In the Shadow of Removal: Historical Memory, Indianness, and the Tellico Dam Project A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA BY Robert A. Gilmer IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY David Chang, Jean M. O’Brien May 2011 Robert A. Gilmer Acknowledgments If it were not for the assistance and support of countless people this project would not have been possible. First, I owe a profound debt to Dr. Tom Hatley for encouraging me to look into Cherokee involvement in the controversies surrounding the Tellico Dam. I came to Western Carolina University in 2004 with only a vague notion of wanting to research something that involved Cherokee and environmental history for my master’s thesis, and within a couple of months of being there he steered me towards a topic that I would spend the next seven years of my life working on. If it had not been for his keen insight into the richness of this topic, and the need for additional work on it, none of this would have been possible. I also am deeply indebted to a number of other colleagues and advisers at Western Carolina University and within the Eastern Band community for their support and encouragement. Andrew Denson and Gael Graham served on my thesis committee, along with Tom Hatley, and offered numerous insights and helpful criticisms on earlier versions of this work. Tyler Howe, Angel Ragan, Anne Rogers, Jane Eastman, Lisa Lefler, and Heidi Altman also provided encouragement and support both while I lived in western North Carolina and since I moved away five years ago. Tom and Roseanna Belt and Sarah and Woody Sneed were also extremely helpful throughout this process. I learned at least as much from sitting outside talking with Tom during my two years at Western Carolina than I did in all of my coursework—and considering how much I i learned in my coursework, that is saying a lot. His friendship and patient, and often hilarious, discussions of Cherokee history and Cherokee ways of knowing have framed my approach to this topic, and I hope that this project does them justice. Myrtle Driver and T.J. Holland both worked in cultural resources for the Eastern Band and were very helpful in navigating the IRB process, as well as discussing their own experiences with me. I owe a special thanks to the McLachlan family, who not only treated me as a friend and colleague while I lived in North Carolina, but also opened their doors to me when I returned to do research in 2009. Carrie McLachlan was also helpful in recommending numerous books and articles on all facets of Cherokee history, and I will always be thankful for their generosity. This project also would not be what it is today if it were not for the help and support of numerous people at the University of Minnesota. My advisers David Chang and Jeani O’Brien commented on untold drafts of chapters, papers, and other works related to this dissertation, as well as taking time to help me navigate the writing of job letters, formatting CVs, and all of the other tasks that come along with trying to establish a career in academia. David in particular painstakingly edited a complete draft of my dissertation and I owe him an enormous debt of gratitude for his assistance. Their guidance throughout this process has been critical to me, and my research would not have been possible without their help. My other committee members, Barbara Welke, Allen Isaacman, Brenda Child, and Stuart McLean, have also been supportive throughout this process, and offered numerous comments and suggestions on my work. Barbara Welke in particular took time out of her already busy life to meet or even call at night or over weekends to talk about my work, and I will always be grateful for her help. Numerous ii others at the University of Minnesota have also contributed to making this dissertation possible: Boyd Cothran, Seth Epstein, Andy Paul, Laurie Richmond, Karen Till, David Wilkins, Kate Williams, Mike Wise, and everyone involved in the American Indian Studies Workshop has helped me sort through all of the perplexing issues I confronted while working on this project. Suzanne van Duym also read numerous earlier drafts of my work, and I thank her for her support and editing skills, particularly for catching my penchant for sentence constructions that start with “while.” Numerous commenters and discussants also provided helpful feedback at conferences such as the Annual Meeting of the American Society for Ethnohistory and the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association. In particular I would like to thank Charles Hudson, Raymond Fogelson, James Brooks, and Circe Sturm for their helpful comments and criticisms. Conducting research like this is also impossible without financial support, and I owe a debt to the Office of Cherokee Studies at Western Carolina University, the Graduate Research Partnership Project, American Indian Studies Workshop, and