Literacy and Intellectual Life in the Cherokee Nation, 1820-1906: Volume 58 - Paperbackby James W. Parins (Author) Many Anglo Americans in the nineteenth century regarded Indian tribes as little more than illiterate bands of savages in need of "civilizing." Few were willing to recognize that one of the major Southeastern tribes targeted for removal west of the Mississippi already had an advanced civilization with its own system of writing and rich literary tradition. In Literacy and Intellectual Life in the Cherokee Nation, 1820 1906,