Cherokee People in Southern Appalachia Before Removal
Southern Appalachian Studies Series
Tuesday, January 31, 7 p.m., Library Main Gallery
In her presentation, Dr. Julie Reed will examine what Cherokee life was like at the point of first European contact. She will discuss where and how Cherokee people lived, survived, and adapted to changing conditions, including the arrival of European settlers. She will also briefly touch on how Cherokee people shaped and continue to shape the Appalachia we live in today.
Julie L. Reed is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, author of Serving the Nation: Cherokee Sovereignty and Social Welfare, 1800-1907, and an assistant professor of history at the University of Tennessee. This event will be in the Library’s Main Gallery.
Dr. Reed is the author of Serving the Nation: Cherokee Sovereignty and Social Welfare, 1800-1907, (New Directions in Native American Studies, 14), University of Oklahoma Press, April 29, 2016, 376pp.
From the book description at Amazon: “Well before the creation of the United States, the Cherokee people administered their own social policy—a form of what today might be called social welfare—based on matrilineal descent, egalitarian relations, kinship obligations, and communal landholding. The ethic of gadugi, or work coordinated for the social good, was at the heart of this system. Serving the Nation explores the role of such traditions in shaping the alternative social welfare system of the Cherokee Nation, as well as their influence on the U.S. government’s social policies.”
Photo Credit: Ancient Cherokee Village at Cherokee Heritage Center by Wolfgang Sauber (Own work) CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Open to the public, this program is sponsored by Blount County Public Library, located at 508 N. Cusick Street, Maryville, where services are an example of your tax dollars at work for you. For further information about library programs or services, call the library at 982-0981 or visit the Web site at www.blounttn.org/197.
