Aaron Owens
History 1100
Dr. Parks
13 March 2015
Family, Race, and Society Tiya Miles’ book, Ties that Bind: The Story of an Afro-Cherokee Family in Slavery and Freedom, takes an in-depth look into a families struggle in the late 18th and early 19th century. The family made up of a Cherokee warrior; Shoe Boots, an African woman; Doll, and their mixed children William, Polly, Lewis, Elizabeth, and John ShoeBoots. The Shoeboots family faces off with issues of race, and society, often threatening their very family. By presenting numerous historical documents and notes, Miles uses the family’s history to show a larger picture, thousands of others facing the same difficulties as the ShoeBoots. Miles’ novel reflects an abnormal look at the 18 century, “…Cherokee history has often been
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With the flow of culture from Colonial America, the hunter-gather life style of the Cherokee began to be shaken to farming and weaving. This development lead to the more eastern view of African slaves as a source of labor, and less as a valuable member of the master’s kin. Shoe boot flowed the trend, and settled down in the Etowah River with his wife Clarinda, newly acquired slave Doll and a handful of other slaves. The story progress with a focus on relationships between masters and women slaves; often comparing slaves’ treatment similar to women in certain sects of Muslim, their treatment was often brutal and hopeless. Miles also address the likely dynamic in the household between Doll and Clarinda, “Like Harriet Jacobs, who devotes a chapter of her narrative “The Jealous Mistress,“ to the dynamic of white women’s anxiety about carnal contact between masters and slaves,” (pg 45). Soon Clarinda leaves Shoe boot with her children in hand, causing the relationship between Shoe boot and Doll to increase. With Doll eventaly giving birth to Shoe boots