remembering cherokee removal

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Remembering Cherokee Removal in Civil RightsEra Georgia

Andrew Denson

Southern Cultures, Volume 14, Number 4, Winter 2008, pp. 85-101 (Article)

Published by The University of North Carolina Press

DOI: 10.1353/scu.0.0031

For additional information about this article

Access provided by University of Michigan @ Ann Arbor (21 Jun 2013 07:24 GMT)

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. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Remembering Cherokee Removal

in Civil RightsEra Georgia

by Andrew Denson

85

When the state of Georia rebuilt New Echota, it sanctified the site. It not only marked the location of the old

Cherokee capital, but set it apart in the landscape, placin it outside of everyday life and protectin it as a location

suited for contemplation, in part to derive a clear moral messae from the events that took place there. The NewEchota marker, erected in 1931 at the approximate site of the old capital, courtesy of the author.


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86 , Winter 2008: Andrew Denson

Cherokee Removal is the most famous episode of the Souths

Native American history. It is also an event that southerners

have commemorated quite extensively. Tribal museums in North

Carolina and Oklahoma, as well as parks and historic sites in atleast five other states, tell the story of the Trail of Tears. Docu-

mentary films, multiple novels, a host of childrens books, and at least one TVmovie (starring Johnny Cash, no less) have also recounted the Cherokees forced

migration. A nationally designated trail maps the tribes general route, and the

annual Trail of Tears Motorcycle Ride recalls the journey. No other Indian event,

except perhaps the Battle of the Little Big Horn, has received so much attention

in Americas culture of memory.

Historical memory is a major concern for people who study the South. Monu-ments, commemorations, and historical myths form a popular and important

focus of southern cultural studies. Virtually none of this work, however, includes

Native American topics. The recently publishedMyth, Manners, and Memoryvolumeof theNew Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, for example, contains no entries specific

to Native Americans. Concerned more with Paul Bear Bryant than Cherokee

leader Drowning Bear, it hardly mentions Indian people. Questions of race are at

the center of the scholarship on southern memory, since much of it deals with the

Civil War, slavery, and segregation; however, the literature almost always definesrace in terms of black and white. Examining Trail of Tears commemoration, then,

offers an opportunity to expand understandings of southern memory.1

Gordon County, in northwest Georgia, is a good place to start. In the early1950s white residents began work to rebuild New Echota, the town that had served

as the Cherokees national capital in the 1820s and 1830s, just prior to the Trail of

Tears. Local business leaders launched the effort, identifying a section of farmland

once occupied by the town, raising money to purchase it, and then petitioning

the state government to make it a historic site and recreation area. The Georgia

Historical Commission (), a then newly formed state agency, managed theproject. Its directors viewed the site as a unique place with the potential to draw a

great many visitors, and as work proceeded, New Echota became one of the s

most important and highly publicized development efforts. By the early 1960s,the Commission had reconstructed a portion of the village and was planning a

museum. The state opened the site to the public in May 1962, dedicating it in a

grand ceremony involving Georgias governor, other high officials, and Cherokeerepresentatives from North Carolina and Oklahoma.

When the state of Georgia rebuilt New Echota, it sanctified the site. It not only

marked the location of the old Cherokee capital, but set it apart in the landscape,

placing it outside of everyday life and protecting it as a location suited for con-

templation. Sanctifying a historic site almost always involves an effort to derivesome kind of clear moral message from the events that have taken place there.


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Rememberin Cherokee Removal 87

Preserved battlefields, for example, usually emphasize the virtue of sacrifice for

the nation. At New Echota in the early 1960s, that interpretive effort focused on

the story of Cherokee Removal, and the moral message was atonement. As Governor

Ernest Vandiver explained at the opening, the restoration of the town representedwhite Georgians apology for Removal, an apology for the unbridled avarice of

New Echota was the scene of an intense drama in which an Indian nation took upon itself all the monumental

responsibilities of modern civilization, created for itself a written lanuae, established a national newspaper,evolved a code of written laws, and created a supreme court to administer these laws, said Georia overnor

Ernest Vandiver at the openin ceremony. Sequoyah, inventor of the Cherokee alphabet (depicted on tablet),

courtesy of the Collections of the Library of Conress.


