Four Mothers Society
The Four Mothers Society or Four Mothers Nation is a religious and traditionalist organization of Muscogee Creek, Cherokee and Chickasaw people, as well as the Natchez people enrolled in these tribes, in Oklahoma. It was formed as an opposition movement to the allotment policies of the Dawes Commission and various US Congressional acts in the 1890s; the society is religious in nature and opposed allotment because dividing tribal lands broke up tribal communities and resulted in "surplus" lands being seized and made available to non-Natives. There were over 24,000 members at the organization's peak; the Four Mothers Society, though it may have existing unrecognized for much of the 19th century, was formally founded as a dues-collecting organization about 1895 in Sulphur Springs, continued in this legal incarnation until 1915, much later. The naming is significant as Cherokee mothers are believed to be descended from Selu, the Corn Mother. With the passage of the Curtis Act in 1898 and Dawes Act, allotment became US policy and the various tribal governments were forced to allot land.
The fact that the existing governments broke up the land was considered an outrage by many of members of the Four Mothers Societies. Chitto Harjo set up a new Creek government in Henryetta, acknowledged as the legitimate government by many of the Creeks. In 1900 a meeting was held at Hickory ceremonial grounds in which Pleasant Porter and his government was declared to have violated the 1867 Creek Constitution, they declared Harjo to be the new principal chief. Redbird Smith became involved in the Four Mothers Society. In 1906, the group submitted a petition of one hundred eighty-six signatures to Congress, so that a delegation could be sent to Washington, D. C. to discuss their concerns over official tribal leadership. Harjo spoke before the Senate, supported by the Four Mothers Nation; the Four Mothers Society was associated with the movement for a State of Sequoyah. Besides opposing allotment, the Four Mothers Societies maintain ceremonial groups for stomp dances, stickball games, feasts and ceremonies.
In the late 1980s there was at least one dance ground left among the Chickasaw and another among the Cherokee. Today there are several Four Mothers Society grounds throughout eastern Oklahoma; as of 2015, there are still several Muscogee ceremonial grounds active, one remaining active among the Cherokee. The novels of LeAnne Howe speak of the Four Mothers Society in the context of traditional matriarchal culture, deals with it in Miko Kings. Black drink Tom; the Great Confusion in Indian Affairs: Native Americans and Whites in the Progressive Era. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2005: 25-27
Baptists
Baptists are Christians distinguished by baptizing professing believers only, doing so by complete immersion. Baptist churches generally subscribe to the tenets of soul competency/liberty, salvation through faith alone, scripture alone as the rule of faith and practice, the autonomy of the local congregation. Baptists recognize two ordinances: baptism and the Lord's supper. Diverse from their beginning, those identifying as Baptists today differ from one another in what they believe, how they worship, their attitudes toward other Christians, their understanding of what is important in Christian discipleship. Historians trace the earliest "Baptist" church to 1609 in Amsterdam, Dutch Republic with English Separatist John Smyth as its pastor. In accordance with his reading of the New Testament, he rejected baptism of infants and instituted baptism only of believing adults. Baptist practice spread to England, where the General Baptists considered Christ's atonement to extend to all people, while the Particular Baptists believed that it extended only to the elect.
Thomas Helwys formulated a distinctively Baptist request that the church and the state be kept separate in matters of law, so that individuals might have freedom of religion. Helwys died in prison as a consequence of the religious conflict with English dissenters under King James I. In 1638, Roger Williams established the first Baptist congregation in the North American colonies. In the 18th and 19th centuries, the First and Second Great Awakening increased church membership in the United States. Baptist missionaries have spread their faith to every continent. Baptist historian Bruce Gourley outlines four main views of Baptist origins: the modern scholarly consensus that the movement traces its origin to the 17th century via the English Separatists, the view that it was an outgrowth of Anabaptist traditions, the perpetuity view which assumes that the Baptist faith and practice has existed since the time of Christ, the successionist view, or "Baptist successionism", which argues that Baptist churches existed in an unbroken chain since the time of Christ.
Modern Baptist churches trace their history to the English Separatist movement in the 1600s, the century after the rise of the original Protestant denominations. This view of Baptist origins has the most historical support and is the most accepted. Adherents to this position consider the influence of Anabaptists upon early Baptists to be minimal, it was a time of considerable religious turmoil. Both individuals and churches were willing to give up their theological roots if they became convinced that a more biblical "truth" had been discovered. During the Protestant Reformation, the Church of England separated from the Roman Catholic Church. There were some Christians who were not content with the achievements of the mainstream Protestant Reformation. There were Christians who were disappointed that the Church of England had not made corrections of what some considered to be errors and abuses. Of those most critical of the Church's direction, some chose to stay and try to make constructive changes from within the Anglican Church.
