Land, Language, and Women - by Julie L Reed (Paperback)

About the Book

"Historians largely understand Native American education through the Indian boarding schools and reservation schools established by the US government during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. But Native Americans taught and learned from one another long before colonization, and while white settlers and institutions powerfully influenced Indigenous educational practices, they never stopped Native people from educating one another on their own terms. In this ambitious and imaginatively conceived book, Julie L. Reed uses Cherokee teaching and learning practices spanning more than four centuries to reframe the way we think about Native American educational history. Reed draws on archaeological evidence from Southeastern US caves, ethnohistorical narratives of Cherokee syllabary development, records from Christian mission schools, Cherokee Nation archives, and family and personal histories to reveal surprising continuity amid powerful change. Centering the role of women as educators across generations in Cherokee matrilineal society, the power of land to anchor learning, and the significance of language in expressing sovereignty, Reed fundamentally rethinks the nature of educational space, the roles played by teachers and learners, and the periodization imposed by US settler colonialism onto the Indigenous experience"-- Provided by publisher.

Book Synopsis

Historians largely understand Native American education through the Indian boarding schools and reservation schools established by the US government during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. But Native Americans taught and learned from one another long before colonization, and while white settlers and institutions powerfully influenced Indigenous educational practices, they never stopped Native peoples from educating one another on their own terms.

In this ambitious and imaginatively conceived book, Julie L. Reed uses Cherokee teaching and learning practices spanning more than four centuries to reframe the way we think about Native American educational history. Reed draws on archaeological evidence from Southeastern US caves, ethnohistorical narratives of Cherokee syllabary development, records from Christian mission schools, Cherokee Nation archives, and family and personal histories to reveal surprising continuity amid powerful change. Centering the role of women as educators across generations in Cherokee matrilineal society, the power of land to anchor learning, and the significance of language in expressing sovereignty, Reed fundamentally rethinks the nature of educational space, the roles played by teachers and learners, and the periodization imposed by US settler colonialism onto the Indigenous experience.

Review Quotes

"A groundbreaking work. Reed centers women's experiences, knowledge, and resilience as she traces Cherokee educational systems across millennia."--Alejandra Dubcovsky, author of Talking Back: Native Women and the Making of the Early South

"Reed's intimate perspectives on Indigeneity and being human pave a way for Indigenous scholars to write from home, even as they are finding their way to it. A moving and illuminating book. I enjoyed every word."--Farina King, author of The Earth Memory Compass: Diné Landscapes and Education in the Twentieth Century

"This is a great read and a wonderful contribution to the history of Native American education. With her creative and fresh methodology, Reed beautifully articulates the materiality, theory, and practices of Cherokee schooling."--K. Tsianina Lomawaima, coauthor of "To Remain an Indian" Lessons in Democracy from a Century of Native American Education

About the Author

Julie L. Reed is associate professor of history and anthropology at the University of Tulsa.