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Abstract

This paper includes ten tactics and case studies of historic preservation that support the survivance of the Cherokee Nation. In the U.S., tribal governments operate as distinct legal entities outside of municipal, county, state, and federal authority; however, the legal basis for historic preservation relies primarily on state and federal power. As tribal nations pursue self-determination through governance, healthcare, education, and language, historic preservation of the built environment becomes an additional tool of continued cultural survivance. This paper conceptualizes ten tactics toward sovereign indigenous cultural futures: (1) Get the Land Back, (2) Build Nations, (3) Spatialize Laws, (4) House All People, (5) Don’t Primitivize, (6) Stop Racializing, (7) Design for the Eighth Generation, (8) Garner Communal Practices, (9) Cultivate Hope, and (10) Project Indigenous Futures. This paper illustrates these tactics through ten case study buildings including the first (and second) Cherokee Female Seminary, the Cherokee National Prison, Sequoyah’s Cabin, and others. This paper includes a description of the conception of these ten tactics, a detailed analysis of the ten case study buildings, an examination of methods of historic designation, definitions of necessary terms, as well as references for further study. This paper operates as an act of survivance, an attestation of continued presence, the next line of a story that began long before my time – a story by ancestors that I will never know but that I will always know.