Mary Nimmo Moran. Across the Water. Etching on paper, ca. 1880-1890, Smithsonian Art Museum. Public Domain.
I.
“Stop! stop! pretty water,”
Said Mary one day,
To a frolicsome brook
That was running away.
II.
“You run on so fast!
I wish you would stay;
My boat and my flowers
You will carry away.
III.
“But I will run after;
Mother says that I may;
For I would know where
You are running away.”
IV.
So Mary ran on;
But I have heard say
That she never could find
Where the brook ran away.
FOLLEN, ELIZA LEE. “STOP! STOP! PRETTY WATER,” IN LITTLE SONGS, 16-7. BOSTON: WHITTEMORE & CO., 1856.
Contexts
Eliza Lee Follen (1787-1860) was an abolitionist, editor, and writer. In her preface to the first edition of Little Songs, published in 1833, she wrote:
“The little folks must decide whether the book is entertaining. To them I present my little volume, with the earnest hope that it will receive their approbation. If children love to lisp my rhymes, while parents find no fault in them, I ask no higher praise.”
Definitions from Oxford English Dictionary:
frolicsome: Full of frolic; gay, merry, mirthful..
Original illustration by John Harley from Our Young Folks, p. 536.
I PROMISED to write you, my young friends, from the Florida Reefs, and I perhaps I cannot do better than to give you the narrative of a single excursion, — one which you would have enjoyed as much as we did, could I have invited you to share our holiday. Do you remember that in a former chapter I spoke of a channel lying between the Reef and the Keys, called the “Ship Channel”? I told you that it made a very quiet anchorage, and that, when there was a storm in the Gulf of Mexico, vessels were very glad to find shelter in this channel, and wait till the blow was over.
This was our case. We had started from Key West some days before, on board the steamer Bibb, for a cruise in the Gulf Stream off the Florida coast. We were intending to make soundings, — that is, to ascertain the depth of the water in certain parts of the Stream, and to see what was the strength and direction of the currents, and at the same time to dredge on the ocean bottom for any animals which might be living there.
I say we, because I was looking on, and so it seemed to me as if I were helping, which is the way with a great many people who stand and look on and feel as if they did all the work. But in truth I did nothing at all, except to follow the operations with a great deal of interest, as I dare say you would have done; watching, especially when the dredge came up, to see what beautiful things it brought from the ocean depth. The dredge is a strong net fastened upon an iron frame, so heavy that it will sink very far in the water, and when loaded may fall even to a depth of several thousand feet. Being thrown over the side of the vessel it drags on the bottom, and scoops up whatever comes in its way.
I wish you could have taken a peep with me sometimes into the glass bowls, where, after the contents of the dredge were assorted, we kept the living animals. Sometimes you would have seen corals which you would surely have taken for flowers rather than animals. Their pure white cups, occasionally mounted on shells, were so frail and delicate that you would scarcely believe them to be hard till you touched them. Their soft tentacles gently stirring in the water only confirmed the deception. Here you have a picture of some of them, but you do not see their tentacles, because all their soft parts die and shrivel up when they are taken from the water. When the tentacles are spread out in the living animal they form a delicate fringe, extending beyond the edge of the cups, and are in constant motion. When drawn in, they lie folded like a colored lining against the inner side of the cup.
Original illustration by John Harley from Our Young Folks, p. 536.
Then I should have shown you little shrimps of a bright red color, with large blue eyes, and tiny cuttle-fishes [1], and crimson, orange, or purple sponges, and feather stars as many tinted as the rainbow. Or look at this minute sea-urchin who has come up in a bit of rock, where he just fits into a little hole which he has worn for himself. That is the way he makes his house. I wonder whether when he grows bigger, as all young folks must do, he will enlarge his house to suit his dimensions. Now he is packed into it so snugly that there is no room to spare.
