Cherokees of the Smoky Mountains: A Little Band that has stood against the White Tide for Three Hundred Years

by Horace Kephart

This text relates the powerful and dramatic history of Smoky Mountain Cherokees, who for 40,000 years thrived in the difficult terrain of the Great Smoky Mountains and its surrounding regions areas of what is now Kentucky, Ohio, West Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia and Alabama. With a constitution and organized government, a written language and no economic debt, the Cherokees sought to live in relative peace. However, President Jackson and the state of Georgia thought differently, and together - despite a key Supreme Court ruling by Chief Justice John Marshall and significant political support - the Cherokees and their devoted Chief John Ross were forced to leave their homeland and be removed to Oklahoma in the Trail of Tears in 1837. This story, and how one Cherokee Chief was sacrificed to retain a small piece of Cherokee land in the southwest corner of North Carolina, known today as Qualla Boundary, is a story told with passion, empathy and historical accuracy.

Horace Kephart is also the author of Our Southern Highlanders, Camping and Woodcraft and Smoky Mountain Magic, and the creator of the Kephart knife. Mount Kephart, a 6,217 foot peak just northwest of Qualla Boundary, was chosen by Kephart and designated in his lifetime. He was instrumental in the founding of the Great Smoky National Park.

This version of Cherokees of the Smoky Mountains was revised by Kephart's great granddaughter, Janice Kephart, a spoken word artist and subject matter expert who served as a 9/11 Commission counsel. Janice added context for some commentary within the text but left the writing mostly as is, added historical photographs from the Hunter Library Horace Kephart Archive at Western Carolina University and other libraries, and added a new Foreword and Introduction.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, American History, Native American

83 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 15, 2003

Reviews

[Read-n-Bloom · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great little book on the Cherokee of the Smokey Mountains! I loved it! If anyone is interested in reading on the Cherokee, this is a little book, but it’s a great one.

[Jamie Bucey · Rating 5 out of 5]

The description of who the author was and how he came to know the Cherokee was fascinating. It was not lost on me how awful the settlers were to the local indigenous people.

[Chris Gleck]

This book is copyrighted 1936, and I purchased my copy, a version reformatted with introduction in 1983, on a trip to the Great Smoky Mountains about 20 years ago. I was interested in learning about the first peoples to inhabit the area. The author was an outdoorsman who lived in the area from 1904 until his death in 1931 and is credited with being responsible for the establishment of Smoky Mountain National Park. It who remained after that incident. We visited the Cherokee village outside of the Park boundaries on our trip. I will save this to pass along to one of the "grands" if any of them become interested in First American history.

[Michael Wiggins · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a concise, somewhat dated story of the Eastern Band of the Cherokees. It was written by Horace Kephart, who is much better known for his book, "Our Southern Highlanders," which I really plan to reread one of these days. This booklet is a fair introduction to a much larger story. There are still some details, notably of the forced removal of many of the Cherokees and the Trail of Tears, which give a overlay of deep sorrow to this short history.

[Leah · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a heartbreaking account of the Cherokee being forced from their lands. Treaties are outlined, presidents Jackson and Van Buren have their faces rightly rubbed in the mud. The tragedy that happened to this people cannot be underestimated. Kephart’s account is one of the most thorough and the GSMA has preserved a piece of history by publishing this book.

[Luis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short and to the point. Although it mentions some sources from which it draws its’ material, it would have been more thorough if the citations were included.

[Dylan McHenry · Rating 5 out of 5]

So informative. Sad and shocking how the Cherokee were treated by the US government. Hard to fathom this level of mistreatment and brutality.

[C K · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great pamphlet but can’t get over the fact the author abandoned his wife and 6 kids to write it

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

A brief but interesting recounting of the history of the Cherokees and their lives in the uplands of the Appalachians. It includes the Trail of Tears, of course, but also an interesting reminder of the Cherokees that eluded removal and remained in the Appalachians.

[Sonya Watkins · Rating 3 out of 5]

Short but informative. A brief glance into the lives and struggles of my ancestors.

[Wilani Wahl · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was very helpful in my research of the Cherokee and in particular about Tsali.