Sustaining the Cherokee Family: Kinship and the Allotment of an Indigenous Nation

by Rose Stremlau

Overview

During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the federal government sought to forcibly assimilate Native Americans into American society through systematized land allotment. In Sustaining the Cherokee Family, Rose Stremlau illuminates the impact of this policy on the Cherokee Nation, particularly within individual families and communities in modern-day northeastern Oklahoma.

Emphasizing Cherokee agency, Stremlau reveals that Cherokee families' organization, cultural values, and social and economic practices allowed them to adapt to private land ownership by incorporating elements of the new system into existing domestic and community-based economies. Drawing on evidence from a range of sources, including Cherokee and United States censuses, federal and tribal records, local newspapers, maps, county probate records, family histories, and contemporary oral histories, Stremlau demonstrates that Cherokee management of land perpetuated the values and behaviors associated with their sense of kinship, therefore uniting extended families. And, although the loss of access to land and communal resources slowly impoverished the region, it reinforced the Cherokees' interdependence. Stremlau argues that the persistence of extended family bonds allowed indigenous communities to retain a collective focus and resist aspects of federal assimilation policy during a period of great social upheaval.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780807869109
Publisher:	The University of North Carolina Press
Publication date:	09/26/2011
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	336
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Rose Stremlau is associate professor of history and American Indian studies at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke.
Rose Stremlau is assistant professor of history and American Indian studies at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

An evocative story of the Cherokee families and the intricate relations and kinship they maintained in one Cherokee community, the Chewey Community. Stremlau emphasizes the persistence and survival of Cherokee people despite the intent of the Federal government to divest them of their land and government through the General Allotment Act. It is an intimate account of Cherokee family and the kinship system that has sustained them through millennia. Tragically, some were individuals who survived the Trail of Tears only to have their land taken once again by the Federal government.—Richard L. Allen, policy analyst, Cherokee Nation

In this complex, multi-layered, and extremely well-written book, Rose Stremlau reveals that, although allotment robbed the Cherokees of much of their land, it did not destroy their identity and culture. By focusing on continuity in family relationships, rather than upheaval and dramatic change at the political and economic level, Stremlau demonstrates the persistence of the Cherokee. This is an exceptional work.—Margaret D. Jacobs, University of Nebraska, Lincoln

In this deeply researched and well-written book, Rose Stremlau provides a Cherokee-centered narrative that focuses on how families and communities survived allotment on their own terms—a study that counters conventional stories of the imminent decline of American Indians in the face of allotment. Featuring an impressive use of documentary and oral history sources, Sustaining the Cherokee Family is an invaluable contribution to our understanding of Native American history.—Katherine M. B. Osburn, Tennessee Technological University, author of Southern Ute Women: Autonomy and Assimilation on the Reservation, 1887-1934

The level of in-depth detail Stremlau provides on each family is amazing. . . . Intimate details of familial relationships [spanning] generations . . . allow the reader to better understand the cascading events of the latter part of the nineteenth century into the first third of the twentieth century.—William Welge, director of the research division of the Oklahoma Historical Society

Editorial Reviews

“The reader will not be disappointed by her treatment of the Cherokee history of retaining as much of culture as possible.” — Natives News

“Highly recommended, especially for Native American history and studies shelves.” — The Midwest Book Review

“[In explaining] how the Cherokee family allowed the tribe to survive multiple generations of duress, this work succeeds more than admirably.” — Indigenous Peoples Issues & Resources

“Stremlau draws on a wide range of sources generated both within the Cherokee Nation and by the federal govemment from roughly 1880 to 1930.” — North Carolina Historical Review

“Stremlau works hard to perform a scholarly balancing act; her work demonstrates the ‘affection and joy’ of Cherokee families who adapted to and survived a policy that despite their resilience resulted in the exploitation and economic devastation of Cherokee communities.” — Journal of American History

“Stremlau’s book is an exceptional example of the best new work being done in Indigenous studies today.” — Great Plains Quarterly

“An innovative and exhaustive effort. . . Sustaining the Cherokee Family stands as a model for all scholars of federal Indian policy.” — Southern Historian

“A valuable addition to the historiography. . . . Persuasive and interesting evidence.” — Journal of Social History

“Sustaining the Cherokee Family is so clearly and elegantly written that it is easy to overlook the enormous amount of sleuthing — the hard work of extracting and organizing fragments of information from federal and tribal censuses, court testimony, land surveys, allotment jackets, and oral histories — that was needed to produce this excellent book.” — Journal of Southern History

“[I] would recommend it to anyone with an interest in the Cherokee Nation, allotment scholarship, and Oklahoma history.” — Chronicles of Oklahoma

From the Publisher