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our ancestors that had driven the Cherokees from their homeland. The explicit

moral purpose of the site was to encourage visitors to guard against similar acts in

the present and future. As Secretary of State Ben Fortson remarked, New Echota

will make us better Americans, for Americans use their mistakes as stepping

stones for something more worthwhile. In supporting that proposition, the just prior to the dedication sponsored a resolution in the Georgia legislature re-

pealing anti-Indian laws from the late 1820s and early 1830s. Murray County rep-

resentative Charles Pannell introduced the bill with a dramatic speech comparingthe Georgian land grab to communist Chinas treatment of Tibet. State officials

presented the act, which had passed unanimously, to Cherokee tribal leaders at

the opening of New Echota. In short, Georgia offered the site not only as a place

to recall a unique part of the states history but as a monument bearing witness to

and apologizing for a past act of oppression.2

The rebuilding of New Echota is interesting for several reasons. The literatureon historical memory suggests that until very recently official commemoration (thatis, commemoration by governments and community elites) excluded the history

of non-white racial groups and oppressed peoples. Historians have amply demon-

strated this phenomenon with regard to African Americans in the South. While

African American communities maintained their own observances and memory

rituals, white guardians of tradition denied them public space. Commemorating

Cherokee history, however, seems to have been permissible, even when it encour-

aged negative depictions of southern whites. New Echota recalled a crime, a theftfueled by racial hatred. The acknowledged that history throughout the sites

Cherokee Removal is the most famous episode of the Souths Native American history, and southerners have

commemorated it extensively. Tribal museums in North Carolina and Oklahoma, as well as parks and historicsites in at least five other states, tell the story of the Trail of Tears. Trail of Tears National Historic Trail, courtesy

of the National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior.


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development and dedication. Indeed, recognizing the crime of Removal provided

the dedications main theme. Yet this acceptance of historic guilt did not inspire

controversy or opposition among white Georgians.3

Moreover, the rebuilding of New Echota coincided with the Civil Rights Move-

ment. The same state officials expressing regret to the Cherokees were working todefend segregation against black activists. Work on New Echota had begun dur-

ing the years of Governor Herman Talmadges ardently segregationist administra-

tion and continued with crucial support from his successor, the only slightly lessardent Marvin Griffin. Georgia dedicated New Echota while elsewhere in the state

Civil Rights activists fought the Albany campaign, maintained a bus boycott in

Macon, and worked for desegregation of public facilities in Atlanta. In fact, dur-

ing the very session in which the state legislature repealed the nineteenth-century

anti-Indian laws, students from Atlantas black universities picketed outside of thestatehouse. Several days before, police had ejected students from the building for

attempting to desegregate the galleries. Charles Pannell decried the racist laws of

the past in a Jim Crow capitol, while outside black activists condemned the racistlaws of the present.4

At New Echota in the early 1960s, the interpretive effort focused on the story of Cherokee Removal, and the moral

messae was atonement. As Governor Ernest Vandiver explained at the openin , the restoration of the town

represented white Georians apolo for Removal, an apolo for the unbridled avarice of our ancestors that

had driven the Cherokees from their homeland. Nineteenth-century lithoraph depictin U.S. treatment of the

Cherokee Nation, courtesy of the Collections of the Library of Conress.


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Historian Fitzhugh Brundage writes of historical memory as providing a gene-

alogy of social identity.5Why, then, was the story of Cherokee dispossession nec-

essary to some white southerners understanding of themselves during this period?

Why was it acceptable in the era of the Civil Rights Movement to commemorateevents that cast southern ancestors and institutions in such a negative light? Did

whites really want to apologize? New Echota served as the capital of the Cherokee Nation for only a short time,

and, in appearance at least, it was never an especially grand place. The tribe main-

tained several modest public buildings, the most famous being the office of theCherokee Phoenix, the bilingual national newspaper. A handful of homes and busi-

nesses surrounded the village center, and at a slight remove minister Samuel Wor-

cester kept a house and missionary station. During sessions of the National Coun-cil, a great many Cherokees stayed temporarily at New Echota, but only a small

number lived there year-round. As a symbol, however, New Echota had great

significance. It represented the Cherokees effort to forge an Indian republic, anew capital for a nation reborn. It broadcast the message that the Cherokees were

a civilized tribe, an Indian people who had embraced a Euro-American concept

of progress. New Echota also became a key location in the struggle over Removal,

as both the capital during key stages of resistance and the place that gave its name

to the 1835 Removal treaty.6

After the Trail of Tears, the town disappeared. The buildings decayed or were

dismantled for their materials, and white Georgians took the land to plow and

plant. Of the original structures, only a section of the Worcester house survivedinto the twentieth century, and fire and additional construction altered even this

