From the Land of The Cherokee

Similar to Mexican and South American immigrants coming into the United States today, the Scots-Irish emigrated in mass from Ireland into Appalachia some four hundred years ago after being displaced in their homeland by Scottish immigrants and enduring years of religious and political persecution there. Initially settling in Pennsylvania and North Carolina, their offspring began to migrate further inland, eventually into North Georgia after the Cherokee Indians left there in the early 1800s. There they could take advantage of the land lottery and claim a homestead for their families. This new land, previously the land of the Cherokee, immediately became the Scots-Irish culture in Diaspora. There they intermarried with the Cherokees and integrated their religious beliefs, traditions and cultural traits. Now insulated from the rest of the world in secluded enclaves, they began to focus exclusively on survival. I've titled this book "From The Land of The Cherokee" because the emergence of my ancestors from that backwoods North Georgia location during the mid-nineteenth century represents the figurative beginning of my life and that of my progeny. Even though the majority of my ancestors lived prior to that point in time and it was one hundred years before my birth, my DNA was symbolically cast there in a quasi-culture effectively created from the nexus of the Scots-Irish and Cherokee cultures, along with two distinct family structures living together in geographical isolation under economic austerity. The repercussions from that experiment still exist in my life today. This book attempts to describe how that happened, including some of the prominent traits of that culture and my perspective on it today.