They are described by Gourley as cousins of the English Separatists. Others decided they must leave the Church because of their dissatisfaction and became known as the Separatists. Historians trace the earliest Baptist church back to 1609 in Amsterdam, with John Smyth as its pastor. Three years earlier, while a Fellow of Christ's College, Cambridge, he had broken his ties with the Church of England. Reared in the Church of England, he became "Puritan, English Separatist, a Baptist Separatist," and ended his days working with the Mennonites, he began meeting in England with 60–70 English Separatists, in the face of "great danger." The persecution of religious nonconformists in England led Smyth to go into exile in Amsterdam with fellow Separatists from the congregation he had gathered in Lincolnshire, separate from the established church. Smyth and his lay supporter, Thomas Helwys, together with those they led, broke with the other English exiles because Smyth and Helwys were convinced they should be baptized as believers.
In 1609 Smyth first baptized himself and baptized the others. In 1609, while still there, Smyth wrote a tract titled "The Character of the Beast," or "The False Constitution of the Church." In it he expressed two propositions: first, infants are not to be baptized. Hence, his conviction was that a scriptural church should consist only of regenerate believers who have been baptized on a personal confession of faith, he rejected the Separatist movement's doctrine of infant baptism. Shortly thereafter, Smyth left the group, layman Thomas Helwys took over the leadership, leading the church back to England in 1611. Smyth became committed to believers' baptism as the only biblical baptism, he was convinced on the basis of his interpretation of Scripture that infants would not be damned should they die in infancy. Smyth, convinced that his self-baptism was invalid, applied with the Mennonites for membership, he died while waiting for membership, some of his followers became Mennonites. Thomas Helwys and others kept their Baptist commitments.
The modern Baptist denomination is an outgrowth of Smyth's movement. Baptists rejected the name Anabaptist. McBeth writes that as late as the 18th century, many Baptists referred to themselves as "the Christians commonly—though falsely—called Anabaptists."Another milestone in the early dev
Cherokee Heritage Center
The Cherokee Heritage Center is a non-profit historical society and museum campus that seeks to preserve the historical and cultural artifacts and traditional crafts of the Cherokee. The Heritage center hosts the central genealogy database and genealogy research center for the Cherokee People; the Heritage Center is located on the site of the mid-19th century Cherokee Seminary building in Park Hill, Oklahoma, a suburb of Tahlequah, was constructed near the old structure. It is a unit of the Cherokee National Historical Society and is sponsored by the Cherokee Nation, the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians, other area tribes; the center was known as Tsa-La-Gi but is now known as the Cherokee Heritage Center. The Cherokee Heritage center hosts an extensive collection of historic documents, cultural objects, relics from the 1830s march along the Trail of Tears; the Cherokee National Museum exhibit hosts an extensive collection of ancient artifacts from the Cherokee culture from ancient to modern times.
The Ancient Village, located on the grounds of the Cherokee Heritage Center, is a complete reproduction of a mid-18th century Cherokee Township as it would have been encountered by European explorers or settlers. A guided tour of the village includes stops in a traditionally constructed, seven-sided council house and a brush arbor as well as demonstrations of traditional crafts, hunting techniques and cultural practices. Visitors are invited to try their hand at playing stickball during the tour. On the grounds is the Adams Corner Rural Village which depicts a typical Cherokee settlement after removal to Indian Territory. Retired Army Colonel Marty Hagerstrand is credited as the founder of the Cherokee Heritage Center in 1962. Col. Hagerstrand had begun research in Cherokee history and culture, first as a hobby in the late 1950s. Joining him in this endeavor was Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation William Wayne Keeler. Chief Keeler had publicly stated that he supported preservation of Cherokee heritage.
