Dissertation Information for Cynthia Dee CumferNAME:
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SCHOOL: ADVISORS: COMMITTEE MEMBERS: MPACT Status: Fully Complete Title: "The idea of mankind is so various": An intellectual history of Tennessee, 1768--1810 Abstract: This dissertation explores the ideas and cultural assumptions of the Cherokee and the white and black borderers who met in the Tennessee region in the Revolutionary and post-Revolutionary years. Relying on treaties, peace talks, letters, petitions, diaries, court and legislative records, constitutions, newspapers, escaped slave advertisements, separation notices, cultural practices and other materials, it examines the ideologies that each group brought to the encounter and the ways that their interaction transformed their cognitive worlds. Most Cherokee responded to white cultural values and practices by adopting some of the settlers' ideas, while retaining significant aspects of Cherokee beliefs. Although the Cherokee initially fashioned the immigrants as diplomatic kin, over time they turned to a protective relationship with the federal government. In the face of white pressures to civilize, the Cherokee formulated a new identity, expanding their understanding of social relations beyond their traditional clan system, delegating more powers to government, and diversifying their economy. The early pioneers viewed the Cherokee as a separate nation, but by the late 1790s many Tennesseans argued to denationalize the Cherokee and advocated for their removal. Striving to distinguish themselves from the indigenous peoples, white settlers fashioned a western version of the concept of civilization--one that privileged consent, merit, and prosperity. Positioning the "savage" indigenous people as an intellectual foil, white women and men developed thick networks of social relations, a theory of governance based on an explicit social compact, and a civilized commercial society grounded in agricultural production. Most free blacks and slaves, living under severe constraints, constructed a relational cognitive world that relied on personal connections formed with blacks and whites in order to assert their humanity and to expand their range of freedom. |
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