Cherokee Motherhood

Perhaps the Cherokee nature of adapting western culture for their own benefit can be traced back to Cherokee Mothers and their decisions to enroll their children into Missionary schools set up by Americans. These mothers sought to best equip their children, and their community for the increasingly western world, and by educating the next generation in English, they sought to raise powerful individuals capable of straddling both worlds while strengthening the Cherokees traditions and way of life (Smith 2010:404).
The missionaries that were welcomed into the Cherokee Nation had two goals, conversion and education. They were part of a larger movement by the U.S. government to promote assimilation of the Cherokee peoples into their definition
The western idea of motherhood was one of a virtuous and affectionate bond between mother and child with the father being the main disciplinarian (Smith 2010:416). However, Cherokee women were tasked with the job of giving out punishments, which were usually comprised of scoldings and lectures (Smith 2010:419). When their role as disciplinarian was questioned or if a mother became unhappy with the methods of the missionary schools they would quickly pull their children out of the school's care (Smith 2010:423). Mothers often did pull their children out of school either for family visits or important communities events such as the Green Corn festival. These breaks were instrumental to the mother's mission of keeping their children firmly connected to their heritage and culture while still benefiting from what the missionary school could offer (Smith 2010:418). Missionaries were set up for classes with this practice when they would allow the fathers of children to enroll and pull children out from these schools without the express permission of the mother. This stemmed from the missionaries lack of understanding about the standing of a Cherokee mother in their culture. The father taking such a step in undermining the mother's authority in
A knowledge of the English language was considered very valuable to a people who were continually being swindled and tricked into bad property deals with white settlers (Smith 2010:420). The pages of missionaries records tell the stories of many mothers giving their children up and then coming back from them. The separation of a mother and child was certainly a sacrifice that was taken in order to better preserve a future for the community as a