remnant.7Ninety years later, though, residents of Gordon County began discuss-

ing a New Echota commemoration, and in 1931 they placed a monument at the

towns approximate location. The Depression and World War II prevented furtherwork, but in the early 1950s the chamber of commerce in Calhoun, the county seat,

renewed efforts to develop the site. The chamber raised money and sponsored

research by Atlanta-based historian Henry Malone to pinpoint the location of

the village. Once the had agreed to participate, the Chamber of Commerce

began purchasing land. The historical commission, for its part, financed an ar-cheological survey and further research by Malone and ethnohistorian Clemens

de Baillou.8

The original agreement with the stated that local business leaders would

manage the sites development, with the Commission merely providing help intechnical and research matters. Work on the project, however, quickly outstripped

Calhouns funds, while the complexity of the restoration led the to become

far more deeply involved than its members had originally intended. After sev-

eral years, the state agency assumed formal direction of the site, although localbusiness and civic leaders continued to participate. By early 1962, the had


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New Echota served as the capital of the Cherokee Nation for only a short time. The tribe maintained several

modest public buildins, the most famous bein the office of the Cherokee Phoenix, its bilinual national

newspaper (above). A handful of homes and businesses surrounded the villae center, and at a sliht remove

minister Samuel Worcester kept a house and missionary station (below). Photoraphs courtesy of the author.


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restored the Worcester house and recreated two Cherokee public buildings: a

courthouse and the printing office of the Phoenix. The Commission had planned a

reconstruction of the Cherokee council house; however, the researchers had failed

to find adequate documentation of the original buildings shape and appearanceand ended up debating it instead of rebuilding it. The relocated one other

Cherokee structure to the site, a tavern once run by the Vann Family. The Com-mission decided to move the building when the creation of the Lake Lanier reser-

voir threatened it with inundation.9

The dedication ceremony, along with press coverage of the site, emphasized

two elements of Cherokee history: the civilized tribe image and the story of

Cherokee Removal. New Echota, Governor Vandivers address explained, was

the scene of an intense drama in which an Indian nation took upon itself all the

monumental responsibilities of modern civilization, created for itself a writtenlanguage, established a national newspaper, evolved a code of written laws, and

created a supreme court to administer these laws. With the reconstruction of thetown, another speaker remarked, modern visitors could experience the panorama

of Cherokee achievement. Many journalists emphasized the disparity between

the historic sites picture of Cherokee life and pop culture images of Indians. TheRome News-Tribunesuggested that a visitor coming to New Echota expecting an

Indian wigwam village with a few painted and synthetic savages lurking aboutwith bows and arrows is in for a big disappointment.10

The dedication presented Removal, meanwhile, as an outrageous assault upon

the tribe. The heartless act of removal had destroyed the Cherokees experimentin civilization and robbed the state of people who might otherwise have been

useful and productive neighbors. To push the Cherokees out, Georgias govern-

ment passed laws harshly restrictive of the inalienable rights of the Cherokees,

laws that if used in the present would cause such gross injustice as to shock the

consciences of all who believe in equality under the law. Removal was the ulti-mate in race hatred, one journalist remarked, an act for which Georgians must

apologize.11

Apologies, however, had never been foremost in the minds of those who

launched the project. Tourism, rather, was the main impetus behind reconstruct-ing New Echota. The town site was very near Highway 41, a major artery running

across the state, and in later years the path of Interstate 75 would pass almost

directly beside the site. Automobile tourism already was expanding quite rapidlyin the 1950s and with it historical tourism. This period also was a boom time for

heritage activities of all sorts, diverse pursuits designed to allow ordinary people

to make intellectual and emotional connections with the past. Developing New

Echota, therefore, offered people in Gordon County a way to use a unique element

of their local past to capture some of the dollars traveling back and forth betweenChattanooga and Atlanta.12


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In addition, the business people who initiated the rebuilding effort did so with

two existing tourist centers very much in mind. First, they knew that businesses

in western North Carolina earned money from motorists interested in Indians.

