{"id":121298,"date":"2022-03-25T13:19:21","date_gmt":"2022-03-25T17:19:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/?p=121298"},"modified":"2022-11-30T09:45:59","modified_gmt":"2022-11-30T14:45:59","slug":"wright-state-historical-archaeologist-lance-greene-authors-book-on-cherokees-who-avoided-trail-of-tears","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/2022\/03\/25\/wright-state-historical-archaeologist-lance-greene-authors-book-on-cherokees-who-avoided-trail-of-tears\/","title":{"rendered":"Wright State historical archaeologist Lance Greene authors book on Cherokees who avoided Trail of Tears"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Lance Greene, associate professor of anthropology, is the author of \u201cTheir Determination to Remain: A Cherokee Community\u2019s Resistance to the Trail of Tears in North Carolina.\u201d<\/p><\/div>\n

In the 1830s, the U.S. government forcibly removed 60,000 Native Americans from their ancestral homelands in the southeastern United States to so-called Indian Territory west of the Mississippi River. The relocated peoples suffered from exposure, disease and starvation while en route on what came to be known as the Trail of Tears.<\/p>\n

In 1838, hundreds of Cherokees in the mountains of Southern Appalachia avoided the invading U.S. Army and remained in the region, including a community of about 100 Cherokees hiding in the steep mountains of North Carolina.<\/p>\n

In his new book, \u201cTheir Determination to Remain: A Cherokee Community\u2019s Resistance to the Trail of Tears in North Carolina<\/a>,\u201d Wright State University historical archaeologist Lance Greene, Ph.D., explores the complexities of race and gender in the antebellum South and the real impacts of racism.<\/p>\n

Greene, an associate professor of anthropology<\/a>, details the story of two plantation owners, Betty and John Welch, who helped the 100 Cherokee avoid removal and even provided land for them to rebuild a new community.<\/p>\n

Members of Welch\u2019s Town experienced a transitional period in which they had no formal tribal government or clear citizenship yet felt secure enough to reestablish a townhouse, stickball fields and dance grounds, all in the midst of a growing white population who resented a continued Cherokee presence.<\/p>\n

Greene\u2019s study, which incorporates historical narrative and archaeological data, details how Betty, who was white, outwardly participated in modern Western lifestyles, while John, who was Cherokee, maintained a hidden space for the continuation of traditional Cherokee cultural practices. They also held in bondage nine African Americans.<\/p>\n

Greene\u2019s book also includes a fictional narrative of events on the Welch plantation. Using historic documents and archaeological data, Greene provides an intimate view of the people who interacted on the plantation in the years following removal and how they adapted to their new social environment.<\/p>\n

Greene\u2019s book, published by the University of Alabama Press, has been well-received by historians and archaeologists.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\u201cLance Greene unearths stories from soil and archives alike to craft a vivid and humane Cherokee history,\u201d wrote Elizabeth Fenn, author of \u201cEncounters at the Heart of the World: A History of the Mandan People.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brett Riggs, author of \u201cMay We All Remember Well: A Journal of the History and Cultures of Western North Carolina,\u201d said Greene reveals a remarkably complex and thoroughly unexpected story of successful Cherokee resistance to the Indian Removal policy.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the center of these efforts was the enigmatic Welch family of southwestern North Carolina, a well-informed and well-connected Anglo-Cherokee household that applied nuanced legal strategies and extralegal maneuvers to shield themselves and their community from deportation,\u201d wrote Riggs.<\/p>\n

Rose Stremlau, author of \u201cSustaining the Cherokee Family: Kinship and the Allotment of an Indigenous Nation,\u201d said Greene\u2019s study is unique.<\/p>\n

\u201cTheir Determination to Remain\u201d will contribute to the larger body of scholarship on Cherokees, Indian Removal, community studies and family history,\u201d wrote Stremlau.<\/p>\n

Greene is also co-editor of \u201cAmerican Indians and the Market Economy, 1775\u20131850.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In his new book, \u201cTheir Determination to Remain,\u201d Lance Greene explores the complexities of race and gender in the antebellum South and the real impacts of racism. Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":121310,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[722,725,747,715,18,4855],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-121298","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academics","category-home-news-sidebar","category-liberal-arts","category-news","category-research","category-social-sciences-and-international-studies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121298"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121298\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":133195,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121298\/revisions\/133195"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/121310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}