Ties that bind : the story of an Afro-Cherokee family in slavery and freedom / Tiya Miles.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Miles, Tiya, 1970-

Series:

American crossroads ; 14.

American crossroads ; 14

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Cherokee Indians--History--19th century.

Cherokee Indians.

Cherokee Indians--Mixed descent.

Cherokee Indians--Kinship.

Enslaved Indians--Georgia--History--19th century.

Enslaved Indians.

African Americans--Georgia--Mixed descent.

African Americans.

African Americans--Kinship--Georgia.

Kinship.

Black people.

Relations with Indians.

History.

Georgia.

Black people--Georgia--Relations with Indians.

Physical Description:

xix, 306 pages : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Berkeley : University of California Press, [2005]

Summary:

This beautifully written book tells the haunting saga of a quintessentially American family. It is the story of Shoe Boots, a famed Cherokee war hero and successful farmer, and Doll, an African slave he acquired in the late 1790s. Over the next thirty years, Shoe Boots and Doll lived together not only as master and slave, but also as lifelong partners who, with their children and grandchildren, experienced key events in American history-including slavery, the Creek War, the founding of the Cherokee Nation and subsequent removal of Native Americans along the Trail of Tears, and the Civil War.

Meticulously crafted from a wide array of historical and literary sources, Ties That Bind vividly portrays the members of the Shoeboots family. Doll emerges as an especially poignant character, whose life is known primarily through the records of things inflicted on her-her purchase, her marriage, the loss of her children-but also through her moving petition to the federal government for the pension owed to her as Shoe Boots's widow. In this sensitive rendition of the hard realities of black slavery within Native American nations, Tiya Miles writes with honesty and compassion as she explores the interplay of race, power, and intimacy in the nation's early days. Ties That Bind provides the fullest picture we have of the myriad complexities, ironies, and tensions among African Americans, Native Americans, and whites in the first half of the nineteenth century.

Contents:

Captivity

Slavery

Motherhood

Property

Christianity

Nationhood

Gold rush

Removal

Capture

Freedom.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 273-291) and index.

ISBN:

0520241320

OCLC:

54865725