We had often beautiful sea-anemones also, though these did not usually come up in the dredge, but were caught when we made boating excursions to the land or to the shoals of the reef. Sometimes the body was orange color, while the tentacles were bright green; in other cases the whole animal was green; in others, pink or red. I remember two crimson ones which interested us especially, because they lived for many days, and we used to watch them. One day, some exceedingly small fishes, not more than a third of an inch in length, were caught in the hand-net, and chanced to be thrown alive into the glass bowl where these anemones were kept. They had not had anything to eat for some time, and I suppose they felt hungry, for presently I saw one of the anemones spread out his soft, treacherous feelers. Instantly one of the little fishes seemed to be stranded against them, entangled, no doubt, in the web of invisible cords thrown out from their lasso cells. I do not remember whether I told you about these singular weapons of theirs, when explaining the structure of the sea-anemone. Their tentacles are covered with little cells in which threads or whips, so delicate that they cannot be seen by the naked eye, are coiled up. When they desire to catch any prey they throw out these whips by hundreds, and no doubt the poor little fish was caught among them. At all events, it lay for a moment upon the tentacles, a slight quiver showing once or twice that it was not quite dead, and presently the tentacles closed in with it and drew it down to the mouth, where it soon disappeared. The other sea-anemone, observing that his companion was dining so sumptuously, followed his example and also helped himself to a fish, which disappeared after the same fashion. For some days after that our anemones looked remarkably well and thriving. Evidently their hearty meal agreed with them. Such were a few of our specimens, but indeed there was no end to the pretty things which we collected daily.
Unfortunately, however, our work was interrupted by what is called a “norther” in these regions; that is, a very strong blow from the north. We were very glad to take shelter behind the reef, in a harbor called “The old Rhodes,” which is entirely shut in by keys, as all islands about the Florida coast are called, and is therefore very quiet. We had been prisoners here for several days; we had exhausted all the excursions which could be undertaken in small boats in the neighborhood, and therefore we were delighted to wake up one morning after a heavy rain, and find that the sea had gone down, the sun was shining brightly, and the surface of the water was without a ripple. Glad to be once more on our way, we left old Rhodes, and, proceeding down the reef, anchored before Carysfort Lighthouse.
*”I owe this sketch to the courtesy of Colonel Blunt, of the U. S. Corps of Engineers” (Agassiz 539).
You must know that the Carysfort Light is a beacon famous on the reef, partly because its ray penetrates so far that sailors recognize it at a distance of more than twenty miles, and feel safe, for they know that, guided by its light, they can avoid the dangerous shore; and partly because its foundations strike fast and deep into one of the most beautiful and extensive fields of coral growth known on this or perhaps on any other coast. This field we wanted to see, and therefore we anchored very near the lighthouse. It is a singular structure, rising, as you see, directly from the ocean, without a foot of land about it; for you must remember that our coral field is under the sea. The light is lifted on a solid shaft a hundred feet above the surface of the water. This shaft is strengthened on the outside by an iron framework of columns slanting outward, and the rooms occupied by the keeper are built in between the shaft and the outside columns at about half height, standing perhaps some forty or fifty feet above the water.
After breakfast we rowed to the lighthouse, and, arriving under the columns, stepped from our boat on to a perpendicular ladder somewhat steep to climb, which brought us to a rough flooring. From this point there was a spiral staircase, by which we reached the rooms of the lighthouse-keeper. He was glad enough to see us, for he and his two assistants live a lonely life out on the reef, with no soul to speak to except each other, and nothing to do but to trim and feed the lamp on which so many lives depend, and watch the sails go by. He was an old man, who had led a seafaring life himself, and he told us that forty years ago he was wrecked on the very spot where Carysfort Light now ‘stands. I dare say that sometimes, when he lights up his huge lantern at dusk, and sets the lamp revolving within the great glass lenses which multiply its brilliancy a hundred-fold, he remembers the night when, if such a glowing eye had shone upon his track, he would have been saved from great disaster and loss.
This was not the only lighthouse we had visited on our cruise. A few weeks before we had stopped at one which was built on a rock in the ocean, so barren that Carysfort itself, with no land at all about it, seemed to me cheerful in comparison. I mention it because I think you will be surprised to hear that on this desolate rock there lived a family of children with their father and mother. Do you not think it must be a sad life? And yet they looked bright and happy, though they never have any other children to come and play with them, never see a green field or a flower, and never know what it is to run and play at will as children do on land, because the rock is so small, and is pierced with so many holes and caverns, that their parents fear to let them go about alone. I wished I had had some playthings, some pretty books or pictures, for them. But as it was, instead of my giving them anything, they loaded me with presents, bringing me, in a shy, affectionate way, all the pretty shells and stones which are their substitutes for playthings, and insisting upon my accepting them. But let us go back to Carysfort. I am forgetting the subject of our talk in telling you about those solitary little people anchored so far away from all your amusements and pleasures.
After we had talked with the lighthouse-keeper for a while, he invited us to step out upon a sort of ledge or balcony which runs around his rooms on the outside, and is protected by a railing. From this perch we looked down into the sea, and I want you to look down with me. If you do not, I am afraid you will hardly believe what I tell you.