The concept behind the Heritage Center was economic development combined with cultural preservation. Hagerstrand recognized the cultural value of the Cherokees in Tahlequah, Chief Keeler helped him to understand and appreciate more; the first newspaper in Oklahoma was the Cherokee Advocate, published September 26, 1844. The first four years the Heritage Center was in the basement of Mr. Hagerstrand's home. In 1966, a formal design contract was negotiated with the architectural-engineering firm of Hudgins, Thompson and Associates, which included a provision that Charles "Chief" Boyd would be the designer of the project. Mr. Boyd and his family moved to Tulsa from Colorado and joined the firm. Resource materials on Cherokee culture and history were available in the Cherokee Collection at the library of the local college – Northeastern State University. There was a collection of papers and pamphlets at the Gilcrease Institute in Tulsa and pertinent reports of the Bureau of American Ethnology of the Smithsonian Institution.
The late Dr. Jack Frederick Kilpatrick, a noted scholar of Cherokee heritage and student of Cherokee history offered substantial guidance and technical advice during the planning period and during construction of the village. Date and descriptions developed by Drs. Kneberg and Lewis at the University of Tennessee were helpful. Architect Boyd researched the Cherokee past, with particular attention to structures, arrived independently at a "format" for the ancient village which corresponded to previous concepts developed by Hagerstrand and Kilpatrick. Actual work commenced on the site of the future Heritage Center on February 23, 1966, under the supervision of Col. Hagerstrand who had agreed to terminate his private business interests and work full-time on the project as General Manager; the Cherokee Foundation, a private charitable foundation organized and maintained by Chief Keeler at Bartlesville, Oklahoma agreed to underwrite his salary and expenses during the construction period. Starting with a work crew of twelve full-blood Cherokees, the initial effort involved selective clearing of the jungle of vines and trees which covered the entire site, filling the sink holes that had a century before been a small basement under the old Cherokee seminary building, as well as excavating and salvaging foundation rock from the old seminary for use.
The force soon grew to four crews with up to 52 Cherokees employed. Village construction started in May 1966 and continued for over a year. Hand labor, native materials, ancient methods were used in order to create the most authentic atmosphere possible. A three-month "villager" training program, conducted in cooperation with the Bureau of Indian Affairs and NSU, was instituted in the late Spring of 1967 using Sequoyah High School facilities. Fifty to sixty Cherokees were trained as guides. Cherokee artist Cecil Dick provided advice for planting trees and herbs important to Cherokee culture; the grounds feature a wide variety of plant species, used for medicine, food and tools. The abundant native plant life in turn has attracted animal life and the Cherokee Heritage Center grounds has evolved in an excellent spot for birdwatching and hiking; the village at Tsa-La-Gi was dedicated and opened to the public on June 27, 1967, by Society President Keeler before an audience of over 5,000 people. He was assisted by a number of state dignitaries including Oklahoma Governor Dewey F. Bartlett, United States Senator A. S. "Mike" Monroney, Congressmen Ed Edmondson and Page Belcher, many other prominent officials.
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Cultural assimilation of Native Americans
The cultural assimilation of Native Americans was an assimilation effort by the United States to transform Native American culture to European–American culture between the years of 1790 and 1920. George Washington and Henry Knox were first to propose, in an American context, the cultural transformation of Native Americans, they formulated a policy to encourage the civilizing process. With increased waves of immigration from Europe, there was growing public support for education to encourage a standard set of cultural values and practices to be held in common by the majority of citizens. Education was viewed as the primary method in the acculturation process for minorities. Americanization policies were based on the idea that when indigenous people learned United States customs and values, they would be able to merge tribal traditions with American culture and peacefully join the majority of the society. After the end of the Indian Wars, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the government outlawed the practice of traditional religious ceremonies.
It established Native American boarding schools. In these schools they were forced to speak English, study standard subjects, attend church, leave tribal traditions behind; the Dawes Act of 1887, which allotted tribal lands in severalty to individuals, was seen as a way to create individual homesteads for Native Americans. Land allotments were made in exchange for Native Americans becoming US citizens and giving up some forms of tribal self-government and institutions, it resulted in the transfer of an estimated total of 93 million acres from Native American control. Most was sold to individuals or given out free through the Homestead law, or given directly to Indians as individuals; the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 was part of Americanization policy. The leading opponent of forced assimilation was John Collier, who directed the federal Office of Indian Affairs from 1933 to 1945, tried to reverse many of the established policies. Epidemiological and archeological work has established the effects of increased immigration of children accompanying families to North America from 1634–1640.
