The Qualla Cherokee Surviving in Two Worlds

by Laurence A. French

Brand New.

239 pages, Hardcover

First published August 31, 1998

Reviews

[Dwreads · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a difficult book to critique. On one hand it offers interesting and detailed insights into the unique experience and challenges faced by the EBCI since the time of removal of the majority of Cherokee people. It especially goes into depth about the period of 1920 - 1979, where the Eastern Cherokee faced innumerable problems caused by the Federal government/BIA, the NC State government, local governments, local racism and community organizations that intentionally kept the EBCI powerless, dependent, manipulated and impoverished. Poor schools, terrible health care, a "white Indian" tribal elite that served themselves and their relatives and not most tribal members, and corruption, led to an epidemic of despair, hopelessness, addiction, incarceration and early mortality. If you want to know more about this, then the book is well worth reading. The downside, is the book is poorly edited with many more typos that any professionally edited book should have, and the author a sociologist spends a great deal of time looking at underlying causal mechanisms of inequity by examining and comparing the Protestant ethic, communism (Marx), and other sociological explanations that were popular among scholars in the 1960s and 70s. That part of the book I found to be tedious and pedantic. This is not light reading and is written by an academic for academics, so if if "light history" is your jam, this is not it.