As far as the eye could reach, the coral field stretched out around the lighthouse, and so transparent was the water, that we saw the ocean bottom as we might have seen a garden spread out beneath us. This comparison may, however, mislead you, and I think I have perhaps misled you already, when in a former chapter I compared the appearance of a growing coral reef to a shrubbery of waving, many-colored plants. When I wrote that I had never seen, and hardly expected to see, a coral reef, and I described its appearance as I had understood it from the descriptions of others. But Nature is not poor in invention. She does not simply repeat the grace and loveliness of her fields when she spreads her ocean floor with a beauty all its own. And though I confess that there is something in the branching, leaf-like growth of the corals, as well as in their motion and color, which reminds one of plants, yet I think there is a glory of the sea as there is a glory of the land, and they are not the same.
Original illustration by John Harley from Our Young Folks, p. 540.
The coral field consisted, in a great degree, of what are called leaf-corals (Madrepora palmata). They often, though not always, grow in spirals, their broad, flat branches rising tier upon tier, one above the other. Looking down upon them, I understood where the animals living upon the reef make their homes and find a shelter. Between the almost level floors of these expansions, which often stretch for many yards in circumference on one single stock, there are hundreds of protected recesses, little holes and shady nooks and corners, which seem, I dare say, like large caves to the small animals which inhabit them.
Numbers of fishes were playing among these spreading branches. Darting, shooting, winding in and out between the corals, seen one moment, hidden the next, chasing one another as if in a game of hide-and-seek, or following in shoals of twenty or thirty, as if bound on some special errand, they all seemed as busy and as happy as birds in a wood. Most of them were very brilliant in color. In some, the whole body was of the most vivid blue, others were blue and black, others, again, red and green, others black banded with yellow, and one, the most beautiful of all, was a bright canary color on the lower side, and dark violet above. Now and then some large fish, a garupa [2] or a barracuda, or even a shark, would pass by, and then all the smaller fry scattered, hiding themselves under the coral, and were seen no more till their enemy was out of sight.
We passed a couple of hours in the lighthouse, watching this strange and beautiful spectacle. We then returned to the ship for lunch, but started again in boats in the afternoon, for the purpose of floating over the whole expanse of the reef, and collecting coral. This was, if possible, more interesting, for, being almost on a level with the water, we could see every object beneath it with even greater distinctness than from the lighthouse, though at that height we had, of course, a more extensive view.
Original illustration by John Harley from Our Young Folks, p. 542.
I have mentioned especially the leaf-coral, because that was the most conspicuous at first sight; but there were many heads of brain-coral, or Mæandrina, of Astræa, commonly called Star Coral, and of Porites, ranging in size from little tufts not bigger than your fist to enormous masses from six to ten feet in diameter. There were many also of the more delicate branching kinds, known as finger-corals, and great numbers of the so-called sea-fans. These latter resemble plants so much, that in seeing them you cease to wonder at the frequent comparison of coral-beds to gardens or shrubbery. The broad expansions of the leaf-coral spread horizontally, and are perfectly rigid and motionless, the soft parts of the animals composing the mass being very small in comparison to the solid portions of which the whole structure is built. The fan-corals, on the contrary, are elastic and flexible. They stand upon the ocean bottom on a sort of root, or at least upon a solid base which resembles a root, and their spreading leaves rise lightly in the water and wave with its motion as if stirred by the wind. They are of many colors, — various shades of brown, green, and purple, the latter being especially predominant. Mingled as they often are with a kind of vegetable coral called coralline, resembling sea-weed, and with the bright red, purple, or orange-colored sponges which abound along the Florida coast, you may well be reminded, when looking down upon them, of a brilliant flower-bed.