They came from areas where smallpox was endemic in the Netherlands and France, passed on the disease to indigenous people. Tribes such as the Huron/Wendat and others in the Northeast suffered epidemics after 1634. During this period European powers fought to acquire cultural and economic control of North America, just as they were doing in Europe. At the same time, indigenous peoples competed for dominance in the European fur trade and hunting areas; the French and Spanish powers sought to engage Native American tribes as auxiliary forces in their North American armies, otherwise composed of colonial militia in the early battles. In many cases indigenous warriors formed the great majority of fighting forces, which deepened some of their rivalries. To secure the help of the tribes, the Europeans signed treaties; the treaties promised that the European power would honor the tribe's traditional lands and independence. In addition, the indigenous peoples formed alliances for their own reasons, wanting to keep allies in the fur and gun trades, positioning European allies against their traditional enemies among other tribes, etc.
Many Native American tribes took part in King William's War, Queen Anne's War, Dummer's War, the French and Indian War. As the dominant power after the Seven Years' War, Great Britain instituted the Royal Proclamation of 1763, to try to protect indigenous peoples' territory from colonial encroachment of peoples from east of the Appalachian Mountains; the document defined a boundary to separate Native American country from that of the European community. In part, this justified the English taking complete control of lands on the European side, but the proclamation did not prevent individual ethnic European colonists from continuing to migrate westward; the British did not have sufficient forces to keep out colonists. Europeans and European governments continued to use military/diplomatic and economic force to secure control of more territories from Native Americans. For further information see European colonization of the Americas. From the Native American perspective, European control of an area means a dramatic change in their way of life, with free movement across hunting grounds curtailed or objected to, for instance, by Europeans who had different conceptions of property and the uses of land.
The struggle for empire in North America caused the United States in its earliest years to adopt an Indian policy similar to the one devised by Great Britain in colonial times. They realized that good relations with bordering tribes were important for political and trading reasons, but as had the British, they reserved the right to abandon these good relations to absorb the lands of their enemies and allies alike as the agricultural frontier moved west; the United States continued the use of Native Americans as allies, including during the American Revolutionary War and the War of 1812. As relations with England and Spain normalized during the early 19th century, the need for such friendly relations ended, it was no longer necessary to "woo" the tribes to prevent the other powers from using them against the United States. Now, instead of a buffer against other "civilized" foes, the tribes became viewed as an obstacle in the expansion of the United States. George Washington formulated a policy to encourage the "civilizing" process.
He had a six-point plan for civilization
Dawes Act
The Dawes Act of 1887, authorized the President of the United States to survey Native American tribal land and divide it into allotments for individual Native Americans. Those who accepted allotments and lived separately from the tribe would be granted United States citizenship; the Dawes Act was amended in 1891, in 1898 by the Curtis Act, again in 1906 by the Burke Act. The Act was named for Senator Henry L. Dawes of Massachusetts; the objectives of the Dawes Act were to abolish tribal and communal land ownership of the tribes into individual land ownership rights in order to transfer lands under Native American control to white settlers and stimulate assimilation of them into mainstream American society, thereby lift individual Native Americans out of poverty. Individual household ownership of land and subsistence farming on the European-American model was seen as an essential step; the act provided that the government would classify as "excess" those Indian reservation lands remaining after allotments, sell those lands on the open market, allowing purchase and settlement by non-Native Americans.
The Dawes Commission, set up under an Indian Office appropriation bill in 1893, was created to try to persuade the Five Civilized Tribes to agree to allotment plans. This commission registered the members of the Five Civilized Tribes on what became known as the Dawes Rolls; the Curtis Act of 1898 amended the Dawes Act to extend its provisions to the Five Civilized Tribes. This completed the extinguishment of tribal land titles in Indian Territory, preparing it to be admitted to the Union as the state of Oklahoma. During the ensuing decades, the Five Civilized Tribes sold off 90 million acres of former communal lands to non-Natives. In addition, many individuals, unfamiliar with land ownership, became the target of speculators and criminals, were stuck with allotments that were too small for profitable farming, lost their household lands. Tribe members suffered from the breakdown of the social structure of the tribes. During the Great Depression, the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration supported passage on June 18, 1934 of the US Indian Reorganization Act.
It ended land allotment and created a "New Deal" for Native Americans, renewing their rights to reorganize and form their self-governments. During the 1850s, the United States federal government's attempt to exert control over the Native Americans expanded. Numerous new European immigrants were settling on the eastern border of the Indian territories, where most of the Native American tribes were situated. Conflicts between the groups increased as they competed for resources and operated according to different cultural systems. Many European Americans did not believe that members of the two racial societies could coexist within the same communities. Searching for a quick solution to their problem, William Medill the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, proposed establishing "colonies" or "reservations" that would be for the natives, similar to those which some native tribes had created for themselves in the east, it was a form of removal whereby the US government would uproot the natives from their current locations to positions to areas in the region beyond the Mississippi River.
