Cherokees of the Smoky Mountains Audiobook By Horace Kephart cover art

Cherokees of the Smoky Mountains

A Little Band that Has Stood Against the White Tide for Three Hundred Years

Preview

Try for $0.00
Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible?
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Cherokees of the Smoky Mountains

By: Horace Kephart
Narrated by: Janice Kephart
Try for $0.00

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $6.95

Buy for $6.95

Confirm purchase
Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.
Cancel

About this listen

The text relates the powerful and dramatic history of the Smoky Mountain Cherokees, who for 40,000 years thrived in the difficult terrain of the Great Smoky Mountains and its surrounding regions areas of what is now Kentucky, Ohio, West Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama. With a constitution, organized government, written language, and no economic debt, the Cherokees sought to live in relative peace. However, President Jackson and the state of Georgia thought differently, forcing the Cherokees and their devoted Chief John Ross to leave their homeland and be removed to Oklahoma in the Trail of Tears of 1837.

Much political tension was exacerbated by the fact that a key Supreme Court ruling by Chief Justice John Marshall made clear that Georgian land grabbing of Cherokee lands was illegal. This story, and how one Cherokee Chief was sacrificed to retain a small piece of Cherokee land in the southwest corner of North Carolina, known today as Qualla Boundary, is told with passion, empathy, and historical accuracy.

Horace Kephart is also the author of Our Southern Highlanders, Camping and Woodcraft, and Smoky Mountain Magic, and the creator of the Kephart knife. Mount Kephart, a 6,217 foot peak just northwest of Qualla Boundary, was chosen by Kephart and designated in his lifetime. He was instrumental in the founding of the Great Smoky National Park. This version of Cherokees of the Smoky Mountains was revised by Kephart's great granddaughter, Janice Kephart, a spoken word artist and subject matter expert who served as a 9/11 Commission counsel. Janice added context for some commentary within the text, but left the writing mostly as is. Janice also added historical photographs from the Hunter Library Horace Kephart Archive at Western Carolina University and other libraries, as well as a new foreword and introduction.

©1936 Laura Mack Kephart (P)2023 Janice Kephart
Indigenous Peoples United States
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

What listeners say about Cherokees of the Smoky Mountains

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    3
  • 4 Stars
    1
  • 3 Stars
    1
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Performance
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    4
  • 4 Stars
    1
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    3
  • 4 Stars
    1
  • 3 Stars
    1
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

This scope is narrow

This scope of this book is very narrow. It does not really cover the daily life of the Cherokee in an engaging or thorough way and mostly focuses on land conflicts and extirpation. While that is interesting, it wasn’t the hoped for content. It is an emotional and tragic dislocation, but you don’t get to know the Cherokee so it isn’t gripping as it should be. Narrator is a granddaughter of author which is very cool, but narration was not as strong as it could have been. Overall, flat story read in a way that doesn’t make it more compelling.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!