We could not have had a better day for our excursion than the one we had chosen. It happened to be a season of spring tides, so that the ebb tide was remarkably low. In some places large masses of coral were left exposed, and indeed there were portions of the reef over which one might walk, not dry shod certainly, but springing from one coral stock to another. Other portions were still covered, even at the lowest tide, by six or eight feet or even three or four fathoms of water. I am sure that all the boys who read this would gladly have shared in the fun of that afternoon. We had three or four boats, and the greater part of the ship’s company were in them. All had come dressed for aquatic adventures, and soon there was scarcely a man left in the boats. In every variety of rough and picturesque costume, they were stalking about on the reef, — sometimes wading up to their waists or their shoulders, sometimes swimming in the deeper places, sometimes diving after a desirable specimen. Armed with boat-hooks, crow-bars, logs of wood, or whatever else they could lay their hands upon, all were engaged in dislodging the more solid and heavier masses, or in breaking off the delicate fans and the finger-corals. It was a play-day for all. I doubt if ever before the reef had resounded to such gayety, — the shouts and laughter of the men echoing on every side as they plunged and tumbled about in the water. Now and then the mirth was varied by cries of another kind, when some one, by mistake, laid hold of the sharp spines of a sea urchin, or got a sting from the so-called sea-worm. But these incidents were not numerous, and, after all, raised a laugh in the end.
At last, when all were fairly tired out with work and play, we returned to the vessel, rowing back in the sunset over a sea so calm that no ripple, except those made by our oars, broke its surface. Such was our day at Carysfort Reef, and if I have told my story well, I think you will admit that it was one to be pleasantly remembered. In my next article I shall tell you something of the different kinds of coral when alive, as I saw them during our cruise, and explain the reefs and keys of Florida more at length.
Original illustration by John Harley from Our Young Folks, p. 543.
End illustration by John Harley.
Agassiz, Elizabeth CAbot Cary. “A Day on carysfort reef.” Our Young folks 5, No. 8 (August 1869): 536-43.
[1] Cuttlefish are small invertebrates (just over an inch to 20 inches long) with eight arms and two tentacles attached to their heads. There are over 120 species of these tiny cephalopods (a group that also includes octopuses, squid, and nautiluses) all over the world.
[2] This is most likely an anglicized version of the Portuguese word “garoupa,” or grouper. Groupers are among the most common fish in the Florida Keys.
Contexts
Carysfort Reef, like several others in the Keys, is named for a British warship that ran aground at that section of reef. The Florida Keys reefs were dangerous to the increasing ship traffic of the 18th and 19th centuries. An industry grew around salvaging ships and their goods. For a time, Key West was the wealthiest U.S. city per capita. Dry Tortugas and Carysfort had lightships (anchored boats with lanterns on their masts) by 1825 and 1826, respectively, but ships still ran aground.
In 1851, the U.S. Coast Survey, which had begun overseeing mapping of the Keys reefs, had Louis Agassiz examine potential lighthouse locations. This return trip to Carysfort that Elizabeth Agassiz describes happened between two expeditions she planned. She traveled to Brazil in 1865, managed the trip, and kept a journal that she would later combine with Louis’s notes and publish. Later, she negotiated Louis’s involvement in the Hassler Expedition to the Straits of Magellan. Agassiz became the first president of the Society for the Collegiate Instruction of Women, which would later become Radcliffe College.
Resources for Further Study
Carysfort Reef is one of the many reefs that are now part of the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary (FKNMS), one of the National Marine Sanctuaries that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) manages.
Carysfort Reef is one of the Florida Keys’ Sanctuary Preservation Areas, which protect the threatened elkhorn, star, and brain corals — North America’s only living barrier reef. These shallow corals are popular with snorkelers and scuba divers and were historically frequented by fishers, but overuse contributed to the reef’s decline. Permanent mooring buoys now prevent damage from boat anchors, and sanctuary staff closely monitors activity along the reef. NOAA leads an ongoing partnership for Mission: Iconic Reefs, which manages coral outplanting in an effort to restore reefs within FKNMS.
Untitled, pastoral river scene. Oil, 1874, by William Rickarby Miller. Public Domain. Courtesy Smithsonian American Art Museum.
Far, far, far are my silver waters drawn;[1]
The hills embrace me loth to let me go;
The maidens think me fair to look upon,
And trees lean over, glad to hear me flow.
Thro’ field and valley, green because of me,
I wander, wander to the distant sea.
Tho’ I sing my song in a minor key,
Broad lands and fair attest to the good I do;
Tho’ I carry no white sails to the sea,
Towns nestle in the vales I wander thro’;
And quails are whistling in the waving grain,
And herds are scattered o’er the verdant plain.
Posey, Alexander. “Song of the Oktahutchee.” Indian School Journal 6, no. 10 (April 1910): 30
[1] The poem speaks in the river’s voice.
