Patricia Dawson in Person

Join us on Wednesday, April 29 at 7 PM as Patricia Dawson discusses The History of the Cherokee Nation.

Written shortly before her death in 1938, Rachel Caroline Eaton's A History of the Cherokee Nation is the celebrated Cherokee historian's magnum opus--and a work whose grounding in Cherokee tradition and perspective makes it unique in the annals of American history. The book spans the years from pre-contact to what Eaton feared would be the Cherokee Nation's demise after allotment and Oklahoma statehood in 1907. Its later chapters chronicle post-Civil War events that Eaton herself witnessed, from the repeated incursions into Cherokee sovereignty by railroad and timber barons, white interlopers, land speculators, and federal policymakers to the attempted dissolution of Cherokee nationhood and self-governance.

Published here for the first time, A History of the Cherokee Nation is at once rigorously researched and documented and deeply indebted to Cherokee methods of storytelling and transmitting knowledge. Eaton's incorporation of local histories, oral accounts, family archives, and the contributions of non-academic storytellers and knowledge keepers gives this work a sense of intimacy and immediacy rare among conventional histories of the time. Her History is also attentive to the importance of Cherokee family and kinship, a cultural tradition carried forward by editors Martha Berry and Patricia Dawson, both Eaton family descendants, and David Berry. Eaton's history of her people is accompanied by a tribute, introduction, and copious notes by the editors to provide guidance and context for today's readers.

Once deemed "too pro-Cherokee" for publication, the book now stands as a powerful testament to the tenacity of the Cherokee spirit, the endurance of the Cherokee Nation's history, culture, and tradition, and the significance of the Native voice in the American story.

Patricia Dawson is a Cherokee Nation citizen and an Assistant Professor of History at Mount Holyoke College. Her current manuscript project, Our Hearts Are Straight: Cherokee Women's Textile Diplomacy, examines Cherokee clothing and textiles as symbols of identity, tools of diplomacy, and weapons of resistance against settler colonialism. Dawson has worked with family members to edit and publish A History of the Cherokee Nation by Rachel Caroline Eaton, Dawson’s great-great-great aunt who is believed to be the first known Native American woman to get a PhD. Originally written in the 1930s, but denied publication for being too “pro-Cherokee," the book was published by the University of Oklahoma Press ninety years after they first rejected it.

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