Oakley, Christopher Arris

PERSONAL:

Education: University of Tennessee, Ph.D., 2002.

ADDRESSES:

Office—East Carolina University, News Bureau, East 5th St., Greenville, NC 27858-4353. E-mail—oakleyc@mail.ecu.edu; oakleyc@ecu.edu.

CAREER:

James K. Polk project, Knoxville, TN, assistant editor, 2002-03; High Point University, High Point, NC, visiting professor of history, 2003-05; East Carolina University, Greenville, NC, assistant professor of history.

WRITINGS:

Keeping the Circle: American Indian Identity in Eastern North Carolina, 1885-2004, University of Nebraska Press (Lincoln, NE), 2007.

SIDELIGHTS:

After Christopher Arris Oakley received his Ph.D. in history from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, he became an assistant editor for the James K. Polk project, which was organized to edit and publish the papers of the former president. He has taught American history at High Point University in North Carolina and at East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina. He specializes in North Carolina history, and in the history of Eastern Native American tribes. Oakley's first book, Keeping the Circle: American Indian Identity in Eastern North Carolina, 1885-2004, which was published by the University of Nebraska as part of a series on the Indians of the Southeast, reflects this interest. Oakley takes his title from a quote by Senora Lynch, a Native American activist: "Keeping the circle represents generation after generation. Keeping tradition alive, visiting with each other is all part of the circle." Keeping the circle by maintaining cultural traditions and teachings, passing them from generation to generation is of paramount importance to Native Americans. In an interview for the East Carolina University Web site, Oakley said: "I became intrigued by how the Indian communities in eastern North Carolina have maintained their identity, especially since the Jim Crow era. I found that they employed several strategies during the past 100 years and those strategies have changed over time."

In Keeping the Circle, Oakley writes about those strategies and the experiences of the Native Americans of North Carolina during the twentieth century as they struggle to maintain their culture and tribal identities. According to Jack Campisi, who reviewed the book for the Journal of Southern History, this was a difficult task: "Oakley sets out on an ambitious enterprise, made doubly so by the diversity among the tribes and the complexities of their histories." Oakley examines the multitude of tribal communities in North Carolina and explains how they maintained their identities and organized themselves through the 1900s. He found that isolated farming communities and segregated schools and churches actually allowed Native Americans to retain their tribal identities, and the twenty-first-century resurgence of Pow Wow supports and encourages tribal identity for those not living on reservations. Oakley introduces his readers to stories and traditions, such as the character of Henry Berry Lowry, a Native American Robin Hood. He also talks at some length about specific political issues, such as how Native Americans both identified with and separated themselves racially from African Americans, the ebb and flow of newly formed tribes through the 1940s and 1950s, and the difficulties tribes consistently have in obtaining U.S. government recognition.

Critics were especially pleased by Keeping the Circle because of the dearth of information formerly available about Eastern Native American tribes. In the North Carolina Historical Review, for example, Joshua Piker wrote: "The book's signal virtue is the contribution it makes to our all-too-limited knowledge of eastern Indians in general, of North Carolina's Indians in particular." Meg Devlin O'Sullivan, writing on H-Net: Humanities and Social Sciences Online, had similar praise: "Christopher Arris Oakley skillfully outlines changes that many Native Americans faced during the twentieth century while focusing on the particular experience of eastern North Carolina Indians…. Keeping the Circle is a welcome addition to the growing historiography of Native Americans in the twentieth century…. It is a significant piece of scholarship for both its subject matter and analytical framework." Calling the book an "important addition" to current studies, Christina Snyder wrote in her review on H-Net: Humanities and Social Sciences Online: "Everyone interested in Southern or Native American history should pick up this eminently readable book…. Keeping the Circle represents an important step toward a more inclusive narrative of Southern history."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Historical Review, December 1, 2006, Paul C. Rosier, review of Keeping the Circle: American Indian Identity in Eastern North Carolina, 1885-2004, p. 1559.

American Indian Culture and Research Journal, January 1, 2006, Malinda Maynor Lowery, review of Keeping the Circle, p. 154.

Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, July 1, 2006, G. Gangnon, review of Keeping the Circle.

History: Review of New Books, March 22, 2006, Rosemary Christensen, review of Keeping the Circle, p. 76.

Journal of Southern History, November 1, 2006, Jack Campisi, review of Keeping the Circle, p. 967.

North Carolina Historical Review, April, 2006, Joshua Piker, review of Keeping the Circle, pp. 267-268.

ONLINE

East Carolina University Web site,http://www.ecu.edu/ (May 22, 2008) author interview and curriculum vitae.

H-Net: Humanities and Social Sciences Online,http://www.h-net.org/ (February, 2006), Meg Devlin O'Sullivan, review of Keeping the Circle; (August, 2007), Christina Snyder, review of Keeping the Circle.