Contexts
The Indian School Journal was the official publication for the Chilocco Indian Agricultural School (also known as the Haworth Institute, the Chilocco Indian Agricultural School, and the Chilocco Indian School). Located in north-central Oklahoma near the Kansas border, it began taking students in 1884, enrolling 150 from seventeen tribes that first year. Enrollment had more than doubled by 1895, with students coming from various tribes, including the Cherokee, Cheyenne, Arapaho, and Pawnee tribes. The Oklahoma Historical Society notes that “significant enrollment from the so-called ‘Five Civilized Tribes’ did not occur until after 1910 but by 1925, Cherokee constituted the largest single tribal affiliation at the school (26 percent of approximately nine hundred students).” Following World War II and the expansion of public education, the school enrolled mostly students who lacked access to such education.
Like most federally funded Indian schools, Chilocco sought to assimilate Native children into white society. Also like other schools, it stressed “industrial” education—manual and domestic labor—over academic pursuits, aiming to train them as workers for white families. Education at Chilocco was notably militaristic; students attended weekly Christian religious services, also intended to weaken their ties to family and tribe. In the 1950s, student numbers peaked at around 1300, and the school closed in 1980.
Muskogee Creek poet, journalist, and humorist Alexander Posey was a nationally known writer whose appearance in the school’s magazine suggests his powerful influence on young Native American readers. Following his tragic death by drowning in the Oktahutchee River, this poem’s subject, when he was only 34 years old—and only a few months after The Indian School Journal published several poems—his wife Minnie collected his work in The Poems of Alexander Lawrence Posey. His evocative poetry is also available through the Academy of American Poets (poets.org) and The Adrian Brinkerhoff Poetry Foundation. The Posey poems appear in The Envious Lobster as versions he published in the school’s magazine.
This poem celebrating the Oktahutchee is especially poignant, given the poet’s close connection to the river.
Resources for Further Study
Archuleta, Margaret L., Brenda J. Child, and K. Tsianina Lomawaima (Mvskoke/Creek Nation of Eastern Oklahoma, not enrolled), eds. Away from Home: American Indian Boarding School Experiences, 1879-2000.
Connelley, William Elsey. “Memoir or Alexander Lawrence Posey.” In The Poems of Alexander Lawrence Posey. Ed. Mrs. Minnie H. Posey. Topeka, KS: Crane and Company, 1910. Pp. 5-65.
Littlefield, Daniel F. Jr. Alexander Posey: Creek Poet, Journalist, and Humorist. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1992.
Lomawaima, K. Tsianina (Mvskoke/Creek Nation of Eastern Oklahoma, not enrolled). “Chilocco Indian Agricultural School.” The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture. Oklahoma Historical Society.
Canadian River near Oklahoma City, Indian Territory. Photo, May 21, 1889, by J. C. Chrisney. The Oktahutchee River was known to white settlers as the North Canadian.
The World is But a Dream. Courtesy of Peakpx. Public domain.
Down by the spring one morning Where the shadows still lay deep, I found in the heart of a flower A tiny fairy asleep.
Her flower couch was perfumed, Leaf curtains drawn with care, And there she sweetly slumbered, With a jewel in her hair
But a sunbeam entered softly And touched her, as she lay, Whispering that ’twas morning And fairies must away.
All colors of the rainbow Were in her robe so bright As she danced away with the sunbeam And vanished from my sight.
‘Twas while I watched them dancing, The sunshine told me true That my sparkling little fairy Was lovely Drop O’ Dew. [1]
WILDER, LAURA. “THE FAIRY DEW DROP,” IN LAURA INGALLS WILDER, FAIRY POEMS, ED. STEPHEN W. HINES, 11-15. NEW YORK: BANTAM DOUBLEDAY DELL, 1998.
[1] Drop O’ Dew is the fairy who helps take care of the flowers. All night she carries drink to the thirsty blossoms, bathes the heads of those who have the headache from the heat of the day before, straightens them up on the their stems, and makes their colors bright for the morning.
Contexts
According to editor Stephen W. Hines, “The Fairy Dew Drop” was originally published in February 1915. His book collects five poems Ingalls wrote while visiting her daughter Rose in San Francisco. Ingalls aspired to authorship but had not yet written her famous Little House on the Prairie novels. With her daughter’s encouragement, she submitted poems to the San Francisco Bulletin, which eagerly accepted them. Hines includes Rose’s short essay, “Fairies Still Appear to Those With Seeing Eyes,” which she explains her feelings about fairies and the importance of imagination for children:
“I have a feeling that childhood has been robbed of a great deal of its joys by taking away its belief in wonderful, mystic things, in fairies and all their kin. It is not surprising that when children are grown, they have so little idealism or imagination, nor that so many of them are like the infidel who asserted that he would not believe anything that he could not see.” The Quaker made a good retort, ‘Friend? Does thee believe thee has any brains?'”
