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In 1829-1830 Catharine Beecher, Lydia Howard Huntley Sigourney, and numerous white women across the Northeast and Midwest launched a successful petition campaign against Indian removal that has been called the first organized political action undertaken by American women. This article repositions the New England women’s campaign within a longer trajectory of American women’s activism, namely, Cherokee women’s political organizing. In the early 1800s, Cherokee women recognized the threat of removal and rose in defense of themselves and their communities. The Cherokee women’s antiremoval campaign was not only impressive at the time, but it also was likely to have had an impact on the New England women’s later effort. This story introduces Margaret Ann (Peggy) Scott Vann Crutchfield—a Cherokee nationalist, Christian convert, slaveholder, and activist—as a complex yet important figure in Cherokee history, Native American women’s history, and U.S. women’s history.

On November 24, 1801, Nancy, "by appearance an Indian woman," gave testimony at Fort Southwest Point, a garrison in eastern Tennessee established in 1792 to defend white settlements against Indian attack.1 In a statement recorded under the title "The Narrative of Nancy, A Cherokee Woman," Nancy claimed that she had been wrongfully held as a slave in Virginia since the year 1778. At the time of her testimony, Nancy was approximately thirtyone years old and living with a white man named, incredibly, Captain John Smith. Smith had purchased Nancy from John Fulton, who had bought her from William Kennedy. Nancy described the crime of her capture in graphic detail in the narrative, testifying that

This article traces the restoration history of the Chief Vann House State Historic Site, a former Cherokee plantation owned and operated by the state of Georgia. The article explores the make-up of the restoration community in the 1950s and identifies aspects of convergence and divergence among this white, elite group in terms of both their visions for the site and their notions of how best to represent Indians. It argues that restorers used the restoration process as a route for personal and community identity enhancement, identifying with the storied Cherokee Indians and claiming "Indian" characteristics and the historical experience of Indian removal for themselves.

Foreword: "Not Recognized by the Tribe" / Sharon P. Holland ix Preface: Eating out of the Same Pot? / Tiya Miles xv Acknowledgments xix Introduction: Crossing Waters, Crossing Worlds / Tiya Miles and Sharon Patricia Holland 1 1. A Harbor of Sense: An Interview with Joy Harjo / Eugene B. Redmond 25 2. An/Other Case of New England Underwriting: Negotiating Race and Property in Memoirs of Elleanor Eldridge / Jennifer D. Brody and Sharon P. Holland 31 3. Race and Federal Recognition in Native New England / Tiffany M. McKinney 57 4. Where Will the Nation Be at Home? Race, Nationalisms, and Emigration Movements in the Creek Nation / David A. Y. O. Chang 80 5. In Their "Native Country": Freedpeople's Understandings of Culture and Citizenship in the Choctaw and Chickasaw Nations / Barbara Krauthamer 100 6. "Blood and Money": The Case of Seminole Freedmen and Seminole Indians in Oklahoma / Melinda Micco 121 7. "Playing Indian"? The Selection of Radmilla Cody as Miss Navajo Nation, 1997-1998 / Celia E. Naylor 145 8. "Their Hair was Curly": Afro-Mexicans in Indian Villages, Central Mexico, 1700-1820 / Deborah E. Kanter 164 9. Lone Wolf and DuBois for a New Century: Intersections of Native American and African American Literatures / Robert Warrior 181 10. Native Americans, African Americans, and the Space That Is America: Indian Presence in the Fiction of Toni Morrison / Virginia Kennedy 196 11. Knowing All of My Names / Tamara Buffalo 218 12. After the Death of the Last: Performance as History in Monique Mojica's Princess Pocahontas and the Blue Spots / Wendy S. Walter 226 13. Katimih o Sa Chata Kiyou (Why Am I Not Choctaw)? Race in the Lived Experiences of Two Black Choctaw Mixed-Bloods / Robert Keith Collins 260 14. From Ocean to o-Shen: Reggae Rap, and Hip Hop in Hawai'i / Ku'ualoha Ho'omanawanui 273 15. Heartbreak / Roberta J. Hill 309 Afterword / Robert Warrior 321 References 327 Contributors 345 Index 349