Voyage of the Adventure - by John Guider (Paperback)

About the Book

A photographic retracing of the journey that ended in the founding of Nashville, with essays from voices often on the periphery of popular history

Book Synopsis

In the harsh winter of 1779, as the leader of a flotilla of settlers, John Donelson loaded his family and thirty slaves into a forty-foot flatboat at the present site of Kingsport, Tennessee. Their journey into the wilderness led to the founding of a settlement now known as Nashville--over one thousand river miles away. In the fall of 2016, photographer John Guider retraced the Donelson party's journey in his hand-built 141/2' motorless rowing sailboat while making a visual documentation of the river as it currently exists 240 years later.

This photo book contains more than 120 striking images from the course of the journey, allowing the reader to see how much has changed and how much has remained untouched in the two and a half centuries since Donelson first took to the water. Equally significant, the essays include long-ignored contemporary histories of both the Cherokee whom Donelson encountered and the slaves he brought with him, some of whom did not survive the journey.

Guider, a professional photographer, has created images of every point in the thousand-mile trip from a platform just a few feet above the waterline of three of Tennessee's most notable rivers.

Review Quotes

"This is an angle on Tennessee's history that is rarely seen or taught. Although we are, thank goodness, currently in a phase when many--or at least some vocal thinkers--question just how great the 'great men' of local history really were and hold their actions under a critical microscope, we still rarely venture into truly considering the experiences of the lesser known or marginalized people of Tennessee's past. Discussion of the ripple effects of past actions on the present landscape rarely ventures beyond politics or the broadest strokes of race relations. This book lives fully in that space."
--Nina Cardona, WPLN, Nashville Public Radio

About the Author

John Guider is an Emmy Award-winning photographer and author. The Nashville Public Television documentary Voyage of Adventure was honored by the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences in 2020.

Jeff Sellers is director of education and community engagement at the Tennessee State Museum, Nashville, Tennessee.

Learotha Williams Jr. is a professor of African American, Civil War and Reconstruction, and Public History at Tennessee State University and coordinator of the North Nashville Heritage Project.

Albert Bender is a Cherokee activist, historian, political columnist, and reporter.

Carroll Van West is director of the Center for Historic Preservation at Middle Tennessee State University.