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Environmental Negotiations Cherokee Power In The Arkansas Valley, 1812-1828, Cane West

Theses and Dissertations

In the early 19th century, the Arkansas River Valley existed as a borderlands region of powerful Indian nations and immigrant Euro-American and Native American settlers. In the resulting contests over settlement, Cherokee chiefs recreated the Arkansas Cherokees' ecological identity from hunters to agrarians to differentiate themselves from their Osage and white rivals. During the 1820s, Cherokee chiefs expanded on their agrarian rhetoric by appropriating American scientific systems in order to stymie white settlement. By the end of the 1820s, Arkansas Cherokee chiefs had infused their arguments of preferred agricultural lands, appropriate survey methods, and accurate cartography into the debates over …