The reservation of the Eastern Band of Cherokees in western North Carolina hadbecome a popular stop for tourists beginning in the 1930s with the development of

the Great Smoky Mountains National Park adjacent to the tribes land. Visitors tothe park sought out Native American sites and souvenirs as they passed through

Cherokee country, and both band members and local non-Indian business leaders

capitalized on this new economic opportunity. History became an important ele-

ment of the Cherokee tourist attractions. In the early 1950s the popular outdoor

play Unto These Hills debuted, depicting tribal history from early European

contact through the Removal era. The 1950s also saw the development of the Mu-seum of the Cherokee Indian and the building of the Oconaluftee Indian Village,

a recreation of an eighteenth-century Cherokee town. personnel considered

some of the North Carolina attractions tacky, but at the very least the tourist stopsdemonstrated the presence of a market for Native American places and Cherokee

history.13

Equally important, the planners behind New Echota well understood what

Colonial Williamsburg had done for Virginia. Williamsburg exerted a powerful

influence on the preservation and museum industries in the mid twentieth cen-turya period of rapid propagation of town and living history museums across

the country. It provided a model of success for any project that sought to pre-

serve a village, city section, or collection of buildings. Promoters of New Echotafrequently referenced the Virginia attraction in correspondence, describing the

rebuilding of the old Cherokee capital as an Indian Williamsburg. The projects

main historical architect, Thomas Little, had worked at Williamsburg, and some

of the original plans called for a much more elaborate, Williamsburg-style devel-

opment. There was talk of creating a living history museum, for instance, withcostumed interpreters, functioning workshops, and an outdoor theater for histori-

cal dramas.14

If tourism inspired the project, however, it does not explain why white Geor-

gians were so willing to accept the negative image the Removal story gave theirforebears. Other historical commission projects during the same period drew

complaints from Georgians who felt that the portrayed their ancestors in a

negative light. Some criticized the Commissions Civil War marker program, forexample, for being insufficient in its veneration of the Confederacy and of Geor-

gias defenders in the war. The , according to one frequently heard protest,

memorialized too many Union actions and Yankee victories. At one point in the

early 1950s, the governor even halted plans to erect markers tracing the Union ar-

mys march to the sea, an episode deemed too shameful to deserve commemo-ration. The few critics of New Echota, in contrast, complained that the state had


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By early 1962, the Georia

Historical Commission

had restored the Worcester

house and recreated

two Cherokee public

buildins: a courthouse(above) and the printin

office of the Phoenix. The

GHC relocated one other

Cherokee structure to the

site, a tavern (below) once

run by the Vann Family,

which the Commission

decided to move when

the creation of the

Lake Lanier reservoir

threatened it with

inundation. Photoraphs

courtesy of the author.


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failed to put enough money into the project and that work proceeded too slowly.

They did not take issue with the commemorations subject or moral message.15

For most Georgians, Native American history might have been distant enough

to be unthreatening. Cherokees certainly lived in Georgia in the 1950s, as did many

people who could claim Cherokee ancestry, but there were no significant NativeAmerican politics in the state at this time. Georgias Indian history, as far as many

whites were concerned, had ended in the Age of Jackson. While the Civil Rights

Movement ensured that modern southerners would struggle over the legacies of

slavery, the history of Indian dispossession must have seemed rather safe. WhiteGeorgians could accept an old preCivil War role as villains and even apologize

for past sins. Most of the Cherokees who visited New Echota during and after its

opening would return to places beyond Georgias borders and outside of Georgias

politics. They would stay removed. Additionally, white southern memory of the Civil War in some ways paralleled

Many journalists emphasized the disparity between the historic sites picture of Cherokee life and such pop culture

imaes of Indians as those evoked by these children at the American Museum of Natural History. The Rome

News-Tribunesugested that a visitor comin to New Echota expectin an Indian wiwam villae with a

few painted and synthetic savaes lurkin about with bows and arrows is in for a bi disappointment. Imae #:

291994, photoraphed by Thane L. Bierwert, American Museum of Natural History Library.


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the story of Cherokee Removal and probably helped to make New Echota a satis-

fying site of commemoration. The story told at New Echota bore striking simi-

larities to the myth of the Confederate Lost Cause in southern memory culture.

The portrayed the Cherokees as an honorable, patriotic people overrun bygreedy outsiders. Emphasizing the civilized tribe image, the commemoration

suggested they were model residents of the Old South. They defended their home-land as best they could but were overwhelmed, much as Confederatesaccording

to the Lost Cause mythwere overpowered by sheer numbers and the industrial

might of the North. The old Cherokee republic, like the Old South, was now only

a sad memory. Although the people who rebuilt New Echota did not draw explicit

comparisons with the Confederacy, the war was much on the minds of commemo-

rators at this time, as the Cherokee project coincided with the Civil War centennialobservances. In a memory culture filled with elegies, an elegy for the Cherokee

republic was not out of place.

