateThe date the researcher conducted the fieldwork or archival research that produced the document
no date
Coverage DateThe date or dates that the information in the document pertains to
1789-1830
Coverage PlaceLocation of the research culture or tradition (often a smaller unit such as a band, community, or archaeological site)
North Carolina, United States
NotesAdditional notes
Theda Perdue
Includes bibliographical references
LCCNLibrary of Congress Control Number
94015774
LCSHLibrary of Congress Subject Headings
Cherokee Indians