The Persistence of a Cultural Fault Line in the Cherokee Country
Abstract
In the early 1940s, Leslie Hewes stated that due to a different culture history, the boundary of northeastern Oklahoma's Cherokee Ozarks with adjacent Arkansas and Missouri was a cultural "fault line." From the examination of census data and from fieldwork, he demonstrated that on the Oklahoma side, land use was more primitive, buildings were more derelict, population was smaller and more rural, and trade was not as well developed. Pioneer conditions survived longer in the Cherokee Ozarks, claimed Hewes, due to the presence of poor conservative "full bloods," and more numerous non-progressive whites. Recently, the author updated Hewes' study to learn if his cultural fault line still existed. Every effort was made to replicate the original methodology. The same categories of data were examined in the current censuses, when possible, and field work duplicated that of the initial research. It was learned that Oklahoma lagged behind the area immediately to the east in every criterion. A conservative proclivity prevails in the Cherokee Ozarks, among Cherokees and whites alike. This is a case of "first effective settlement," where the earliest permanent settlers set the pattern and subsequent arrivals conformed.
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