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Ties That Bind: The Story of an Afro-Cherokee Family in Slavery and Freedom
This beautifully written book tells the haunting saga of a quintessentially American family. It is the story of Shoe Boots, a famed Cherokee warrior and successful farmer, and Doll, an African slave he acquired in the late 1790s. Over the next thirty years, Shoe Boots and Doll lived together as master and slave and also as lifelong partners who, with their children and grandchildren, experienced key events in American history—including slavery, the Creek War, the founding of the Cherokee Nation and subsequent removal of Native Americans along the Trail of Tears, and the Civil War. This is the gripping story of their lives, in slavery and in freedom.
Meticulously crafted from historical and literary sources, Ties That Bind vividly portrays the members of the Shoeboots family. Doll emerges as an especially poignant character, whose life is mostly known through the records of things done to her—her purchase, her marriage, the loss of her children—but also through her moving petition to the federal government for the pension owed to her as Shoe Boots's widow. A sensitive rendition of the hard realities of black slavery within Native American nations, the book provides the fullest picture we have of the myriad complexities, ironies, and tensions among African Americans, Native Americans, and whites in the first half of the nineteenth century.
Meticulously crafted from historical and literary sources, Ties That Bind vividly portrays the members of the Shoeboots family. Doll emerges as an especially poignant character, whose life is mostly known through the records of things done to her—her purchase, her marriage, the loss of her children—but also through her moving petition to the federal government for the pension owed to her as Shoe Boots's widow. A sensitive rendition of the hard realities of black slavery within Native American nations, the book provides the fullest picture we have of the myriad complexities, ironies, and tensions among African Americans, Native Americans, and whites in the first half of the nineteenth century.
327 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2005
49 people are currently reading
1953 people want to read
About the author
Tiya Miles
18 books573 followersTiya Miles is from Ohio, "the heart of it all," though now she spends summers in her husband's native Montana. She is the author of All That She Carried (which won a National Book Award for nonfiction and more), and of three prize-winning works of history on the intersections of African American and Native American experience. Her forthcoming book, Night Flyer: Harriet Tubman and the Faith Dreams of a Free People, will be out in June 2024, right on the heels of her short but sweet exploration of childhoods in nature: Wild Girls: How the Outdoors Shaped the Women Who Challenged a Nation (September 2024). Her debut dual time period (historical-contemporary) novel based on her early career research, The Cherokee Rose: A Novel of Gardens and Ghosts, was revised with new scenes and released as a paperback original by Random House in June 2023; check out the new version! She has also published a study of haunted plantations and manor homes in the South that reads like a travel narrative. (And she is as surprised as you are that two of her books focus on ghosts!) Her newest book, just out from W. W. Norton, is Wild Girls: How the Outdoors Shaped the Women Who Challenged a Nation. Tiya's favorite activities are reading good books while her three teenaged kids write stories together in the background, spending time in old houses, walking along forest trails, and drinking hot chocolate. She is currently working on a history, a novel, and essays about climate change and historic sites. Check out her Substack: Carrying Capacity, for news and updates! https://tiyamiles.substack.com/
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 34 reviews
June 24, 2017
Ties That Bind is an inspiring example of self-conscious, responsible, well-researched work in the face of gaps and absences in the historical record. Miles's use of an Afro-Cherokee family to analyze the tenuous racial boundaries between white, black, and Native Americans in the nineteenth century shows how one may reasonably extrapolate knowledge from case studies and comparative research practices. She recognizes and carefully navigates what George B. Handley calls the “poetics of oblivion,” and uses comparative techniques to reasonably fill in the gaps where there are silences in the story of Shoe Boots. Most importantly, she acknowledges when she is hypothesizing and explains to the reader that conjectural work is being done. Miles shows that guesswork is not an academic crime. In fact, she shows that is an essential tool to any serious scholar, but it must be used responsibly, self-consciously, and transparently.
Miles’s work is bigger than just nineteenth century race relations—it is about identity, community, belonging, and memory. These bigger issues are interwoven with the struggles of Shoe Boots’s family to gain recognition in the Cherokee community and negotiate the liminal space between the rigid racial categories of white, Indian, and black. After reading her re-creation of their family story, I immediately drew comparisons to those who feel marginalized by societal categories of belonging, specifically categories of gender and nationality.