Department of History at the University of Minnesota, as well as the Newberry Consortium on American Indian Studies. Without their support none of this would have been possible. I also want to thank everyone who took time to meet with me and discuss their experiences with the Tellico Dam: Tom Belt, Ron and Sarah Bivens, White Buck/Bill Land, Gary Carden, Jeff Chapman and Gerald Schroedl, Alva and Nancy Crowe, David Dale Dickey, Fran Dorward, Myrtle Driver, Kirk Johnson, Dan McCoy, James “Hank” McGee, Reed Davis, Steve Payne, Tom Moser, Zygmunt Plater, Mack Pritchard, Charlie Rhodarmer, Ben Snyder, Renard Strickland, and many others. Charlie Rhodarmer in iii particular was kind enough to open up the Sequoyah Birthplace Museum archives and also to use the Museum as a kind of base of operations while I was staying in the area. The staffs of the McClung Museum, The University of Tennessee Special Collections, the Howard K. Baker Center, the Tennessee State Library and Archives, the Sequoyah Birthplace Museum, the National Archives and Records Administration in Morrow, Georgia, the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library, the TVA Corporate Library, Vanderbilt University’s Television News Archive, and the Cherokee National Archives were all enormously helpful during my research, and I sincerely thank them for their kind assistance. Myrtle Driver, Gary Carden, Zygmunt Plater, and Ron and Sarah Bivens also opened up their personal archive of materials related to the Tellico Project to me. I would also like to thank my family for offering encouragement and support throughout this process. My grandfather, the Reverend Dr. E.C. Watson, first kindled an interest in the South’s native past in me through his own enthusiasm for unearthing, both figuratively and literally with his plow, the Indian history at his home in South Carolina. My father, Jim Gilmer, for sending me a packet of information on the Indian history of Toccapola, MS, which inspired my undergraduate thesis and started me down this road. And my mom, Dr. M. Sidney Watson, whose example of completing her dissertation while raising three kids served to remind of me how much easier my task was, even when I felt overwhelmed. And finally, I want to extend my sincerest and warmest thanks to my fiancée Shanna Hoff. She not only read and commented on numerous drafts of chapters and papers, but also tolerated listening to me talk about dams, removals, and American Indians far longer than anyone should be subjected to. I could not have done this without her kindness, love, and support, and I dedicate this dissertation to you, Shanna. iv Abstract From 1963 to 1979 a series of controversies raged over the Tennessee Valley Authority’s proposal to build the Tellico Dam on the Little Tennessee River in eastern Tennessee, a region haunted by the legacy of Cherokee Removal. Throughout this period conservation organizations, local landowners, and the Tennessee Valley Authority all sought the support of the three federally recognized Cherokee nations in their efforts. Not only was the valley home to the endangered snail darter, a small species of perch, but it was also considered sacred by many Cherokee Indians, as well as historically important. But many Cherokee political leaders were reluctant to side with the environmentalists. Some feared doing so would disrupt their otherwise cordial relationship with the TVA, others feared that they would become too identified with radicalism---be it American Indian radicalism or environmental radicalism, and others simply distrusted the motives of environmentalists and feared that they only wanted their support to use of the image of the “ecological Indian” to lend legitimacy to their environmental concerns, rather than protect the sites that were of importance to the Cherokee people. Additionally, changing conceptions of American Indians shaped how others, such as displaced farmers with Cherokee ancestry and commercial developers, utilized Indianness in relation to the project. This dissertation examines the struggles between non-Indians and Cherokees, and amongst Cherokees themselves, over how their identity as Indians would be defined and used within the context of the environmental and Red Power movements during the 1960s and 70s. Underlying these contests over Cherokee identity was the legacy of the 19th century removal of Cherokees from the region. Removal fractured the Cherokee Nation into three separate nations, each with its own history, identity, and strategies for sovereignty. Removal also had a diasporic effect on some Cherokees, pulling them out of the nation and into surrounding non-Indian communities, ultimately laying the groundwork for a late twentieth century resurgence of claims to Indian identity. And finally, the memory of removal also gave Cherokees and non-Indians a powerful tool for garnering public support for their cause.