The Cherokee Diaspora: An Indigenous History of Migration, Resettlement, and Identity

by Gregory D. Smithers

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.

Genres: History, Indigenous, Nonfiction, Native American, Indigenous History, Native American History, Anthropology

368 pages, Hardcover

First published September 27, 2015

Reviews

[Holly Allen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a great academic achievement and a good resource for an interested scholar in the subject. However, the author frequently uses terms in quotations, acknowledging their specialist terms, but doesn’t define them. That alone shows a clear preference for purely academic readers, mostly those in history or anthropology. Also, the writing sometimes shifts between being very dry and detached and occasionally a shocking folkloric tone will pop up and include bits of theory or vague concepts without much support (especially, for example, in portions of text about Sequoyah). I also felt that sometimes more details about the lives of individual Cherokee (with a less detached voice) would’ve brought life to the text. Overall I think it is a good book with good information and certainly an achievement but one that could’ve been more engaging and consistent.

[Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

After 2+ months and 6 renewals, I'm finally (finally!) done! I do think the book is a mighty fine scholarly achievement - it clearly lays out the mechanisms and historical facts ("facts" as scraped out of primary source documents) of the dispersal of the Cherokee. But #1, it is dryer than the untold number of documents that were undoubtedly consulted in the process of writing the book. And #2 (closely related to #1), it completely lacks a sense of the people involved. I think telling the stories of the people involved brings cultural history to life for people like me but there was only the barest glimmer of that in the beginning and end.

What I did find incredibly fascinating - yet another grim subject - was all the material about the Cherokee and their participation in racial-based slavery. I had only recently learned that Native Americans had black slaves (thanks to some PBS documentary on genealogy), but I had no idea Cherokees not only had slaves ("Look we're civilized, we have slaves just like white people") but that they also aligned themselves with the Confederacy during the Civil War (not that they weren't just like the rest of the U.S. i.e. divided by the practice). Further, and I understand there were tons of pressures on the Nation after the Civil War, they were complete a-holes (not a technical term, I know) about granting citizenship to the freedpersons once the war was over. But it's pretty sad to see the racism persists today as I learned they went so far as to strip Cherokee Nation citizenship from the descendants of freedpersons (because they lack Cherokee "blood") in 2007 by referendum. Ugh, grim.

Finally, in something that has nothing to do with the quality of the book, I decided when I started to read this that I would be on alert for any usage/mention of genocide. Recently, there was a very public student-faculty disagreement over the use of the term genocide (more precisely, over the lack of usage of the term) in a U.S. history course taught at the university I work at. In my experience at said university, the term genocide seems to resonate with the youth when they are researching U.S./Native American relations (those are the words they use when they ask me for help finding books on the subject, anyway) but just try to find any books using the term in a search of our catalog. As far as I can tell, the term never appeared in this - I only spotted imperialism, colonialism, assimilation, and whatever term for when the missionaries arrived. So, I have to wonder, why do professional historians not use the term genocide in relation to our history with Native American peoples? Will they ever? Does it even matter? I suppose that's a topic for a whole separate book I need to read.

[Shrike58 · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is no denying that this monograph is a rather dry exercise, which you're only likely to pick up because it's assigned reading in school, or, like me, have a work-related rationale. However, Smithers does do a good job of leading the reader through the Cherokee traditions of population mobility, before examining the U.S. federal government's long history of trying to obliterate Cherokee cultural and social identity through forced migration.

[Lauren Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Took me so long to make my way through this, but what a great read. People who claim Cherokee heritage need to read this book.

[Richard Rauchway · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the better history books I've read in quite some time. The author is a good story teller, and this is certainly a story I didn't expect to read. I had no idea the Cherokees had moved around so much, even before the trail of tears. The stories about individuals and their families are at times heart wrenching. I highly recommend this book.

[Heil Hogg · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a serious history book. The author did a lot of research for this book. I didn't know the migration of Cherokee Indians occurred before and after the Trail of Tears, and just how far Cherokees migrated around the world. This was an enlightening book to read.

[William Burke · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good book. Fascinating story. Worth reading.

[Sam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great topic. Good scholarly research. Very, very dry prose...

[Hunter Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent!