After the Trail of Tears: The Cherokees Struggle for Sovereignty, 1839-1880 (review)

Reviews503 as journeyman potters were employed to meet production needs. The inclusion of African American artisans at the most creative stage of production resulted in what Baldwin terms "distinctive pottery forms that have been traced to Africa and the West Indies." This was, she states, "perhaps the most single important influence on stoneware in the area." African American influence is most evident in sculptural forms, and Baldwin explores possible links between African religious practices and the development of sculptural face jugs in Edgefield. The most famous of the slave potters, known only as Dave, worked in Edgefield from the 1830s to the 1860s. He was, as the seventy or so known examples of his work attest, a potter of great artistry, strength, and wit. His largest known pots are two forty-gallon jars, and like his other works, they exhibit a sure-handed technique and a good eye for form. Dave is most recognized for the two-line rhymes incised on some of his pieces. The title of the book includes part of his rhyme "Great and Noble jar/hold sheep, goat, and bear." Another verse declares, "Give me silver or either gold/though they are dangerous: to our soul." The reader will find little disagreement with Baldwin's designation of Dave as "the most outstanding African American potter of his time." Another effect of factory style methods was the dissemination of potting and glazing techniques to other areas. The use of alkaline rather than salt glazes to waterproof pottery vessels was the standard practice in Edgefield from the establishment of the first potteries there. Though it is not known for certain who introduced the alkaline glaze in Edgefield, pottery scholars have suggested that its use m upcountry South Carolina , western North Carolina, and the lower southern states was fostered by Edgefield journeyman potters who left for economic reasons and by freed slave potters who left after emancipation. Baldwin examines many other aspects of South Carolina's pottery production, including various functions of particular pots (some South Carolinians made homebrew in pots designed for churning butter). She also provides several maps and drawings, more than 180 black and white photographs, and fifteen color photographs to give the reader added documentation and an appreciation of the range of forms, markings, glaze colors, and ornamentation. Baldwin has amassed a large body of information. Her bibliography cites approximately 200 sources, and she and her associates have documented more than 250 potters. The appendix lists percentages of the principal elements composing the clay bodies and glazes of similar pottery made in five southeastern states. Other appendices trace the genealogy of the Landrums, leading pottery manufacturers; changes in ownership of a particular pottery; and all the known verses of Dave, the famous slave potter. Her research should prove invaluable to historians, anthropologists, and pottery enthusiasts. Baldwin has, like the potters of whom she writes, taken her raw material and crafted a useful and admirable work that will be of service for many years to come. After the Trail of Tears: The Cherokees Struggle for Sovereignty, 1839-1880. By William G. McLoughlin. University of North Carolina Press, 1994. 439 pp. Cloth, $39.95; paper, $17.95. Reviewed by Rowena McClinton Ruff, a Ph.D. history graduate student at the University of Kentucky. Her düsertation topic focuses on the husband-and-wife team ofMoravian missionar- 504Southern Cultures ies, John and Anna Rosina Gambold, and their work among the Cherokees in the early nineteenth century at Springplace Mission, located in northern Georgia. A prolific and gifted writer, the late William G. McLoughlin, who died in 1992, left an invaluable contribution to our understanding of Cherokee culture. His earlier works, include Cherokees and Missionaries, 1789-1839 (1984) and Cherokee Renascence in the New Republic (1986). After the Trail of Tears, published posthumously, is a sequel and a companion to Champions ofthe Cherokees: Evan and John B. Jones (1990). This book carries the Cherokee story beyond the 1839 forced removal and ends just before the 1898 Curtis Act dissolved the Cherokees' sovereign rights as a nation. McLoughlin focuses on the Cherokees ' struggle to rebuild their nation twice between the years 1839 and 1880, while they contended with white expansionism...