Forging a Cherokee-American Alliance in the Creek War
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A01=Susan M. Abram
alliances
american history
andrew jackson
Author_Susan M. Abram
Category=NHK
cherokee
cherokee nation
creek war
culture
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
indian culture
indians
indigenous culture
indigenous history
jackson
native american culture
native americans
politics
red stick war
south
southern history
the red stick war
trail of tears
war
war strategy
Product details
- ISBN 9780817318758
- Weight: 523g
- Dimensions: 152 x 231mm
- Publication Date: 15 Nov 2015
- Publisher: The University of Alabama Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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Forging a Cherokee-American Alliance in the Creek War explores how the Creek War of 1813–1814 not only affected Creek Indians but also acted as a catalyst for deep cultural and political transformation within the society of the United States’ Cherokee allies.
The Creek War of 1813–1814 is studied primarily as an event that impacted its two main antagonists, the defending Creeks in what is now the State of Alabama and the expanding young American republic. Scant attention has been paid to how the United States’ Cherokee allies contributed to the war and how the war transformed their society. In Forging a Cherokee-American Alliance in the Creek War, Susan M. Abram explains in engrossing detail the pivotal changes within Cherokee society triggered by the war that ultimately ended with the Cherokees’ forced removal by the United States in 1838.
The Creek War (also known as the Red Stick War) is generally seen as a local manifestation of the global War of 1812 and a bright footnote of military glory in the dazzling rise of Andrew Jackson. Jackson’s victory, which seems destined only in historic hindsight, was greatly aided by Cherokee fighters. Yet history has both marginalized Cherokee contributions to that conflict and overlooked the fascinating ways Cherokee society altered as it strove to accommodate, rationalize, and benefit from an alliance with the expanding American republic. Through the prism of the Creek War and evolving definitions of masculinity and community within the Cherokee community, Abram delineates as has never been done before the critical transitional decades prior to the Trail of Tears.
Deeply insightful, Abram illuminates the ad hoc process of cultural, political, and sometimes spiritual change among the Cherokees. Before the onset of hostilities, the Cherokees already faced numerous threats and divisive internal frictions. Abram concisely records the Cherokee strategies for meeting these challenges, describing how, for example, they accepted a centralized National Council and replaced the tradition of conflict-resolution through blood law with a network of “lighthorse regulators.” And while many aspects of masculine war culture remained, it too changed as it was filtered and reinterpreted through contact with the legalistic and structured American military.
Rigorously documented and persuasively argued, Forging of a Cherokee-American Alliance in the Creek War fills a critical gap in the history of the early republic, the War of 1812, the Cherokee people, and the South.
The Creek War of 1813–1814 is studied primarily as an event that impacted its two main antagonists, the defending Creeks in what is now the State of Alabama and the expanding young American republic. Scant attention has been paid to how the United States’ Cherokee allies contributed to the war and how the war transformed their society. In Forging a Cherokee-American Alliance in the Creek War, Susan M. Abram explains in engrossing detail the pivotal changes within Cherokee society triggered by the war that ultimately ended with the Cherokees’ forced removal by the United States in 1838.
The Creek War (also known as the Red Stick War) is generally seen as a local manifestation of the global War of 1812 and a bright footnote of military glory in the dazzling rise of Andrew Jackson. Jackson’s victory, which seems destined only in historic hindsight, was greatly aided by Cherokee fighters. Yet history has both marginalized Cherokee contributions to that conflict and overlooked the fascinating ways Cherokee society altered as it strove to accommodate, rationalize, and benefit from an alliance with the expanding American republic. Through the prism of the Creek War and evolving definitions of masculinity and community within the Cherokee community, Abram delineates as has never been done before the critical transitional decades prior to the Trail of Tears.
Deeply insightful, Abram illuminates the ad hoc process of cultural, political, and sometimes spiritual change among the Cherokees. Before the onset of hostilities, the Cherokees already faced numerous threats and divisive internal frictions. Abram concisely records the Cherokee strategies for meeting these challenges, describing how, for example, they accepted a centralized National Council and replaced the tradition of conflict-resolution through blood law with a network of “lighthorse regulators.” And while many aspects of masculine war culture remained, it too changed as it was filtered and reinterpreted through contact with the legalistic and structured American military.
Rigorously documented and persuasively argued, Forging of a Cherokee-American Alliance in the Creek War fills a critical gap in the history of the early republic, the War of 1812, the Cherokee people, and the South.
Susan M. Abram teaches history at Western Carolina University and Southwestern Community College, USA. Her publications include “Real Men: Masculinity, Spirituality, and Community in Late Eighteenth-Century Cherokee Warfare” in New Men: Manliness in Early America and “Cherokees in the Creek War: A Band of Brothers” in Tohopeka: Rethinking the Creek War and the War of 1812.