Miles’s work is bigger than just nineteenth century race relations—it is about identity, community, belonging, and memory. These bigger issues are interwoven with the struggles of Shoe Boots’s family to gain recognition in the Cherokee community and negotiate the liminal space between the rigid racial categories of white, Indian, and black. After reading her re-creation of their family story, I immediately drew comparisons to those who feel marginalized by societal categories of belonging, specifically categories of gender and nationality.
June 15, 2018
Having learned a great deal from Miles' books on Detroit, the Plantation on Diamond Hill, and Cherokee Rose I decided to try this one. As with her nonfiction books on Detroit and the Plantation the scholarship in this book is impressive. The author skillfully integrates information from historians, anthropologists, and others to provide a comprehensive picture of the complex and at times very troubling relationship which the Cherokee people had with their African American slaves and the few so called freed African Americans who lived in their lands. For the more scholarly reader appendices at the back of the book provide a wide range of the documents on which Miles relied in writing the book.
The author focused on the story of one particular woman named Doll who was a slave/concubine to a chief named Shoeboots. But she also made many observations about the differences between slavery in White Southern society and the manner in which it was established, functioned, and evolved in Cherokee society over the course of the 19th century leading up to the Civil War. When there were gaps in the historical record due to the fact that neither Doll nor Shoeboots were literate, Miles, to her credit, readily acknowledged that some speculation was required. She then carefully made reference to fiction by renowned African American author Toni Morrison or well known Native American writers like Silko or Momoday to articulate what Doll's experiences might have been like. From these she then made some more general points about slavery, etc.
The prose in this book was clear and, for the most part, concise. Thus the book was engaging and quite readable, albeit a bit slow going at times because of all the information she provided. One modest criticism is that the maps provided include places which are not noted in the text. Miles probably did this in hopes of being thorough. However, I found it a bit troublesome to actually find a town or some other place discussed in the text because there were so many places noted on a map.
Overall, I recommend Ties very highly for readers like myself who have an interest in the subtleties of the culture and history of the Native American tribes trying to cope with increasingly problematic impact of European American colonization. The footnotes throughout the book and the comprehensive bibliography at the end provided me with many other books to read should I want to learn more about this topic. Miles is an accomplished historian who does fine work. I look forward to reading other books of hers in the coming years.
The author focused on the story of one particular woman named Doll who was a slave/concubine to a chief named Shoeboots. But she also made many observations about the differences between slavery in White Southern society and the manner in which it was established, functioned, and evolved in Cherokee society over the course of the 19th century leading up to the Civil War. When there were gaps in the historical record due to the fact that neither Doll nor Shoeboots were literate, Miles, to her credit, readily acknowledged that some speculation was required. She then carefully made reference to fiction by renowned African American author Toni Morrison or well known Native American writers like Silko or Momoday to articulate what Doll's experiences might have been like. From these she then made some more general points about slavery, etc.
The prose in this book was clear and, for the most part, concise. Thus the book was engaging and quite readable, albeit a bit slow going at times because of all the information she provided. One modest criticism is that the maps provided include places which are not noted in the text. Miles probably did this in hopes of being thorough. However, I found it a bit troublesome to actually find a town or some other place discussed in the text because there were so many places noted on a map.
Overall, I recommend Ties very highly for readers like myself who have an interest in the subtleties of the culture and history of the Native American tribes trying to cope with increasingly problematic impact of European American colonization. The footnotes throughout the book and the comprehensive bibliography at the end provided me with many other books to read should I want to learn more about this topic. Miles is an accomplished historian who does fine work. I look forward to reading other books of hers in the coming years.
March 25, 2013
Still hard to comprehend the uproar this book has caused within American Studies circles. If you're unfamiliar with the history of Cherokee/black slave encounters/miscegenation/slavery, definitely worth your time.
Read
February 25, 2023In this book Tiya Miles shines a light on the relationship between Shoe Boots, a Cherokee warrior and member of the 'new class' of Indians who embraced private property and American acculturation (figured either as a means to advance their personal wealth or as a risky, subtle ploy to entrench sovereign rights), and Doll, a Black enslaved woman who at least started as Boots' slave, but then transitioned to either his concubine or his wife (another either/or question hard to disentangle like the above). I like Miles' method here, using such a personal and not-well-known story to advance a survey of Afro-Cherokee relations from the early-mid 18th through to the early 20th century. She's clearly a natural storyteller, and its no surprise after reading this to see that she's a novelist as well as a history scholar.
