Changing Cherokee

Until recently, it was thought that the Cherokee, a Native American tribe, were compelled to assimilate Euro-American culture during the 1820s. During that decade, it was supposed, White missionaries arrived and, together with their part Cherokee intermediaries, imposed the benefits of “civilization” on Cherokee tribes while the United States government actively promoted economic and political autonomy would automatically mean the end of its cultural autonomy as well.

William G. McLoughlin has recently argued that not only did Cherokee culture flourish during and after the 1820s, but the Cherokee themselves actively and continually reshaped their culture. Missionaries did have a decisive impact during these years, he argues, but that impact was far from what it was intended to be. The did not, according to McLoughlin, undermine the elitist reforms, but supplemented them with popular, traditionalist counterparts.

Traditionalist Cherokee did not reject the elitist reforms outright, McLoughlin argues, simply because they recognized that there was more than one way to use the skills the missionaries could provide them. As he quotes one group as saying, “We want our children to learn English so that the White man cannot cheat resulted were distinctively Cherokee, yet reflected the larger political and social setting in which they flourished.

Because his work concentrates on the nineteenth century, McLoughlin unfortunately overlooks earlier sources of influence, such as eighteenth-century White resident traders and neighbors, thus obscuring the relative impact of the missionaries of the 1820s in contributing to both acculturalization and resistance to it among the Cherokee. However, McLoughlin is undoubtedly correct in of how Cherokee culture changed while retaining its essential identity after confronting the missionaries.