The Cherokee nation contributed soldiers to the United States beginning with the Red Stick Revolt in 1812, a service that enabled individual Cherokees to receive pensions from the United States for their war-time services. By 1829, the Cherokee National Council provided its first national pension to an individual Cherokee citizen. A member of the Cherokee Nation, Dr. Julie Reed will examine why Cherokees adapted institutions as a means to deliver social services traditionally administered by clans and extended families and how those institutions were used to protect Cherokee sovereignty when allotment and Oklahoma statehood threatened at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, March 20, at the Allen Public Library. The Removal Treaty of 1835 contained provisions that ensured the continuation of federal funds to disabled soldiers in the post-removal period. Prior to the Civil War, pensioners used their funds to support their personal care in their homes. After the Civil War, pensions continued to assist individual Cherokees, but they also provided sorely needed funds the Cherokee Nation used to support its own sovereign efforts to build institutions and provide social services to its citizens. Earning her PhD in American History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Dr. Reed is the David J. Weber Research Fellow for the Study of Southwestern America, a position reserved for distinguished scholars and academicians. An assistant professor of history at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, Dr. Reed is spending the current academic year at the Clements Center revising her book manuscript Ten Times Better: Cherokee Social Services. Professor Reed’s current research examines the rise of social service institutions in the Cherokee Nation in the period after the Civil War. The Allen Library is located at 300 N. Allen Dr. Call 214-509-4911 for additional information.
Posted on: Fri, 14 Mar 2014 19:01:34 +0000