Miles seems clearly motivated to encourage reciprocity between Cherokees and Blacks, and you can read this in her handling and repeated mention to questions of sovereignty and how that relates to freedom. For example, chapter two reflects on the differences of care between Indian and White American slavery, presumably set up as an attempt to smooth whatever divisive tension would derive from acknowledging the fact of slavery. Of course, Miles also does cite a lot of statistics and testimonials throughout the book to show that there was indeed a special class of Cherokee's who advanced and defended racial slavery more than most others- this class just also happened to be the ones writing the laws and holding more representative power- which just goes to show how hard it is to judge the history of law vs. the history of social relations.
There's another chapter on Christianity, which argues that even as it was surprising that Cherokees allowed their slaves greater access to education and learning, its also arguable that Black slaves, as educated missionaries, helped advance further American acculturation into the tribe. It's an example, I think, where the author attempts to position both groups as problematically enfolded into a system of mutual antagonisms. Does it work? I have somewhat complicated feelings, but appreciate that she put so much on the table to discuss. Of the three Afro-Indian historiographies I've read this summer, this one is just about as good as the other two (Black Slaves, Indian Masters by Barbara Krauthamer and Color of the Land by David Chang)
Miles seems clearly motivated to encourage reciprocity between Cherokees and Blacks, and you can read this in her handling and repeated mention to questions of sovereignty and how that relates to freedom. For example, chapter two reflects on the differences of care between Indian and White American slavery, presumably set up as an attempt to smooth whatever divisive tension would derive from acknowledging the fact of slavery. Of course, Miles also does cite a lot of statistics and testimonials throughout the book to show that there was indeed a special class of Cherokee's who advanced and defended racial slavery more than most others- this class just also happened to be the ones writing the laws and holding more representative power- which just goes to show how hard it is to judge the history of law vs. the history of social relations.
There's another chapter on Christianity, which argues that even as it was surprising that Cherokees allowed their slaves greater access to education and learning, its also arguable that Black slaves, as educated missionaries, helped advance further American acculturation into the tribe. It's an example, I think, where the author attempts to position both groups as problematically enfolded into a system of mutual antagonisms. Does it work? I have somewhat complicated feelings, but appreciate that she put so much on the table to discuss. Of the three Afro-Indian historiographies I've read this summer, this one is just about as good as the other two (Black Slaves, Indian Masters by Barbara Krauthamer and Color of the Land by David Chang)
December 10, 2022
Very informative and good organizational structure. Each chapter tells a development in the life of the Shoe Boots family and explains the political and cultural backdrop for these events. I tore through this book, it was so interesting and accessible for a layperson. My only critique would be that Miles sometimes used statistics or anecdotes to explain the prevalence and attitudes towards slavery in Cherokee society without enough context for me to tell if I agreed with her point (for example, saying 'Cherokee papers ran x number of ads for slaves which is less than this paper from a Southern state', and not telling what the relative circulation/ populations for those papers were).
February 19, 2016
Spectacular example of history! Engaging narrative and impressive research in a tough subject.
August 8, 2019
This is a fascinating true story of a native American ("Shoeboots") who owned slaves, and his relationship with one in particular ("Doll"). The research is just incredible and Miles makes it almost like a novel. She also does a great job of putting things into context (eg explaining the difference in attitude between white slave owners and Native American slave owners and how that impacted the humans they "owned").
You really want to know the subjects more and learn how they experienced their lives. But Miles does the most she possibly could with the information available.
At times it was hard to slog through because the story is painful to read and because there is so much research. But it is really a wonderful book and should be more widely known. Perhaps it should be made into a film!
You really want to know the subjects more and learn how they experienced their lives. But Miles does the most she possibly could with the information available.
At times it was hard to slog through because the story is painful to read and because there is so much research. But it is really a wonderful book and should be more widely known. Perhaps it should be made into a film!
November 26, 2018
A compelling and informative narrative that centers on the experience of one Afro-Cherokee family from their time in (what is now) Georgia, through their removal to (what is now) Oklahoma, and to the civil war and its aftermath.
The story exposes the intersections of nationalism (on many levels), slavery, immigration, rebellions, revolts, bad gov't, good gov't, capitalism, coercion, survival, identification, and so much more. The writing is clear and easy to follow, but the subject matter is a lot to take in. I felt the author did an excellent job weaving it all together.
