Slavery in the Cherokee Nation: The Keetowah Society and the Defining of a People, 1855-1867.

By Patrick N. Minges. Studies in African American History and Culture. (New York and London: Routledge, 2003. Pp. xiv, 302. $90.00, ISBN 0-415-94586-0.)

Following in the footsteps of the late William G. McLoughlin's extensive scholarship on the conflicts and changes in the Cherokee Nation precipitated by debates over slavery, the work of Christian missionaries, and intermarriage with white Americans, Patrick N. Minges's book explores the ways in which the Cherokee Nation divided over the issue of slavery in the years alter their forced removal from the South to the Indian Territory (now Oklahoma). He states at the outset that Cherokees' clashes over chattel slavery were symptomatic of larger contests for power between those Cherokees who advocated the adoption of white Americans' social and economic patterns and those who sought to preserve what Minges terms the "old ways" of Cherokee life--solidarity, patriotism, and traditional Cherokee customs (p. 13).

Minges is most interested in charting the antislavery activity of Cherokee men in the church run by northern Baptist missionary Evan Jones, who made inroads among Cherokees committed to the "'old ways." In the late 1850s, Jones's Cherokee converts organized the Keetowah Society, which hoped to gain political power in the nation and then restore older definitions of Cherokee identity that emphasized national unity and perpetuation of traditional practices. The book follows the Keetowah movement, specifically its leaders, from its inception through the end of the Civil War.

To the extent that it was rooted in the Baptist Church, the Keetowah movement, Minges suggests, looked favorably upon enslaved black converts and congregants and envisioned a future for free blacks in the Cherokee Nation. Here, Minges touches on an important issue in the study of slavery in Native American nations--the three-way relationships among Native Americans, white missionaries, and enslaved black people.

Throughout the book, however, Minges insists but never adequately demonstrates that the movement's broader political aim to curtail Cherokee acculturation and restore the "old ways" led to a recognition of black humanity. In their struggle for political ascendancy, Keetowah men enthusiastically endorsed the leadership of John Ross because of his commitment to preserving the unity and sovereignty of the Cherokee Nation. John Ross, however, owned slaves, presided over the 1839 national council meeting that passed stringent slave codes, and was reluctant to extend citizenship to ex-slaves. Minges's depiction of Ross's prominence in the Keetowah movement does not account for such tensions, and the book never fully captures the complexities of slavery in the Cherokee Nation in terms of its place in Cherokees' contests for political power and the relationships between enslaved blacks and Keetowah men in the Baptist church.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this book is Minges's argument that the Keetowah movement was informed in large measure by freemasonry, which, he writes, spread throughout the Native American nations in the Indian Territory during the 1840s. Readers interested in freemasonry will be tantalized by Minges's assertion that many blacks, Native Americans (Cherokee, Creek, Seminole, and Choctaw), and white military and federal personnel in the Indian Territory belonged to Masonic lodges; he identifies many people by their lodge affiliation. On this subject, Minges offers an intriguing insight that awaits further analysis. This book touches on many issues, some more developed than others, and it offers detailed descriptions of individuals and events in the Cherokee Nation that will prompt interested readers and researchers to pursue the subject further.

New York University 

BARBARA KRAUTHAMER