This suggests a striking irony. As it emerged in the late nineteenth century, theLost Cause myth was part of a fundamentally racist vision of the South. Justifying

secession and denying slavery as the cause of the war, it helped to strengthen white

supremacy in the region after Reconstruction and into the twentieth century. In

the Civil Rights era, the Lost Cause may have gained new power, as white com-

munities and institutions resisted desegregation. It would be remarkable, at thevery least, if such a memory helped to lead white southerners to apologize for their

ancestors culpability in the Trail of Tears.16

If a particular idea of the southern past encouraged white Georgians to com-memorate Removal, so too did the political struggles of the 1950s and 60s. Press

coverage of the New Echota project suggested that part of what made the Chero-

kee capital interesting was the storys ready connection to contemporary Civil

Rights politics. When writing about New Echota, journalists frequently made

offhand or indirect references to the fight over segregation, observing, for ex-ample, that the Cherokee experience demonstrated that Georgias record of racial

tension extended far into the past. Or, as theRome News-Tribuneput it, Indians

had racial troubles, too. TheAtlanta Constitutionnoted the hypocrisy of the Gen-

eral Assembly repealing anti-Indian statutes while black students picketed outsideof the capitol building. An Associated Press story, reprinted in local papers across

the state, described New Echota and the repeal resolution as a move to put Geor-

gias racial house in order from early beginnings, while admitting that the actioncame a little late.17Although none of these items explicitly discussed the Civil

Rights Movement, they implied that observers thoughts could move easily from

the memory of Removal to contemporary Civil Rights battles. New Echota did

notforcevisitors to draw comparisons with the black freedom struggle, but it did

offer a setting that invited considerations of race and power as general subjects inAmerican historyand at a time when the Civil Rights Movement had become


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the most prominent public issue in the South. In a sense, New Echota was an ideal

memorial site for its place and time, since it offered an uncontroversial context in

which visitors could consider some of the most powerfully divisive questions of

the postwar era. This is not to argue that New Echota encouraged sympathy toward black activ-

ism. The commemoration may have given whites an opportunity to act magnani-

mously about past racial injustices without forcing them to confront injustice

in their own time. Perhaps visitors concluded that these were simply different

casesthat Cherokees and African Americans were different peoples entirely andthat whites still should define the differences. The civilized tribe story, so promi-

nent a feature of the memorial, could encourage that conclusion, with its im-

plicit message that the Cherokees had been unique in their progress and achieve-

ments. Apologizing to the Cherokees, moreover, served to demonstrate that whiteleaders possessed moral authority at a time when black activists were challenging

the legitimacy of southern governments and institutions.

Commemoration in the United States has often cleaned up the past, ignoring

wrongs in American history, and sanitized memories have generally reinforcedthe authority of governments and social elites. Something similar can be said of

The reservation of the Eastern Band of Cherokees in western North Carolina had become a popular stop for

tourists beinnin in the 1930s with the development of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park adjacent

to the tribes land. Visitors to the park souht out Native American sites and souvenirs as they passed throuh

Cherokee country. Maude WelchMakin Cherokee Indian PotteryCherokee, N.C. in the Durwood

Barbour Collection of North Carolina Postcards (P077), North Carolina Collection Photoraphic Archives at

the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.


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The story told at New Echota bore strikin similarities to the myth of the Confederate Lost Cause in southern

memory culture. The Georia Historical Commission portrayed the Cherokees as an honorable, patriotic people

overrun by reedy outsiders. They had defended their homeland as best they could but were overwhelmed, much as

Confederates. Portrait of Cherokee chief Oconostota, 1762, by Francis Parsons, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.


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the acknowledgment of injustice. Historical confessions can also act as a source of

power. They suggest that the confessor has achieved a level of moral consciousness

necessary for better behavior in the future and, therefore, that they can be trusted.

Southern leaders sought this kind of trust and authority in the 1950s and 60snotwhen it came to Indian affairs, but over African American civil rights.

New Echota, then, provided visitors an opportunity to consider parallels be-tween the nineteenth century and their own in matters of race, but it did little to

direct their thoughts once they were on the subject. Uncertainty, however, may

be the important point. The New Echota site was (and remains today) a relatively

open contemplative space, a place in which visitors thoughts on race and power

in American history could move in multiple directions. To the extent that the res-

toration presented nineteenth-century white Georgians as having been wrong, itat least permitted the conclusion that segregations defenders were wrong, as well.

