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Reviews

“This carefully documented and engagingly illustrated book will be a crucial source for scholars and an inspiration for anyone seeking to support a self-directed Indigenous future for the Cherokee Nation.”

– James D. Nations, author of Lacandón Maya in the Twenty-First Century: Indigenous Knowledge and Conservation in Mexico’s Tropical Rainforest

“James Barnes’s book is hugely significant because unlike past chronicles he captures in vivid detail the surprisingly rich culture of the Cherokees, he writes a deeply researched new history of broken promises by the federal and state governments, and through Annie’s family he brings to life both the suffering and resilience of her people when they are forcibly driven off their lands. Illustrated with rare photos, paintings, maps, and original documents, there is no book about the history of Native Americans that rivals this one.”

– David L. Roll, author of George Marshall: Defender of the Republic and The Hopkins Touch: Harry Hopkins and the Forging of the Alliance to Defeat Hitler

“The past is brought to life through the author’s indefatigable research into his ancestry, which turns this sweeping account of political inequities and social resilience into an intimate tale of a great-great grandson’s search for identity.”

– Carol Karasik, author of Maya Gods and Monsters, Maya Threads, and The Turquoise Trail

“Cherokee History and the Spirit Family will be of interest to many, especially since it covers so many extended families…The history it covers from the 1730s to 1910 illustrates the deep resilience of the Cherokee people.”

– Leslie Barker Thomas, Georgia Trail of Tears Association President

“Cherokee History and the Spirit Family is a splendid account of the author’s Cherokee family and how their lives illuminate Cherokee history from the nineteenth century to the present…The author provides both a broad historical canvas for understanding Cherokee history and an intimate view of family lives during the critical periods of removal, the Civil War, and Allotment. Gracefully written, the book…is a genuine contribution to Cherokee history and a window into the lives of Cherokee families.”

– Dr. Carolyn Ross Johnston, Professor of History and American Studies and Women’s and Gender Studies, Elie Wiesel Professor of Humane Letters, Eckerd College

Author Biography

Jim Barnes was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1944. He and his family visited his Cherokee paternal grandmother, Nellie Maude Mayes, her siblings, Maggie and Hazel, and other relatives in Muskogee several times a year until he was 12. Maude was a teacher, painter, and musician who imbued Jim with a passion for Cherokee history. Graduating from Eastern High School in Middletown, Kentucky as class president in 1962, he attended Northwestern University in Chicago, receiving a BA in Economics in 1966. He received a Juris Doctor degree cum laude from the University of Michigan in 1970. After clerking for U.S. District Judge John Pratt in Washington, DC Jim joined the litigation team opposing the Alaska Pipeline project at the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP). He served as a public defender for two years in Washington and for one year in the New Hebrides Islands before rejoining CLASP in 1977. He served as CLASP co-director from 1981–82. While there, Jim founded the Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition (ASOC), bringing together environmental organizations around the world to advocate for the protection of Antarctica. Jim led successful campaigns to create the world’s first “ecosystem-as-a-whole” fishing regime in 1980–to block a proposed treaty that would have opened Antarctica to drilling and mining in 1988–and develop the Environmental Protocol as part of the Antarctic Treaty in 1991, which bans minerals activities indefinitely and created a modern governance structure for the region. Jim retired as ASOC Executive Director in 2015 and today serves as Board Chair. In 2016 he began researching the lives of Annie Spirit and her extended family, and the larger story of Cherokee sovereignty, which resulted in this book. Jim has two daughters, Deborah Barnes and Sociana Clark, four grandchildren, and is married to Anne Fuhrman. They live in Villamblard, France.

Copyright Information

Copyright 2024 James Neil Barnes