The new policy intended to concentrate Native Americans in areas away from encroaching settlers, but it caused considerable suffering and many deaths. During the nineteenth century, Native American tribes resisted the imposition of the reservation system and engaged with the United States Army in what were called the Indian Wars in the West for decades. Defeated by the US military force and continuing waves of encroaching settlers, the tribes negotiated agreements to resettle on reservations. Native Americans ended up with a total of over 155 million acres of land, ranging from arid deserts to prime agricultural land; the Reservation system, though forced upon Native Americans, was a system that allotted each tribe a claim to their new lands, protection over their territories, the right to govern themselves. With the Senate being able to intervene only through the negotiation of treaties, they adjusted their ways of life and tried to continue their traditions; the traditional tribal organization, a defining characteristic of Native Americans as a social unit, became apparent to the non-native communities of the United States and created a mixed stir of emotions.
The tribe was viewed as a cohesive group, led by a hereditary, chosen chief, who exercised power and influence among the members of the tribe by aging traditions. The tribes were seen as strong, tight-knit societies led by powerful men who were opposed to any change that weakened their positions. Many white Americans sought reformation; the Indians' failure to adopt the "Euroamerican" lifestyle, the social norm in the United States at the time, was seen as both unacceptable and uncivilized. By the end of the 1880s, a general consensus seem to have been reached among many US stakeholders that the assimilation of Native Americans into American culture was top priority. On February 8, 1887, the Dawes
President of the United States
The president of the United States is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces. In contemporary times, the president is looked upon as one of the world's most powerful political figures as the leader of the only remaining global superpower; the role includes responsibility for the world's most expensive military, which has the second largest nuclear arsenal. The president leads the nation with the largest economy by nominal GDP; the president possesses international hard and soft power. Article II of the Constitution establishes the executive branch of the federal government, it vests the executive power of the United States in the president. The power includes the execution and enforcement of federal law, alongside the responsibility of appointing federal executive, diplomatic and judicial officers, concluding treaties with foreign powers with the advice and consent of the Senate.
The president is further empowered to grant federal pardons and reprieves, to convene and adjourn either or both houses of Congress under extraordinary circumstances. The president directs the foreign and domestic policies of the United States, takes an active role in promoting his policy priorities to members of Congress. In addition, as part of the system of checks and balances, Article I, Section 7 of the Constitution gives the president the power to sign or veto federal legislation; the power of the presidency has grown since its formation, as has the power of the federal government as a whole. Through the Electoral College, registered voters indirectly elect the president and vice president to a four-year term; this is the only federal election in the United States, not decided by popular vote. Nine vice presidents became president by virtue of a president's intra-term resignation. Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 sets three qualifications for holding the presidency: natural-born U. S. citizenship.
The Twenty-second Amendment precludes any person from being elected president to a third term. In all, 44 individuals have served 45 presidencies spanning 57 full four-year terms. Grover Cleveland served two non-consecutive terms, so he is counted twice, as both the 22nd and 24th president. Donald Trump of New York is the current president of the United States, he assumed office on January 20, 2017. In July 1776, during the American Revolutionary War, the Thirteen Colonies, acting jointly through the Second Continental Congress, declared themselves to be 13 independent sovereign states, no longer under British rule. Recognizing the necessity of coordinating their efforts against the British, the Continental Congress began the process of drafting a constitution that would bind the states together. There were long debates on a number of issues, including representation and voting, the exact powers to be given the central government. Congress finished work on the Articles of Confederation to establish a perpetual union between the states in November 1777 and sent it to the states for ratification.
Under the Articles, which took effect on March 1, 1781, the Congress of the Confederation was a central political authority without any legislative power. It could make its own resolutions and regulations, but not any laws, could not impose any taxes or enforce local commercial regulations upon its citizens; this institutional design reflected how Americans believed the deposed British system of Crown and Parliament ought to have functioned with respect to the royal dominion: a superintending body for matters that concerned the entire empire. The states were out from under any monarchy and assigned some royal prerogatives to Congress; the members of Congress elected a President of the United States in Congress Assembled to preside over its deliberation as a neutral discussion moderator. Unrelated to and quite dissimilar from the office of President of the United States, it was a ceremonial position without much influence. In 1783, the Treaty of Paris secured independence for each of the former colonies.