This openness, in turn, may help to explain the popularity of Cherokee Removal

as a subject of commemoration, in both the Civil Rights-era South and othercircumstances. Removal, distant but familiar, has offered non-Indians a secure

perspective from which to think about race and racism. It has provided a relatively

uncontroversial way to consider deeply contentious issues.

The day before New Echotas grand opening, Eugene Patterson of theAtlantaConstitutionwrote that Georgians owed it to themselves as well as the CherokeeIndians to visit New Echota. It will be a good place for us to go and reflect on

our ideals. He seems to have had more on his mind than Indian affairs in the Age

of Jackson.18

1. Charles Reagan Wilson, ed., The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, vol. 4,Myth, Manners, and

Memory, ed. Charles Reagan Wilson (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006).

2. Kenneth Foote, Shadowed Ground: Americas Landscapes of Violence and Traedy, rev. ed. (Austin:

University of Texas Press, 2003), 618, 111144; Press release (text of Ernest Vandivers address),

May 12, 1962, New Echota Dedication, library, New Echota State Historic Site (Calhoun, Geor-

gia), 2; Atlanta JournalConstitution, May 13, 1962; Calhoun Times, May 17, 1962; Acts Relating to

Cherokee Indians Repealed (No. 712),Acts and Resolutions of the General Assembly of the State of Georia,

1962, 15455; Joseph Cumming to Charles Pannell, January 18, 1962, Mary Jewett to Joseph Cum-

ming, February 20, 1962, correspondence 1962, general administrative records, Georgia Historical

Commission, RG 61, SG 1, series 1, box 5, Georgia State Archives (Atlanta, Georgia); program

from dedication ceremony, May 12, 1962, New Echota Dedication, library, New Echota State

Historic Site; Atlanta Journal-Constitution, February 11, 1962; Savannah Mornin News, February 13,

1962.

3. Foote, Shadowed Ground, 322332; James Oliver Horton and Spencer R. Crew, Afro-Americans

and Museums: Towards a Policy of Inclusion, in Warren Leon and Roy Rosenzweig, History Mu-

seums in the United States: A Critical Assessment(Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1989), 215236;W. Fitzhugh Brundage, The Southern Past: A Clash of Race and Memory(Cambridge, MA: Harvard


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University Press, 2005), 710; Paul A. Shackel,Memory in Black and White: Race, Commemoration, and

the Post-Bellum Landscape(Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira, 2003), 1116.

4.Atlanta Inquirer, February 3, 10, 1962; Pittsburh Courier, February 10, 1962;Atlanta Constitution,

February 14, 1962; Stephen G. N. Tuck, Beyond Atlanta: The Strugle for Racial Equality in Georia,

19401980(Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2001), 11027, 14042, 14753.

5. Brundage, The Southern Past, 4.

6. Henry T. Malone, New Echota: Capital of the Cherokee Nation,Early Georia1 (Spring1955): 613; William G. McLoughlin, Cherokee Renascence in the New Republic(Princeton, N. J.: Prince-

ton University Press, 1986), 277301, 388410, 45051.

7. R. D. Self, New Echota: Cherokee National Capitol(pamphlet, Calhoun, GA: Business Service

Exchange, 1953); Malone, New Echota, 11 (photo of Worcester house in 1930s); Press release,

April 24, 1962, New Echota Publicity, library, New Echota State Historic Site.

8. Calhoun Times, May 28, October 22, November 12, 1953, January 1, 7, 1954;Atlanta Constitution,

April 20, 1954; Joseph Caldwell, New Echota Excavations, May 29, 1954, correspondence through

1954, general administrative records, Georgia Historical Commission, RG 61, SG 1, series 1, box 4,

Georgia State Archives; Clemens de Baillou, The Excavations of New Echota in 1954, Early

Georia1 (Spring 1955): 1929. 9.Atlanta Journal and Constitution, September 18, 1955; Calhoun Times, February 2, December 29,

1956, November 7, 1957, September 4, 1958; Notes on the Council House at New Echota, Septem-

ber 1955, correspondence 19541956, general administrative records, Georgia Historical Commis-

sion, RG 61, SG 1, series 1, box 4, Georgia State Archives; Mary Jewett to members, Febru-

ary 7, 1961, correspondence 1961, general administrative records, Georgia Historical Commission,

RG 61, SG 1, series 1, box 4, Georgia State Archives; Report on the Council House, April 7, 1971,

New Echota 19661971, general administrative records, Georgia Historical Commission, RG 61,

SG 1, series 1, box 1, Georgia State Archives.

