The Peachtree Valley and Valley Town mission : a baptist recategorization of a Cherokee landscape
- WCU Author/Contributor (non-WCU co-authors, if there are any, appear on document)
- James Anthony Owen (Creator)
- Institution
- Western Carolina University (WCU )
- Web Site: http://library.wcu.edu/
- Advisor
- Andrew Denson
Abstract: Peachtree Valley in Clay county, North Carolina has a long history of diversity in plant,
animal, and human habitation. The Cherokee, who have inhabited the valley for
thousands of years, have a deep history of relationships with the cultural and biological
diversity of the mountains. An intricate web of Cherokee knowledge and ways of
thinking once maintained a sense of balance and well-being within existing ecological
systems. The arrival of Europeans in the Cherokee world presented challenges in
maintaining balance, communicating useful ideas, and establishing functional social and
ecological relationships. The Baptists, who established a mission in the Peachtree Valley
in 1819, were more successful in navigating Cherokee modes of thinking and
communicating than other missionaries. Baptist success was rooted in their eventual
willingness to learn from Cherokee systems. Cherokees categorizations of the world and
engaged relationships with plants and animals of the landscape came to be connected
with biblical ideas and Jesus’ morality through the work of Reverend Evan Jones and a
small group of Cherokees he baptized and taught. The history of the Valley Towns
Baptist mission demonstrates ways that ecological awareness and landscape-based
sensibilities classified Christian and Baptist ideas in uniquely Cherokee ways, even as
those same ideas simplified diverse Cherokee categorizations of the world.
The Peachtree Valley and Valley Town mission : a baptist recategorization of a Cherokee landscape
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Created on 6/1/2012
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Additional Information
- Publication
- Thesis
- Language: English
- Date: 2012
- Keywords
- Baptist, Cherokee, missionary, rattlesnake
- Subjects
- Cherokee Indians -- Missions -- North Carolina -- Clay County
- Cherokee Indians -- North Carolina -- Clay County -- Religion
- Baptists -- Missions -- North Carolina -- Clay County