The Cherokees

A sweeping new history reveals how the Cherokees became a nation as they navigated a century and a half of intertribal conflicts and colonial expansion that threatened their way of life.

For more than 150 years between their first encounters with the English in the 1670s and forced removal along the Trail of Tears, the Cherokees negotiated mounting pressures. As their world was convulsed by the spread of European diseases, competition for guns, furs, and deerskins, and imperial powers' unrelenting pursuit of "savage" allies, Cherokee communities responded by creating new solidarities. At the dawn of the eighteenth century, the idea of unity among the widely dispersed Cherokees would scarcely have occurred to their leaders. A century later, chiefs would declare unequivocally that they stood for the whole Cherokee nation.

Steps toward national unity were partially a response to the exigencies of war. But while armed conflict was frequent, David Narrett shows that the bonds of Cherokee peoplehood were forged primarily through efforts to maintain peace and secure their livelihoods. The Cherokees-both men and women-were remarkably skillful diplomats who practiced peacemaking as a distinctive spiritual art in which adversaries would reconcile through a mutual and symbolic forgetting of wrongs inflicted on one another. Pragmatic and purposeful, Cherokees adeptly managed relationships with colonials and Indigenous rivals, seeking to preserve their independence and living space and to maximize advantages from trade.

Rich in detail and insight, and told through captivating personal stories, The Cherokees offers a portrait of the perseverance that built a nation. Amid an onslaught of struggle and change, the Cherokees became a people who survived against all odds.

Draws attention to a people’s vigorous, creative, and long-standing agency in affirming a sense of collective identity…an informed, astute investigation of Cherokee survivance. Kirkus Reviews
An enjoyable, enlightening, and captivating portrait of the Cherokee and how they faced the adversity and onslaught of struggle and change that threatened their very existence…Narrett’s is military and diplomatic history of the highest quality. It is also American history. -- Clifford A. Wright New York Journal of Books
Monumental…Narrett has written the definitive history of an incremental genocide; it makes grim but important reading. -- Steve Donoghue Open Letters Review
Magisterial…maps the Indigenous nation’s outsized influence on the history of the republic that dispossessed them of so much land and esteem…a commanding work of scholarship. -- Hamilton Cain Chapter 16
Military and diplomatic history at its very best. Narrett’s account of the Cherokee people’s shifting political ties and their efforts to cope with transformations that upended their society is impressively sophisticated. -- John W. Hall, author of Uncommon Defense: Indian Allies in the Black Hawk War
With a deep dive into previously unpublished sources, Narrett has written the most comprehensive history of the eighteenth-century Cherokee people to date. He investigates their complicated geopolitical environment, their relations with other tribal people, and their strategic maneuvers on the chessboard of the European colonial powers. In doing so, he offers insight into Cherokee values, the role women played in war and peace, and the forces that transitioned the Cherokees from autonomous towns that shared values, history, and a sense of the sacred to the beginnings of the unified nation that maintains this heritage today. -- Margaret Verble, author of Stealing
With his unparalleled knowledge of archival sources, David Narrett details the roles of Cherokee warriors and diplomats in the development of what became the southeastern United States. This is a sure-footed narrative about a dramatic period long before the era of the Trail of Tears. -- Daniel K. Richter, author of Before the Revolution: America’s Ancient Pasts
A meticulously researched narrative of Cherokee foreign policy from the founding of Charles Town in 1670 through the early 1800s. Readers learn nearly as much about Creek, Catawba, Chickasaw, Choctaw, and British colonial history as they do about the Cherokees. -- Greg O’Brien, author of Choctaws in a Revolutionary Age, 1750–1830
David Narrett's The Cherokees is a master class in historical analysis. This deeply researched book draws readers into the world of the Cherokee people as they fight to not only survive but thrive. Destined to become an instant classic, The Cherokees is a must-read. Gregory Smithers, author of Reclaiming Two-Spirits: Sexuality, Spiritual Renewal & Sovereignty in Native America
Rich with personal stories and deep historical insight, this book reveals the Cherokee people’s remarkable ability to adapt and endure. Do South

David Narrett is the author of Adventurism and Empire: The Struggle for Mastery in the Louisiana-Florida Borderlands and Inheritance and Family Life in Colonial New York City. He is Professor of History at the University of Texas at Arlington.

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