CHEROKEE HISTORY AND THE SPIRIT FAMILY | A Busboys and Poets Books Presentation
Date and Time
Feb 21, 2024 6:00 pm
Location
14th & V
2021 14th St NW, Washington, District of Columbia, 20009
Feb 21, 2024 6:00 pm
14th & V
A sweeping, yet personal view of one of America’s biggest historical tragedies, Cherokee History and the Spirit Family interweaves one family's journey on the Trail of Tears with the larger cultural and multinational impacts of Cherokee displacement from the southeastern United States.
Thoroughly researched and eloquently told by author and Spirit family descendant James Barnes, this resonant, non-fiction history showcases the amazing resiliency of a people who refuse to let suffering keep them from maintaining joy, love, and cultural identity. Follow the Spirit family from 1826-1910, through one of the darkest periods of cultural persecution in our nation's history, as they fight, grieve, and advocate for the Cherokee Nation's sovereignty in the face of steep opposition from the United States government.
A multi-generational account of perseverance and hope, Barnes skillfully weaves his family's and Nation's history together to bring both alive. Providing both a broad historical canvas for understanding Cherokee history and an intimate view of family lives during the critical periods of removal, the Civil War, and Allotment, this book will resonate deeply with audiences of research driven, historical non-fiction.
James Barnes is joining us on the Busboys stage to share his experiences researching his family history, reconnecting with his ancestor Annie Spirit, and the brutal truth of Cherokee history in the United States. Copies of the book will be available for purchase during and after the event, and Barnes will be signing following the program.
This event is free and open to all. Our program begins at 6:00 pm, and will be followed by an audience Q&A. Copies of CHEROKEE HISTORY AND THE SPIRIT FAMILY will be available for purchase before and after the event. Please note that this event is in person and will not be livestreamed.
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Jim Barnes was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1944. His family visited his father’s Cherokee mother, Nellie Maude Mayes, her siblings Maggie and Hazel and other relatives in Tahlequah and Muskogee several times a year until he was 12. Maude was a teacher, painter and musician who imbued Jim with a passion for Cherokee history. His Uncle James Thompson, after whom he was named, was Treasurer of Cherokee County following dissolution of the Cherokee Nation in 1905. In 2014 Jim began researching the lives of his great-great grandmother Annie Spirit and her extended family, and the larger story of Cherokee sovereignty, which resulted in “CHEROKEE HISTORY AND THE SPIRIT FAMILY”. It was published on January 2024 by the University of North Georgia Press. Jim’s Cherokee cousins helped track down important family information, photos, paintings and artifacts such as Annie Spirit’s smoking pipe. His great-grandfather William Penn Mayes, who died in 1944, the year Jim was born, was Chief Interpreter for the Cherokee Senate in the late 1880s and early 1890s. Two of Jim’s great-great uncles, Joel Bryan Mayes and Samuel Houston Mayes, were elected Principal Chiefs of the Cherokee Nation in 1887 and 1896. Jim has been a registered citizen of the Cherokee Nation for more than forty years.
Jim received a Juris Doctor degree cum laude from the University of Michigan in 1970. After clerking for U.S. District Judge John Pratt in Washington, D.C. Jim joined the litigation team opposing the Alaska Pipeline project at the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP). After serving as a public defender for two years in Washington and one year in the New Hebrides Islands, he rejoined CLASP in 1977, serving as co-director in 1981-82. While there, he founded the Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition (ASOC) in 1978, bringing together environmental organizations around the world to advocate for protection of Antarctica. Jim led successful campaigns to create the world’s first ‘ecosystem-as- a-whole’ fishing regime from 1978-1980; to block a proposed treaty that would have opened Antarctica to drilling and mining from 1983-1989; and agreement on the Environmental Protocol to the Antarctic Treaty in 1991, which bans minerals activities indefinitely and created a modern governance structure for the region. He retired as ASOC Executive Director in 2015 and today serves as Board Chair.
Barnes lives in Villamblard France with his wife, Anne, and continues to advise international environmental organizations.
Bruce Rich is an American writer and lawyer who has published extensively on the environment in developing countries and development in general, as well as on history and philosophy. He has worked with major U.S. environmental groups and international organizations over the past four decades. He has known James Barnes personally and professionally since 1980. Awarded the United Nations Environment Program Global 500 Award for Environmental Achievement, he has testified many times before the U.S. Congress concerning U.S. participation in international financial institutions. Rich has written for publications such as the Financial Times, The Ecologist, and The Nation, as well as for Environmental Forum, the policy journal of the Washington DC Environmental Law Institute, where he is a Visiting Scholar.
He is working on a new book exploring the dilemmas of our globalized, fractured world through the lenses of travel, history, and philosophy.
