Current scholarship in Native American history has moved away from Indian-white relations and toward ethnohistory, a culture-based approach that focuses on changes within Native societies. In the morning, Green and Perdue focused on how ethnohistory can shape teaching about Indians in American history. In the afternoon, they continued that discussion, looking specifically at the Native people of North Carolina and some of the issues that concern them, in particular, sovereignty, recognition, and Indian identity.
Theda Perdue is Professor of History at UNC. She holds a Ph.D. in history from the University of Georgia, and she previously taught at Western Carolina University, Clemson University, and the University of Kentucky. Her publications include Slavery and the Evolution of Cherokee Society, 1540-1865 (1979), Nations Remembered: An Oral History of the Five Civilized Tribes (1980), Cherokee Editor (1983), Native Carolinians (1985), The Cherokee (1988), Southern Women: Histories and Identities (1992), Hidden Histories of Women of the New South (1994) The Cherokee Removal (1995), Cherokee Women: Gender and Culture Change, 1700-1835 (1998), and Sifters: Native American Women's Lives (2001). She is a fellow of the D'Arcy McNickle Center for the Study of the American Indian at the Newberry Library, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the UNC Institute for the Arts and Humanities. She serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Women's History, the Atlanta Historical Quarterly, and Southern Cultures.
Michael D. Green is Professor of American Studies and History at UNC. His Ph.D. is from the University of Iowa. A Fellow of the D'Arcy McNickle Center for the History of the American Indian at the Newberry Library, Green previously taught at West Texas State University and the University of Kentucky, and he chaired the Native American Studies program at Dartmouth College for eight years. His publications include The Creeks: A Critical Bibliography (1979), The Politics of Indian Removal: Creek Government and Society in Crisis (1985), The Creeks (1990), and The Cherokee Removal (1995). Green and Perdue have just completed The Columbia Guide to American Indians of the Southeast, which will be published by Columbia University Press in November 2001.