Books by Theda Perdue

The Cotton States Exposition of 1895 was a world's fair in Atlanta held to stimulate foreign and domestic trade for a region in an economic depression. This uses the exposition to examine the competing agendas of white supremacist organizers and the peoples of colour who participated.

Though they speak several different languages and organize themselves into many distinct tribes, the Native American peoples of the Southeast share a complex ancient culture and a tumultuous history. This volume examines and synthesizes their history through each of its integral phases: the complex and elaborate societies that emerged and flourished in the Pre-Columbian period; the triple curse of disease, economic dependency, and political instability brought by the European invasion; the role of Native Americans in the inter-colonial struggles for control of the region; the removal of the "e;Five Civilized Tribes"e; to Oklahoma; the challenges and adaptations of the post-removal period; and the creativity and persistence of those who remained in the Southeast.

The five largest southeastern Indian groups - the Cherokees, Chickasaws, Choctaws, Creeks, and Seminoles - were forced to emigrate west to the Indian territory (now Oklahoma) in the 1830s. Here, from WPA interviews, are those Indians' own stories of the troubled years between the Civil War and Oklahoma statehood - a period of extraordinary turmoil. During this period, Oklahoma Indians functioned autonomously, holding their own elections, enforcing their own laws, and creating their own society from a mixture of old Indian customs and the new ways of the whites. The WPA informants describe the economic realities of the era: a few wealthy Indians, the rest scraping a living out of subsistence farming, hunting, and fishing. They talk about education and religion - Native American and Christian - as well as diversions of the time: horse races, fairs, ball games, cornstalk shooting, and traditional ceremonies such as the Green Corn Dance.

Examines the roles and responsibilities of Cherokee women during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, a time of intense cultural change. This book develops a complex view of the effects of contact on Native gender relations, arguing that Cherokee conceptions of gender persisted long after contact.