With peace at hand, the states each turned toward their own internal affairs. By 1786, Americans found their continental borders besieged and weak and their respective economies in crises as neighboring states agitated trade rivalries with one another, they witnessed their hard currency pouring into foreign markets to pay for imports, their Mediterranean commerce preyed upon by North African pirates, their foreign-financed Revolutionary War debts unpaid and accruing interest. Civil and political unrest loomed. Following the successful resolution of commercial and fishing disputes between Virginia and Maryland at the Mount Vernon Conference in 1785, Virginia called for a trade conference between all the states, set for September 1786 in Annapolis, with an aim toward resolving further-reaching interstate commercial antagonisms; when the convention failed for lack of attendance due to suspicions among most of the other states, Alexander Hamilton led the Annapolis delegates in a call for a convention to offer revisions to the Articles, to be held the next spring in Philadelphia.
Prospects for the next convention appeared bleak until James Madison and Edmund Randolph succeeded in securing George Washington's attendance to Philadelphia as a delegate for Virginia. When the Constitutional Convention convened in May 1787, the 12 state delegations in attendance (Rh
Virginia Stroud
Virginia Alice Stroud is a Cherokee-Muscogee Creek painter from Oklahoma. She is an enrolled member of the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians. Virginia Stroud was born on 13 March 1951 in California, her mother died when she was eleven, so Stroud moved to Muskogee, Oklahoma to live with her sister. She sold her first painting at the age of 13. Stroud graduated from Muskogee High School in 1968. From 1968 to 1970, she attended Bacone College and studied art under Cheyenne painter Dick West, who made her his studio assistant, she attended the University of Oklahoma. In her late 20s, Stroud was adopted, following Kiowa tradition, as a daughter of Evelyn Tahome and Jacob Ahtone, a Kiowa couple. In 1969, Stroud served as Miss Cherokee Tribal Princess, she went on to win the title Miss National Congress of American Indians in 1970, in 1971, she was crowned Miss Indian America XVII. When Stroud competed for the title of princess in 1969, Cherokee women wanted her to represent the tribe in a "traditional" Cherokee outfit, problematic since Cherokee women wore contemporary mainstream fashions for at least two centuries and wore little clothing before that.
A committee of Cherokee women, appointed by Chief W. W. Keeler designed a dress based on a hundred-year-old Cherokee dress owned by a Cherokee lady, Wynona Day, from surrounding Southeast tribes' formal regalia, they created the "Tear Dress." Stroud paints with tempera and gouache and is a fine art printmaker. She has written and illustrated several children's books, she draws inspirations from historical ledger art. Over her career, Stroud developed a narrative style with minimal facial details in her people and lavish floral backgrounds, she paints kinetic wooden sculptures and fine art furniture. Her work is in such public collections as the Gilcrease Museum, Millicent Rogers Museum, Philbrook Museum of Art, Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art, Cherokee Heritage Center, Cherokee Nation Entertainment. Of her work, Stroud says, "I paint for my people. Art is a way for our culture to survive... the only way." In 1970, Stroud became the youngest Native artists to win first place in the Woodlands division of the Philbrook Museum's annual juried art show.
In 1982, the Indian Arts and Crafts Association honored Stroud as Artist of the Year. The Five Civilized Tribes Museum declared Stroud a Master Artist in 1986. In 2000, she was given the Cherokee Medal of Honor. Doesn't Fall off His Horse: A Cherokee Tale. Dial, 1994. ISBN 978-0-8037-1635-3. A Walk to the Great Mystery: A Cherokee Tale. Dial, 1995. ISBN 978-0-8037-1636-0; the Path of the Quiet Elk: A Native American Alphabet Book. Dial, 1996. ISBN 978-0-8037-1718-3. Sharron Ahtone Harjo Conley, Robert L. A Cherokee Encyclopedia. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2007. ISBN 978-0-8263-3951-5. Lester, Patrick D; the Biographical Directory of Native American Painters. Norman: Oklahoma University Press, 1995. ISBN 0-8061-9936-9. Power, Susan C. Art of the Cherokee: Prehistory to Present. Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press, 2007. ISBN 978-0-8203-2766-2
United States (
Oklahoma)
