Brothers and Friends

"By following key families in Cherokee, Chickasaw, and Anglo-American societies from the Seven Years' War through 1845, this study illustrates how kinship networks--forged out of natal, marital, or fictive kinship relationships--enabled and directed the actions of their members as they decided the futures of their nations. Natalie R. Inman focuses in particular on the Chickasaw Colbert family, the Anglo-American Donelson family, and the Cherokee families of Attakullakulla (Little Carpenter) and Major Ridge. Her research shows how kinship facilitated actions and goals for people in early America across cultures, even if the definitions and constructions of family were different in each society. In the volatile trans-Appalachian South, Inman shows, kinship networks helped to further political and economic agendas at both personal and national levels even through wars, revolutions, fiscal change, and removals." -- Adapted from the cover.