'Unrelenting': EBCI exhibit reckons brilliantly with America 2026
‘Then and Now: Wrapped in Survival’ by Laura Walkingstick.
Lily Levin photo
On Independence Day 2026, the United States will have reached 250 years of sovereign nationhood, marked by the Declaration of Independence in 1776.
America250 was spearheaded by a Congressional caucus and supporting nonprofit as “a bipartisan initiative working to engage every American in the 250th anniversary of the United States.”
Events culminate July 4, inviting the public to “pause and reflect on our nation’s past, honor the contributions of all Americans, and look ahead toward the future we want to create.”
That task is more complicated for members of sovereign Indigenous nations, whose ancestors — among those whose humanity the Declaration of Independence refused to recognize — tended to the same soil thousands of years before the United States’ birth.
So, the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians decided to offer its own invitation: “Unrelenting: Cherokee People and the American Revolution,” a first voice collection at the Museum of the Cherokee People.
After four years of research and work on the part of the exhibit’s curators — Dakota Brown, the museum’s director of education; Evan Mathis, MotCP director of collections and exhibitions; and guest curator Brandon Dillard, director of historic interpretation and audience engagement at Monticello — “Unrelenting” premiered March 17 to a crowded audience.
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On display until Dec. 31, it brilliantly weaves archival pieces with contextual narrative signage with contemporary works, all of which were created either by enrolled members of the Eastern Band or Cherokee Nation.
Like America250, “Unrelenting” is a reflection, commemoration and celebration. But it tells a very different story.
Indeed, according to a blurb within the exhibition, “Today, many Cherokee People commemorate Independence Day just like other Americans with family cookouts, community gatherings, and fireworks displays, but as Cherokee people, we remember.”
The text does not specify what exactly is remembered, but given the theme, it’s likely got everything to do with the impact of settler contact — how the culturally rich society of the Cherokee people was attacked, degraded and demolished.
In fact, through art, “Unrelenting” invokes both pre- and post-colonial moments. The collection includes a variety of pieces — glasswork, archival medals, paintings, photography, feathered skirts and weaved baskets. Most are contemporary works, though some have been passed down through the generations.
And through words, “Unrelenting” shares the specific ways in which the Cherokee were harmed by British colonists.
A timeline on the far wall spans 1711 to the post-Revolutionary Era. The first date marks one of several inter-tribal skirmishes, some involving alliances with European nations. But the Anglo-Cherokee War in 1758 signified a turning point in these battlefield relations: British settlers declared war against tribal ancestors.
The most devastating period for the Cherokee people, however, coincided with the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Growing nationalist sentiments among white colonists led to widespread anti-Indigenous violence.
Following that two-year struggle, Cherokee life was once again impacted by the signing of documents. Indigenous leaders signed treaties broken repeatedly by settler Americans, even as the initial treaty had already involved ceding a certain amount of land.
Land wasn’t the only thing intentionally denied to tribal ancestors — through boarding schools and removal policies, colonists also attempted to erase the Cherokee language.
Loss of language isn’t merely about words; language holds tradition and values and ways of relating to the world.
Indigenous culture sees the universe as alive and autonomous and places humans and the earth in reciprocal relationship.
In Cherokee and other Indigenous languages, verbs, not nouns, are central linguistic components, making up the vast majority of spoken vocabulary. Nature is given agency and animacy — from animals to apples to rocks.
But the most recent UNESCO worldwide language study, conducted in 2010, listed Cherokee (Eastern dialect) as severely endangered, with 1,000 speakers.
According to PBS North Carolina, “fewer than 140 Cherokee speakers remain on their homeland; their average age is 65” as of July 2025.
The Eastern Band, however, has taken intentional and comprehensive strides to reclaim a once-silenced language through the Kituwah Preservation and Education Program — and by adding Cherokee words and phrases to activities and programs. “Unrelenting” is no exception.
“One of the methodologies that we’ve applied to this exhibition is the knowledge that’s contained in Cherokee language. So that’s very intentional. Anytime you see syllabary on the wall, that is intentional,” explained Shana Bushyhead Condill, the museum’s director.
“This is a Cherokee place,” she said.
Tension and contradiction
Drawing on his work at Monticello, guest curator and Cherokee Nation citizen Brandon Dillard said while founding father and former president Thomas Jefferson held democracy-centric ideals representing some of the most enlightened aspects of American society, his actions — which include enslaving more than 610 people and promoting Indigenous acculturation and debt accrual — embody some of its worst atrocities.
In that vein, Dillard told The Smoky Mountain News that “America250” is an opportunity for the public to reflect on this contradiction and envision how this country can be better, adding that striving for improvement has always been a core tenet of Cherokee people.
So, it’s no surprise that the artists of “Unrelenting” confront, engage with and reimagine what improvement and progress look like while exploring the tension between identifying as Indigenous and also American.
For example, EBCI member Laura Walkingstick’s “Then and Now: Wrapped in Survival” includes a rendition of the Betsy Ross flag at a cornhusk woman’s feet, bloody and torn. The doll stands tall and regal, surrounded by stalks of corn.
In her artist’s statement, Walkingstick explained the intentionality behind not centering the flag but the wisdom and dignity of the woman.
“She stands wrapped in her own cloak and in her own continuity — not defined by the instability at her feet but sustained by what surrounds her. Survival did not come from federal protection, it came from land, from women’s labor, from planting, and from story,” she wrote.
In this way, the artist is interrogating the American story by highlighting its contradictions and subverting them. In “Then and Now,” people are far more important than patriotism, and greed cannot undermine presence.
EBCI artist Louwana Jo Montelongo similarly conceptualized the 19th century narrative of Manifest Destiny by flipping it around.
‘Our Destiny, Manifested’ by Louwana Jo Montelongo. Lily Levin photo
Her piece, “Our Destiny, Manifested,” is a response to John Gast’s 1872 “American Progress,” which depicts a mindset of inevitable continental expansion and with it, settler domination of Indigenous lands and people. In the original painting, a pale woman dressed in white floats above colonists and their wagons as all trek from the enlightened east to the shadowy and merciless west. Native Americans cower before her, shrouded by dusk.
In Montelongo’s work, the central figure is an Indigenous woman adorned with beading and feathers to represent pre-colonial dress and wampum.
“She’s leaving behind all of the things that we wish to leave behind, environmental obstruction, extraction and destruction, imperialism, restriction of religion, religious freedom, imperialism, all of these things that are tied to the creation of America, she’s leaving behind. She’s walking into a future of food sovereignty, of spiritual healing, of language revitalization and community care,” said Montelongo.
Notably, the woman is facing eastward, turned away from the darkness in favor of the sun.
Her journey, Montelongo explained, represents tribal ancestors’ return to the pre-removal homelands of the Cherokee people.
