FOA Annual Meeting & Program presentation this year is Remembering the American Revolution in the Cherokee Homeland.
Commemorating the American Revolution poses particular challenges if one lives in far Western North Carolina. Here in the Cherokee ancestral homelands, the Revolution brought a bitter and destructive conflict over Cherokee land, with a portion of the Cherokee population entering the war as members of a British-allied coalition of Indigenous peoples. That war, in turn, belonged to a much longer struggle to protect Cherokee land and the wellbeing of Cherokee communities – a struggle that preceded the Revolution and continued long after 1776. In this presentation, Shana Bushyhead Condill (Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians), Executive Director of the Museum of the Cherokee People, and Andrew Denson, professor of history at Western Carolina University, will discuss the challenges involved in remembering the Revolution in the mountain region. In particular, they will examine the planning and creation of the Museum of the Cherokee People’s current exhibition, Unrelenting: Cherokee People and the American Revolution. Register for the program before November 04.
A brief presentation of Friends of the Archives business will follow the program at approximately 3 p.m.
