Focusing on the ongoing struggle against racism, this study emphasizes the importance of acknowledging and addressing its legacy despite progress in racial equality. It offers insights into the roles of influential figures in both religious and political spheres, urging readers to reflect on the complexities of racial issues in contemporary society.
The book vividly explores the complex social and political structures of southeastern North America's indigenous communities prior to European contact. Gregory D. Smithers, an award-winning historian, narrates the rich cultural traditions and histories of American Indians in the Southeast, covering significant events from pre-colonial times through the Trail of Tears, offering a comprehensive understanding of their resilience and heritage.
The Cherokee are one of the largest Native American tribes in the United States, with more than three hundred thousand people across the country claiming tribal membership and nearly one million people internationally professing to have at least one Cherokee Indian ancestor. In this revealing history of Cherokee migration and resettlement, Gregory Smithers uncovers the origins of the Cherokee diaspora and explores how communities and individuals have negotiated their Cherokee identities, even when geographically removed from the Cherokee Nation headquartered in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. Beginning in the eighteenth century, the author transports the reader back in time to tell the poignant story of the Cherokee people migrating throughout North America, including their forced exile along the infamous Trail of Tears (1838-39). Smithers tells a remarkable story of courage, cultural innovation, and resilience, exploring the importance of migration and removal, land and tradition, culture and language in defining what it has meant to be Cherokee for a widely scattered people.