Laura Ingalls Wilder is best known for her books about growing up in a pioneer family, beginning with Little House on the Prairie. Her autobiography, Pioneer Girl, tells the true story of a family moving to the frontier of the western United States in the nineteenth century. Some scholars note Wilder’s stereotypical portraits of Native Americans in her famous novels.
Contemporary Connections
Fairies continue to hold children in thrall, feeding imaginations and creativity. Tinker Bell is a well-known modern fairy first introduced in J. M. Barrie’s 1904 play Peter Pan. Tinker Bell has gone on to have a stellar career with Disney, along with a host of other fairy co-stars. A recent film example is Tinkerand the Legend of the Neverbeast. Tinker Bell and her fellow fairies have garnered great commercial success, so much so that since 2005 Disney has had a division devoted to them, the Fairy Franchise.
James Mooney. Cherokee Country of North Carolina. Black and white glass negative, 1888, Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, Washington, D.C. The photo shows the Oconaluftee River with the Blue Ridge Mountains in the background.
There is a small river which runs along about a mile from my home; it is a very beautiful one; its banks are covered with large fine trees, grass and various kinds of flowers. In the spring, it is very pleasant to sit on the bank and look at the water gliding along. Many a happy hour I have passed at this creek with my sisters and schoolmates, looking at the water and gathering flowers, making boquets [sic] and gathering grapes and berries. There are a great many fine nut trees on the bank with their large branches hanging over the water. A little way up the creek is a mountain. It has some large rocks on it. When we go on the top of the mount [sic] and get on one of these large rocks and look down on the creek running below, it is very beautiful. There is one place at this mountain where there is a way to go down like steps, and the rocks are placed one after another, and look as if some one [sic] had made them that way. Between some large rocks, there is a place almost in the shape of a house. It is square just like a room, and it has a beautiful spring in it, and the water come from out the rock, runs down to the bottom and goes into the creek. It makes a great noise when it falls off the rock. There is an open place like a door, and just in front of the door is the creek. It is pleasant to sit in there and see every thing [sic] looking so fresh and beautiful.
Quale-u-quah. “A small river or creek.” A wreath of cherokee rose buds 1, no. 2 (august 1854): 4.
[1] While some residential schools at the time kept and have digitized student records, no information is available regarding Quale-U-Quah’s tribal affiliation or identity beyond just her name.
Contexts
This piece first appeared in A Wreath of Cherokee Rose Buds, a publication of the first Cherokee Female Seminary. The seminary, which opened in 1851, was a residential school for female Native American students in the U.S. located in Park Hill, Oklahoma, just outside of Tahlequah (the capital of the Cherokee Nation). The seminary (and other similar seminaries, many of which were for males) differed significantly from the industrial boarding schools for Native youth. While still teaching many subjects to encourage assimilation and refusing to teach the Cherokee language or culture, the seminaries’ curriculums were what we might think of today as college prep, rather than readying students for occupational labor. The student body also contrasted with boarding schools, as seminary enrollment was optional, tuition was expensive, and students generally came from upper-class and mixed-blood backgrounds.
Because of the residential nature of the seminary and the fact that it accepted students from many tribes, some of whom may have been far from home, the longing for familiar landscapes expressed by Quale-U-Quah was likely also felt by other students. Unfortunately, because there is no available biographical information about Quale-U-Quah, we can’t know more about the place she called home.
The Tahlequah Daily Press discusses the impact of the Cherokee Female Seminary on the surrounding areas.
When learning or teaching about Cherokee history, it can be easy to get caught up in Removal (also known as the Trail of Tears) or other atrocities which the Cherokee faced. However, it’s important to also teach about Cherokee recovery and resistance. The Cherokee are still here, and that recovery and resistance in the face of settler colonialism and genocide is the reason why.
The Association for Core Texts and Courses offers many wonderful materials to teach about the Cherokee from pre-contact through contemporary art and culture, focusing on reclamation and renewal.
The Zinn Education Project, named after Howard Zinn, author of A People’s History of the United States, offers a treasure trove of history and social studies lessons for all grades. Here are some for teaching about Native Americans, including this activity, which analyzes Andrew Jackson’s speech about Removal from a critical perspective.