The story exposes the intersections of nationalism (on many levels), slavery, immigration, rebellions, revolts, bad gov't, good gov't, capitalism, coercion, survival, identification, and so much more. The writing is clear and easy to follow, but the subject matter is a lot to take in. I felt the author did an excellent job weaving it all together.
March 6, 2019
Little did I know of relationships between Cherokee and African-American peoples following the Civil War. This book shares the evolution of an American family. Captain Shoe Boots is a Cherokee warrior, who along with his African-American slave/partner raise a family of mixed race children during highly turbulent times. I am fascinated with this story and highly recommend it, though it is written as a textbook - so be forewarned.
July 23, 2016
This is a really important adjunct to understanding the relationships between Black and other Native Americans today, particularly the mass disfranchisement of members of the "Five Tribes." It is a history but it begins and ends with individuals.
June 14, 2013
Great read for developing a deeper understanding of the very complex relationships between African Americans and Native peoples.
June 29, 2017
Fascinating story/study into a history I was not aware off Afro/Cherokee lineage through colonial/civil war/trail of tears/up to today.
November 5, 2019
Tiya Miles is a genius, and perhaps the most brilliant person on earth tbh.
July 31, 2022
The first time I read this book (before my Goodreads record keeping), I focused on the Shoe Boots/Doll story and skimmed everything else. Thus I missed a lot of important detail and perhaps the whole point. This time I focused on "everything else" and read the Shoe Boots/Doll story as the glue that holds it together. The Shoe Boots/Doll family is the perfect vehicle because of the many variations in relationship between Black and Cherokee they experience. Is Doll slave or wife or both? Three children are explicitly given freedom and tribal membership, but Doll isn't--on paper though she seems to have lived as a member. Nor are the twins, born after Shoe Boots' official request for his first three, explicitly given tribal membership. Thus is illustrated a difference between the official position defined by the white-Cherokee, northeastern educated men who set out to define the Cherokee Nation and the kinship-relationship mores that had existed before and continued to exist after the writing of the constitution. Add to the mix the state of Georgia illegally declaring sovereignty over the Cherokee Nation and annulling all decisions it had made, a move which put wife and children back into the slave category. And the complexity continued after removal and termination. One sees the encroaching ideas of European categories affecting some Cherokee thinking.
I suppose I was more prepared for complexity and nuance on second reading so didn't get lost in the detail. Miles documents her sources, explains their limitations, explains her attempts to get beyond gaps. There is an important appendix on her historical method and the difficulties of telling histories of Blacks and women when the sources are mostly European and white men. Scholars will appreciate the original sources also shown in the appendices.
I suppose I was more prepared for complexity and nuance on second reading so didn't get lost in the detail. Miles documents her sources, explains their limitations, explains her attempts to get beyond gaps. There is an important appendix on her historical method and the difficulties of telling histories of Blacks and women when the sources are mostly European and white men. Scholars will appreciate the original sources also shown in the appendices.
September 16, 2025
A phenomenal example of interdisciplinary methods and practice in a work of history!! Inspiring for me :)
May 3, 2016
I feel kind of conflicted about this book because, on the one hand, it takes a stab at discussing a pretty controversial subject and I appreciate that. I think this book really just raises more questions for me though. Regarding the experiences of Shoe Boots' slave/concubine, Doll, Miles can't really get into her head. She asks a lot of questions about Doll that are impossible to answer. She relies on literature, like Beloved, to fill in these gaps, but it feels insufficient. I like that the book raises these questions though because it gives future scholars something to which they can aspire to explain.
January 19, 2021
A must read for anyone interested in exploring the colonial experience in America, and the pervasive ways that white supremacy culture has ravaged indigenous communities, and challenged the nature of cross-cultural relationships between communities who may have otherwise been allies in their fight for equity, freedom, and sovereignty.
June 9, 2010
Love this book. It's a very unique approach to retelling history.
March 20, 2016
Great grasp of both the African slavery in the Cherokee and the 19th century of Cherokee people.
December 21, 2023
I’ve been meaning to read more of Tiya Miles’ work ever since reading the phenomenal Dawn of Detroit. Just like DoD, Miles combines in-depth archival research with poignant, moving prose.
Her sharp historical analysis is combined with an openness her own perspective, how it shapes her research, and what she hopes the impact of her research can be.
