I’ve been waiting for this day a long time! “Cherokee History and the Spirit Family” is being published today by the University of North Georgia Press.
Twenty-five years ago, my dad asked if I would use materials from the family to write a short personal story about my great-great grandmother, Annie Spirit, and her children. One of them was William Penn Mayes, his grandfather. I said yes, and decided to take a trip to Tahlequah, Oklahoma to speak with relatives who lived around there, including Muskogee and Grove. One of them was Betty Lou Thompson, my dad’s first cousin, who was the family historian.
She had a wonderful trove of photos, letters and documents going back to the 1870s. She passed the mantle to me, and I returned home with them. By 2003 I had prepared a typescript using these basic materials and other documents my dad inherited from his mother.
That piqued my interest in knowing more about the family. In the ensuing years I visited Oklahoma several times, poking around in museums and libraries as well as the Cherokee Nation’s archives. I began building a detailed family tree using the Reunion software program, carrying out genealogical research on the internet. Several Cherokee cousins contributed information, photos and materials to add to the tree. I also visited north Georgia for several weeks, near where my great-great grandmother was born and where her family lived until 1838, the year of the Trail of Tears. In museums and libraries more documents related to my family were unearthed.
In 2017 I met historian Michael Wren, who introduced me to the records held by the Smithsonian and other museums about Cherokees living in Georgia, Tennessee and Alabama in the 1830s. Those include removal records with rosters of people, appraisals of their farms, ferries, houses, livestock, farm implements and household belongings, and formal claims filed by many families in 1842. Gradually I obtained a detailed understanding of where my extended family had lived and what they went through during removal, as well as their rich lives after that. Meanwhile, I read dozens of articles and books about various aspects and time frames of Cherokee history.
The result is this book! I hope you will buy a copy and let me know how you like it. It is available at most independent bookshops, Barnes & Noble, and on Amazon. It will be most helpful in spreading the word if you order it on the website of your favorite bookstore. It is also very easy to order from Indiebound, the association of independent shops.