March 26, 2014 In Before the Volunteer State, Kristofer Ray has gathered essays from eight scholars that add layers of complexity to the superficial story Tennesseans learn in school. The real story of Tennessee begins much earlier, in the anthropological records left by Native Americans as they adapted to European contacts. Then came the influx of settlers and frontier fortune hunters, and then the wars. The birth of Tennessee was not as simple, painless, or edifying as we may have thought.
Read morePre-Tennessee
A new essay collection edited by Kristopher Ray provides a scholarly look at Tennessee’s origins