Christopher Arris Oakley
Professor
Ph.D., University of Tennessee
Office: Brewster A-315
Email: oakleyc@ecu.edu
Phone: 252.328.1025
Fax: 252.328.6774
Christopher Arris Oakley specializes in North Carolina History and Native American History. Oakley received his Ph.D. in History from the University of Tennessee in 2002. From 2002-03, he served as Assistant Editor for the James K. Polk project in Knoxville, where he worked on Volume X of The Correspondence of James K. Polk. From 2003-2005, he was Visiting Professor of History at High Point University. Oakley has published scholarly articles in The North Carolina Historical Review, Mississippi Quarterly, The Native South, and Southern Cultures. He has also presented papers at a number of professional conferences, including the Southern History Conference, the Western History Conference, the Native American Indigenous Studies Conference, and the Ethnohistory Conference. In 2005, University of Nebraska Press published Oakley’s first book, Keeping the Circle: American Indian Identity in Eastern North Carolina 1885-2004, as part of its Indians of the Southeast series. His most recent book is New South Indians: Tribal Economics and the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians in the Twentieth Century, published by the University of Tennessee Press in 2018. Oakley offers courses at both the graduate and undergraduate level in North Carolina History, Native American History, and American History.
Selected Publications:
Books
New South Indians: Tribal Economics and the Eastern Band of Cherokee in the Twentieth Century. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2018.
Greenville in the Twentieth Century. (Co-Author). Charleston: Arcadia Publishing, 2013.
Native Carolinians: The Indians of North Carolina. (Co-Author). Raleigh: N.C. Department of Cultural Resources, 2010.
Keeping the Circle: American Indian Identity in Eastern North Carolina, 1885-2004. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2005.
Articles
“A Quantitative Summary of Articles Published in the North Carolina Historical Review, 1970-2019.” The North Carolina Historical Review. Volume C, Number 3 (July 2023): 251-282.
“The Center of the World: The Principle People and the Great Smoky Mountains.” In Landscapes of Origin in the Americas,” edited by Jessica Christie. Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press, 2009.
“The Native South in the Post World War II Era,” Native South Vol. 1.1 (Fall 2008).
“When Carolina Indians Went on the Warpath: The Media, The Klan, and the Lumbee Indians of North Carolina.” Southern Cultures 14.4 (Winter 2008): 55-84
“The Legend of Henry Berry Lowry: Strike at the Wind and the Lumbee Indians of Robeson County.” Mississippi Quarterly (Summer 2007).
“Indian Gaming and the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians.” The North Carolina Historical Review LXXVIII (April 2001): 133-155.
Courses Offered:
HIST 1051: American History Since 1877
HIST 2000: Introduction to History
HIST 3100: North Carolina History
HIST 3170: History of Native Americans
HIST 5135: Problems in North Carolina History
HIST 6170: Native American Maritime History
HIST 6910: Seminar in American History