Native Southerners: Indigenous History from Origins to Removal

Abstract

In this sweeping account of Native American history in the Southern United States, Gregory D. Smithers lets “Native Southerners drive the story through their words and deeds” (11). Each chapter of Smithers’s book presents an overview of a specific era and details multiple case studies of societies and individuals, the identities they created, and the choices they made in responding to the pressures of their world.Smithers follows a chronological arc from the Paleo-Indian period to the Removal era. Chapter 1 addresses questions of origin, from archaeological theories to Native Southerners’ own creation, migration, and origin stories. Chapter 2 describes chiefdom societies like Etowah, Cahokia, and Coosa; while chapter 3 traces postcontact changes to coalescent societies like the Apalachees, Westos, Natchez, and the Creek Confederacy. Chapter 4 details the transformation of petit nations into larger societies like Creeks, Cherokees, Chickasaws, Choctaws, and Catawbas in the eighteenth century. Chapter 5 analyzes responses to the emerging United States and pan-Indian alliances, while chapter 6 ends with Indian removals. While Smithers argues that neither societies nor geographic borders are static, he ultimately adheres to the South’s borders as defined by the National Museum of the American Indian.Smithers’s use of sources demonstrates the strengths of an ethnohistorical approach. He wrestles with the limitations of European sources when discussing Native American beliefs and cultures, seeking to engage Indian voices whenever possible. He consults oral traditions and stories as well as written accounts, some from colonial and state governmental papers, and others from Native-controlled sources like the Cherokee Phoenix. Both historical and archaeological research inform his nuanced picture of the Native South. In each chapter, he engages with current scholarly debates; for instance, his first chapter summarizes multiple theories of migration into the Americas, arguing that a focus on scientific, European hypotheses downgrades Native American explanations to simple myths. He treats oral traditions as valuable evidence in understanding the world of Native Southerners. This ethnohistorical methodology is the real strength of Smithers’s book, as he seeks to unpack Native Southerners’ identities by using their words, traditions, and physical artifacts. Creation stories helped explain the world’s existence and gave meaning to cultural mores and political structures. Over the centuries, Native Southerners found new ways to explain their changing world and either maintain or tweak their political structures. Large chiefdoms gave way to coalescent societies, and kinship, town, and clan ties became crucially important in explaining life and culture. Near the end of the book, local ties are subsumed into growing national or pan-Indian activities and identities. Through each change, Smithers keeps the focus on Native Southerners’ decisions on how best to navigate their world, exploring the variety of paths they took through multiple case studies. Instead of painting the Native South in broad strokes and generalities, Smithers offers snapshots of particular groups maintaining and creating their identities in a specific era, and later demonstrates how that identity shifted as necessary to meet new challenges.In his introduction, Smithers states his intention to reach a wide audience beyond just specialists in the Native Southeast. He accomplishes that goal by writing a clear, accessible account of dozens of groups across the Native South, stressing that cultural ties and identities remained crucial to the political decisions each person or group made as their world changed, both before and after European contact. While not comprehensive, his is a valuable contribution to a growing scholarship that seeks to understand Native American history through Native American voices.