Description: Many Anglo-Americans in the nineteenth century regarded Indian tribes as little more than illiterate bands of savages in need of "civilizing." In Literacy and Intellectual Life in the Cherokee Nation, 1820-1906, James W. Parins traces the rise of bilingual literacy and intellectual life in the Cherokee Nation during the nineteenth century--a time of intense social and political turmoil for the tribe.
Brief description: James W. Parins (1939-2013) was Professor of English and Associate Director of the Sequoyah National Research Center at the University of Arkansas, Little Rock. Among numerous articles and books about American Indians, he is the coeditor of the Encyclopedia of Indian Removal and author of Elias Cornelius Boudinot: A Life on the Cherokee Border.