Semester of Graduation
Spring 2026
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Masters of American Studies
Department
American Studies
Committee Chair/First Advisor
Miriam Brown-Spiers, Ph.D.
Second Advisor
Letizia Guglielmo, Ph.D.
Abstract
Early explorers to what is now America, beginning with Hernando DeSoto in 1530, stole the dignity and the lands of the Indigenous peoples of America, of whom the Cherokees are only one nation. Two of the things that could not be taken was the Cherokees’ rich cultural tradition and oral histories. Stories passed orally from generation to generation to ensure that histories were preserved. They were largely preserved by the women of the tribe.
After the American Revolution, there was pressure from the new government to force the Cherokees to assimilate to the new American culture—to speak English, dress and live like EuroAmericans, and to adopt the Christian religion. Cherokee men were pressured to cede land to the new government, even though the men were not the true owners of the land. Cherokee women’s power to govern and to own and transfer land was taken away by their own men who wanted to assuage the colonists.
Cherokee women recognized the need to preserve their culture and traditions and to regain their former power in the Cherokee Nation through literacy and education. They did so through the Cherokee Syllabary, developed in 1821 by a Cherokee silversmith named Sequoyah, and by promoting education in both English and Cherokee for their descendants.