The Embodiment of Citizenship: Sovereignty and Colonialism in the Cherokee Nation, 1880--1920

"The dissertation focuses on four arenas of experience and policy formation---marriage, law, medicine, and education---in which Cherokees and Americans articulated representational bodily images and created policy with long-lasting effects in both nations. In this period, marriage became the symbol for the union of the two nations, and images of elite Cherokee women were used by American boosters to represent Cherokee ""civilization."" In the field of medicine, conflicts over treatment for epidemic diseases raised issues of sovereignty; and the incorporation of Cherokees into the United States produced an attack on ""traditional"" healthcare and a focus on ""fullbloods"" as bearers of disease and instability. Punishment for violent crime in the Cherokee Nation and the United States engendered conflict as Cherokee citizens contested the expansion of the American legal system into the Indian Territory. While Americans used stories of violence and crime to cast the Indian Territory as needful of U.S. courts, many Cherokees created oppositional narratives of heroes who fought against American aggression. Finally, in the elite institutions of the Cherokee Nation and the industrial training schools of the United States Indian Service, educators focused on shaping students' bodies in order to shape national populations."

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

History

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2015

Author dc:creator

• Wynn, Kerry K.

Contributors dc:contributor

• Frederick Hoxie

• Native American Studies

Language dc:language

eng

Identifier

(MiAaPQ)AAI3223753

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/84679