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You may already know that Special Collections holds thousands of archives and rare books related to Arkansas history and culture. What you may not realize, however, is that among those are a few excellent examples showing the long connection between Arkansas and the Ozarks with the Cherokee Nation. November is Native American Heritage Month, and in celebration we wanted to share some of our rare holdings related to the Cherokee.
We are fortunate to be located just two hours from the Cherokee Heritage Center in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. Researchers interested in learning more about the Cherokee Nation and its rich history should visit their museum, archives, and frequent special exhibits.
Cherokees first began immigrating to Arkansas in the late 1700s. Hundreds of Cherokee, led by John Ridge and others, had voluntarily moved to the state decades before the notorious forced removal of Cherokee and other native nations from Georgia and the Carolinas that became known as the Trail of Tears. Special Collections has a wealth of historical accounts about voluntary and forced Cherokee migration, as well as writings by missionaries and federal agents who worked with them in Arkansas. One notable example is the work of missionary and superintendent of the Dwight Mission (in modern-day Russellville), Cephas Washburn. In addition to early editions of his published books and articles, we have the original handwritten manuscript (MS W25) of his most famous work, Reminiscences of the Indians, published in 1869.
Several dispatches, letters, and other accounts from teachers and missionaries in Arkansas who lived alongside the Cherokees between 1820 and 1840 are available in Special Collections through The Missionary Herald, a serial publication compiled by the Congregational Church out of Boston. The volumes in Special Collections include writings from Washburn, Sophia Sawyer, Alfred Finney, Samuel Newton, and Asa Hitchock, as well as accounts from those working among other Native American nations who had migrated to Arkansas such as the Choctaw. (Follow this link to perform a search of Arkansas-related articles in The Missionary Herald.)
More valuable for studying Cherokee history from a more balanced perspective, however, are the rare books available to students and other researchers in Special Collections written in the Cherokee language. One of the developers of the Cherokee alphabet was an early immigrant to Arkansas, Elias Boudinot, a newspaper editor, scholar, and political leader. Boudinot was one of the translators of a Cherokee language bible, Itse kanohedv tetlohisdv ugvwiyuhi igatsetseli tsisa galone utseliga, among other works. Special Collections holds an 1860 edition of the Bible, published by the American Bible Society (currently on exhibit in Special Collections). Boudinot took his name with permission from a prominent theologian and scholar who the young Cherokee met while studying at the Foreign Mission School in Connecticut. He married Harriet Gold, the daughter of a prominent Connecticut family, and returned with her to New Echota, Georgia, to raise their children as Cherokee. Boudinot came to ally himself with John Ridge and others who supported acculturation and signed the Treaty of New Echota, which many other Cherokee leaders opposed.
Another much more obscure work in the collection in the Cherokee language, also by Elias Boudinot and his collaborator S.A. Worcester, is The Epistles of Paul to Timothy. The rare, although very well preserved edition in the Libraries’ Arkansas Collection is a small, pocket-sized publication by the Presbyterian Mission Press of Siloam Springs, Arkansas, circa 1890.
As part of a recent generous donation to the University Libraries, Special Collections received the antique bookcase owned by Boudinot’s son. Born in 1835 in New Echota, Elias Cornelius Boudinot was one of six sibliings who moved with his father after his mother died in 1836, first to Arkansas then to the Indian Territory. (See the Encyclopedia of Arkansas entry for more information on the younger Boudinot.) After his father was assassinated along with Ridge and other Cherokee leaders, the younger Boudinot was raised by his mother’s family back East. When he grew old enough Boudinot returned to Arkansas and studied law in Fayetteville in the 1850s. He served as Secretary of the Arkansas secession convention in 1861, in the Confederate Cherokee forces during the Civil War, and was active in the state’s Democratic Party for decades. Boudinot continued to lobby on behalf of Native American economic and political issues and advocate for Cherokee political rights until his death in 1890.
Special Collections holds other works written by or about Elias C. Boudinot, in addition to a few biographies, that show his ongoing role in Indian Affairs. A good example is: Speech of Elias C. Boudinot, a Cherokee Indian: Delivered Before the House Committee on Territories, February 7, 1872, in Behalf of a Territorial Government for the Indian Territory, in Reply to Wm. P. Ross, a Cherokee Delegate, in His Argument against Any Congressional Action Upon the Subject. That is available as a pamphlet as printed by McGill & Witherow in Washington, D.C.
An interesting set of legal volumes in the Libraries’ rare books holdings are the English and Cherokee language publications of the Constitution and laws of the Cherokee Nation, as adopted in 1892. The works were published in the Oklahoma Territory by an act of the Cherokee National Council the next year. The Cherokee Nation served by these laws was dissolved by the federal government as the Native American and white settlers in the Oklahoma territory moved toward forming a new state, eventually establishing Oklahoma as the 46th state in the United States in 1907. The modern Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma was reconstituted in 1938 after the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934.
For more information about accessing and using Special Collections resources related to Native American studies, please see the LibGuide provided by the University of Arkansas Libraries to assist you.
For more information about the thousands of resources preserving the history of Arkansas available through the University of Arkansas Libraries, contact Special Collections, specoll@uark.edu, or visit the department in Mullins Library.
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