This first volume in the set details the history of Hamilton County and Chattanooga through 1861, the beginning of the Civil War. The work begins with Hernando de Soto's contact with the area and then explores the Indian natives’ early beginnings and lifestyles as they are known through the archaeological study of the mounds they built in the area. Extensive discussion is given to the Cherokee and Chickamauga Indians, the rise of conflict between their people and the white settlers and government, and their eventual removal west. Included are many biographical sketches of Indians who were influential in the area, with an entire chapter devoted to Chief John Ross.

An overdue examination of widely marginalized writings by women of the American antebellum period, U.S. Women Writers presents a new model for evaluating U.S. relations and interactions with foreign countries in the colonial and postcolonial periods by examining the ways in which women writers were both proponents of colonialization and subversive agents for change. Etsuko Taketani explores attempts to inculcate imperialist values through education in the works of Lydia Maria Child, Sarah Tuttle, Catherine Beecher, and others and the results of viewing the world through these values, as reflected in the writings of Harriet low, Emily Judson, and Sarah hale. Many of the texts Taketani uncovers from relative obscurity illuminate the American attitude toward others whether Native American, African American, African, or Asian. She not only sheds lights on the life of the writers she examines, but she also situates each writer s works alongside those of her contemporaries to give the reader a clear picture of the cultural context. The Author: Etsuko Taketani is associate professor of English in the Institute of Modern Languages and Cultures at the University of Tsukuba, Japan. Her articles have appeared in American Literary History, Children s Literature, Melville Society Extracts, and other publications. "

Theda Perdue examines the roles and responsibilities of Cherokee women during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, a time of intense cultural change. While building on the research of earlier historians, she develops a uniquely complex view of the effects of contact on Native gender relations, arguing that Cherokee conceptions of gender persisted long after contact. Maintaining traditional gender roles actually allowed Cherokee women and men to adapt to new circumstances and adopt new industries and practices.