Ties That Bind is a microhistory of Doll, an enslaved African American woman who had a decades-long relationship and several children with her enslaver, a Cherokee man named Shoe Boots. Miles is clever at finding ways into Doll’s experience with broader social history (and, intriguingly, via historical fiction) while still making clear how much we simply can’t know about Doll’s life—both in terms of basic facts and in terms of her emotions and interior life—due to a lack of sources.
It’s an unsettling book in so many ways. Of course, slavery and Indian removal are always hard-but-essential aspects of American history to grapple with. But it’s also unsettling in that it shakes up our typical historical narratives and boxes, leading to more nuance and new vantage points on nineteenth-century America. Doll and her Afro-Cherokee children allow us to see slavery in an Indigenous context and see Indigenous history from an African-American perspective.
Her sharp historical analysis is combined with an openness her own perspective, how it shapes her research, and what she hopes the impact of her research can be.
Ties That Bind is a microhistory of Doll, an enslaved African American woman who had a decades-long relationship and several children with her enslaver, a Cherokee man named Shoe Boots. Miles is clever at finding ways into Doll’s experience with broader social history (and, intriguingly, via historical fiction) while still making clear how much we simply can’t know about Doll’s life—both in terms of basic facts and in terms of her emotions and interior life—due to a lack of sources.
It’s an unsettling book in so many ways. Of course, slavery and Indian removal are always hard-but-essential aspects of American history to grapple with. But it’s also unsettling in that it shakes up our typical historical narratives and boxes, leading to more nuance and new vantage points on nineteenth-century America. Doll and her Afro-Cherokee children allow us to see slavery in an Indigenous context and see Indigenous history from an African-American perspective.
October 23, 2023
A unique historical take in Afro-Cherokee history and relations. Very detailed account of one family's place in this history, surrounded by historical narrative that brings the family to life. Miles excellently toes the line between fact and inference, with great transparency about when or how she draws out each. As someone in the midst of tracing her own family's genealogy (also through storytelling around main "protagonists"), I was excited, intrigued, and of course very impressed by this text. Surely this book is not for everyone, you'll need to be an American Indian and African American history nerd :) Finally, something I could have said first, her focus on womanhood is highly refreshing and adds critical context to the people's past.
May 10, 2019
This is a book that’s been on my TBR list for literally 3 years and I was disappointed! The storytelling style could have been better, and I almost wish someone like Erik Larson would’ve written it for that reason. But, I am glad I made it through and I learned a lot! Had never thought about African-Cherokee relationships in the early days of the US, so it was eye opening. Really interested by the parts that talked about the Cherokee rape laws, which were far more all encompassing than many, and even protected slave women.
July 21, 2022
Excellent history of the complex relations between Cherokees, Blacks, and whites in late 18th and 19th century Georgia and Oklahoma. What is fascinating is the way in which Cherokee-Black relations -- particularly as relates to Cherokee ownership of Black slaves -- becomes mediated by the Cherokee's desire to maintain its nationhood vis-a-vis the encroaching US power. All of this is traced via the story of one family, the Shoeboots, and the original Shoe Boots (Tarsekayahke) relationship to a Black woman, Dolly, who was at the same time his slave and his "wife."
April 28, 2022
In her elegantly written and meticulously researched book, TIES THAT BIND: THE STORY OF AN AFRO-CHEROKEE FAMILY IN SLAVERY AND FREEDOM, Tiya Miles recognizes the complexity and diversity of what it means to be an American, an African American, and a Native American. Through the lens of an enslaved woman, Miles expands our understanding of the African Diaspora while demonstrating the greater complexity of American enslavement. All Americans should read this book.
February 17, 2020
Again, Tiya does a magnificent job of researching and presenting a difficult, an often, a disturbing time in American History. An important history message, one we should learn from and ponder, never to repeat itself. Thank you Tiya for another engaging history lesson.
May 27, 2021
Must read for students and historians of indigenous history and the history of enslaved peoples in the United States.
February 20, 2022
A joy to read because of the scholarship. and of course the subject.
March 30, 2022
Shoe Boots and Doll. He a Cherokee warrior, she an enslaved woman who becomes his wife and mother to 4 children.
May 15, 2025
Holy shit, she might just be the GOAT, so many cold lines I loved loved it. Also the use of Toni Morrison went crazy in the place of a primary source, only the GOAT could do something like that
June 14, 2025
The appendix alone is incredible, but the book overall is impressive in how it embraces complexity, nuance, and narrates the gaps in the historical record particularly for enslaved women
Displaying 1 - 30 of 34 reviews