10. Press release (text of Ernest Vandivers address), May 12, 1962, New Echota Dedication,

library, New Echota State Historic Site, 2; Address (probably that of Ben Fortson), May 12, 1962,

New Echota Dedication, library, New Echota State Historic Site, 10;Rome News-Tribune, May 9,

1962.

11. Resolution Commending Renovation of New Echota, Georgia General Assembly, [1962],

New Echota 195865, general administrative records, Georgia Historical Commission, RG 61,

SG 1, series 1, box 1;Rome News-Tribune, October 15, 1961.

12. R. D. Self to Charles Gregory, April 13, 1953, Minutes, May 15, 1953, correspondence through

1954, general administrative records, Georgia Historical Commission, RG 61, SG 1, series 1, box 4,

Georgia State Archives; Outline for a Television Program, undated, correspondence 19541956,

general administrative records, Georgia Historical Commission, RG 61, SG 1, series 1, box 4,

Georgia State Archives;Atlanta Constitution, April 20, 1954. For the heritage boom beginning in

the 1950s, see Michael Kammen, Mystic Chords of Memory: The Transformation of Tradition in American

Culture(New York: Knopf, 1991), 62128.

13. Minutes, August 21, 1952, correspondence through 1954, general administrative records,

Georgia Historical Commission, RG 61, SG 1, series 1, box 4, Georgia State Archives; Mary Jewett

to members, February 7, 1961, Mary Jewett to Joseph Cumming, November 30, 1961, cor-

respondence 1961, general administrative records, Georgia Historical Commission, RG 61, SG 1,

series 1, box 4, Georgia State Archives; John R. Finger, Cherokee Americans: The Eastern Band of

Cherokees in the Twentieth Century(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1991), 98, 101104, 13738.

14. Charles Gregory to Joseph Cumming, June 18, 1957, Mary Jewett to Joseph Cumming, July11, 1957, correspondence 1957, Alexander Kelly to Mary Jewett, May 19, 1960, Mary Jewett to Alex-


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ander Kelly, May 20, 1960, correspondence 1960, general administrative records, Georgia Histori-

cal Commission, RG 61, SG 1, series 1, box 4, Georgia State Archives; Charles Gregory to Roy

McGinty, April 22, 1958, New Echota 1958-1965, general administrative records, Georgia Historical

Commission, RG 1, SG 1, series 1, box 1, Georgia State Archives; Recommendations for the Devel-

opment of New Echota, November 1955, New Echota Research, library, New Echota State His-

toric Site; Warren Leon and Margaret Piatt, Living History Museums, in Leon and Rosenzweig,

History Museums in the United States, 66-68; Kammen,Mystic Chords of Memory, 35970, 58187. 15. Joseph Cumming to Henry Alexander, October 2, 1952, Minutes, November 12, 1952, corre-

spondence through 1954, general administrative records, Georgia Historical Commission, RG 61,

SG 1, series 1, box 4, Georgia State Archives; Mary Jewett to Sylvan Meyer, March 20, 1961, Mary

Jewett to Joseph Cumming, July 31, 1961, Joseph Cumming to GHC members, August 3, 1961, cor-

respondence 1961, general administrative records, Georgia Historical Commission, RG 61, SG 1,

series 1, box 4, Georgia State Archives; Calhoun Times, April 25, 1957, September 4, 1958, July 7,

1960; Gainesville Daily Times, March 13, 1961;Atlanta Journal, July 21, 1961.

16. Alan T. Nolan, The Anatomy of the Myth, in Gary W. Gallagher and Allen T. Nolan,

eds., The Myth of the Lost Cause and Civil War History(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000),

1134; David Blight,Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory(Cambridge, MA: HarvardUniversity Press, 2001), 255300; Shackel,Memory in Black and White, 2650; Kammen,Mystic Chords

of Memory, 590610.

17.Rome News-Tribune, May 1, 1956, February 11, 1962; Atlanta Journal and Constitution, February

11, 1962;Atlanta Constitution, February 14, 1962.

18.Atlanta Constitution, May 11, 1962.

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