Chapter 39 Exercises: The Eastern Band and Indigenous Persistence — Native Appalachia Then and Now

Exercise 1: Primary Source Analysis — Voices of Sovereignty

Read the primary source excerpts in this chapter (the EBCI Cultural Preservation Statement and the Tribal Council Resolution on Land-Into-Trust).

a) Each document makes a claim about the relationship between the EBCI and its land. Compare the two documents: how does each one characterize the EBCI's right to its territory? What language does each use to assert that right? How do the documents differ in tone, audience, and purpose?

b) The Cultural Preservation Statement says, "We do not preserve our culture. We live it." What is the difference between preserving a culture and living it? Why might this distinction matter to an Indigenous community? How does the statement challenge the common perception of tribal cultural programs as museum-like preservation efforts?

c) The Tribal Council Resolution describes land-into-trust as "an act of justice, not an act of acquisition." Analyze this framing. How does calling land restoration "justice" rather than "acquisition" change the political and moral terms of the debate? Who benefits from each framing? Who is threatened by each?

d) Write a 500-word essay comparing the EBCI's assertion of land rights with the land claims made by coal companies, timber companies, or other extractive industries described in earlier chapters of this textbook. How do the moral, legal, and historical claims differ? How are they similar?

Exercise 2: The Casino Debate — Multiple Perspectives

The chapter presents the Harrah's Cherokee Casino as both a transformative economic engine and a source of social and cultural tension.

a) Create a four-column table analyzing the casino's impact. Column 1: Benefit. Column 2: Who benefits. Column 3: Cost. Column 4: Who bears the cost. Include at least six entries. What patterns do you notice in the distribution of benefits and costs?

b) The chapter quotes Principal Chief Michell Hicks saying, "That is what sovereignty looks like." Others within the EBCI have described the casino as a cultural compromise. Write a 400-word dialogue between two fictional EBCI citizens — one who supports the casino and one who has reservations about it. Both speakers should be intelligent, thoughtful, and sincere. Neither should be a caricature.

c) Compare the EBCI's casino revenue to the coal revenue that transformed Appalachian communities in the early twentieth century (Chapters 15–16). In what ways is gaming revenue similar to coal revenue? In what ways is it fundamentally different? What is the most important difference?

d) Research one other tribal gaming operation in the United States — the Mashantucket Pequot's Foxwoods, the Seminole Tribe's Hard Rock, or another example. Compare its impact on its community to the EBCI casino's impact. What factors explain the similarities and differences?

Exercise 3: Language Revitalization — The Kituwah Academy

a) The chapter describes the Cherokee language as "severely endangered." Research the current status of the Cherokee language (Eastern dialect). How many fluent speakers remain? What is the age distribution of speakers? What programs exist to revitalize the language? Use sources from the Endangered Languages Project, UNESCO, or the EBCI's own publications.

b) The chapter describes the deliberate suppression of the Cherokee language through federal boarding schools. Research the boarding school experience for Cherokee children. When did the schools operate? What policies were enforced? What were the documented effects on language transmission? Use at least two scholarly or primary sources.

c) Compare the Kituwah Academy's immersion model with another Indigenous language revitalization program — the Maori kohanga reo (language nests) in New Zealand, the Hawaiian language immersion schools, or the Mohawk immersion program at Kahnawake. What do these programs have in common? What challenges do they share? What outcomes have they achieved?

d) Write a 500-word reflection on the relationship between language and identity. Can a culture survive the loss of its language? What is lost when a language dies that cannot be recovered from dictionaries and grammar books? Use specific examples from this chapter or your research to support your argument.

Exercise 4: The Invisible Indigenous — Beyond the Eastern Band

a) The chapter describes the Monacan Indian Nation's struggle for federal recognition, including the devastating impact of Virginia's Racial Integrity Act of 1924 and Walter Plecker's campaign of documentary erasure. Research the Monacan Nation's history. When did they receive federal recognition? What benefits did recognition bring? What had been denied during the centuries without recognition?

b) The chapter mentions the Melungeon communities of central Appalachia. Research the Melungeon identity: What are the competing theories about Melungeon origins? How have Melungeon communities been treated by surrounding populations? How has the Melungeon identity been reclaimed in recent decades? What does the Melungeon experience reveal about the construction of racial categories in Appalachia?

c) Identify at least two other Indigenous or mixed-heritage communities in the Appalachian region beyond the Eastern Band and the Monacan. Describe their history, their current status, and their relationship (if any) to the broader Indigenous sovereignty movement.

d) Write a 400-word essay on why Indigenous identity in Appalachia has been "invisible" compared to Indigenous identity in the American West. What historical, legal, and cultural factors have contributed to this invisibility? What has been the cost of that invisibility for the communities affected?

Exercise 5: Sovereignty in Practice

a) The chapter describes the EBCI's governmental structure — Principal Chief, Tribal Council, Cherokee Court system, administrative departments. Research the current EBCI government. Who is the current Principal Chief? What major policy initiatives are currently underway? How does the EBCI's governmental structure compare to the structures of surrounding county and municipal governments?

b) The chapter describes tensions between the EBCI and surrounding counties over land-into-trust acquisitions and the loss of property tax revenue. Research one specific land-into-trust transaction involving the EBCI or another tribal nation. What was the process? Was there opposition? How was the dispute resolved?

c) The chapter mentions the EBCI's legalization of sports betting as an exercise of sovereignty. Identify at least two other instances where the EBCI or another tribal nation has exercised sovereign authority in ways that differed from the laws of the surrounding state. What does this tell us about the practical meaning of tribal sovereignty?

d) Write a 500-word analysis of the concept of sovereignty as applied to the EBCI. What does sovereignty mean in practical terms for a tribal nation of approximately 16,000 citizens surrounded by a state of more than 10 million? Where does tribal sovereignty begin and end? What are its limits, and who determines those limits?

Exercise 6: Community History Portfolio — Indigenous Presence and Persistence

This exercise connects to the Community History Portfolio checkpoint for Chapter 39.

a) Return to the county you have been studying throughout this textbook. Review and update your Chapter 2, 3, and 4 work on the Indigenous history of your county. What Indigenous nations occupied or used the land? What happened to them during the period of contact, colonization, and removal?

b) Research any continued Indigenous presence in or near your county. This might include tribal communities, cultural centers, historical markers, archaeological sites, or place names derived from Indigenous languages. If there is no visible Indigenous presence, explain why — and consider what that absence reveals about the history of removal and erasure.

c) If your county is within the geographic orbit of the Qualla Boundary (within 100 miles of Cherokee, North Carolina), research the economic and social relationship between your county and the EBCI. Does the casino employ residents of your county? Do EBCI citizens use services in your county? Is there political cooperation or tension?

d) Write a 500-word analysis connecting the Indigenous history of your county to the themes of this chapter: persistence, sovereignty, erasure, and reclamation. Whose stories have been told, and whose have not? What would a complete history of your county's Indigenous presence look like?