To celebrate Native American Heritage Month, we've curated a selection of books that honor the rich history, vibrant cultures, and enduring resilience of Native American communities with roots in South Carolina. This collection spans genres and generations, offering works by Indigenous authors, historical accounts, folklore, poetry, and contemporary fiction. We invite you to explore these powerful stories and gain a deeper appreciation for the contributions of Native communities to our shared heritage.
Native American Heritage Month Book Selections
The Lives in Objects: Native Americans, British Colonists, and Cultures of Labor and Exchange in the Southeast
In The Lives in Objects, Jessica Yirush Stern presents a thoroughly researched and engaging study of the deerskin trade in the colonial Southeast, equally attentive to British American and Southeastern Indian cultures of production, distribution, and consumption. Stern upends the long-standing assertion that Native Americans were solely gift givers and the British were modern commercial capitalists. This traditional interpretation casts Native Americans as victims drawn into and made dependent on a transatlantic marketplace. Stern complicates that picture by showing how both the Southeastern Indian and British American actors mixed gift giving and commodity exchange in the deerskin trade, such that Southeastern Indians retained much greater agency as producers and consumers than the standard narrative allows. By tracking the debates about Indian trade regulation, Stern also reveals that the British were often not willing to embrace modern free market values. While she sheds new light on broader issues in native and colonial history, Stern also demonstrates that concepts of labor, commerce, and material culture were inextricably intertwined to present a fresh perspective on trade in the colonial Southeast.
The People Speak: A Collection of Writings by South Carolina Native Americans in poetry, prose, essays & interviews The people speak : a collection of writings by South Carolina Native Americans in Poetry, Prose, Essays & Interviews
Experience the South Carolina Native American experience from these local writers in their own words.
South Carolina's Native American Cooking: Cherokee Traditional & Contemporary Recipes with Additional Southern Recipes by Other Indigenous Natives
Discover the taste of South Carolina Native American cooking with these recipes. Learn their cultural significance from the chefs who keep their traditional foodways alive and bring them into the present day.
Native Languages of the Southeastern United States
The diverse culture of Southeastern Native Americans resulted in a branching family of languages. The American Indian Studies Research Institute map them and explain their twining relationship to each other and their cultures.
Fry Bread: A Native American Family Story
This illustrated children’s book tells the story of fry bread and its importance to Native American families across North America. It includes a recipe and a history note by the author that delves into the many facets of this post-colonial food.
Upcoming Event
Speaker at the Center: Beaver Creek Indian Tribe Chief, Louie C. Chavis
November 7, 2024, 6:00 PM
Join us at our next Speaker at the Center series on Thursday, November 7th, at 6 pm for a talk featuring Chief Chavis of the Beaver Creek Indians of Orangeburg County, South Carolina.
