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Cultural persistence as behavior towards risk: evidence from the North Carolina Cherokees, 1850-1880

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  • Gregg, Matthew T.

Abstract

Can economic theory help explain the persistence of a cultural enclave among the Cherokee Indians living in North Carolina during the nineteenth century? To date, Fogelson and Kutsche (1961) and Finger (1984) identify the continuation of a communal, labor-sharing agricultural institution called the gadugi as simply an example of Cherokee agency during a period of substantial upheaval. I contribute to the historiography on ancestral labor traditions by adopting Kimball's (1988) framework on the function of farming cooperatives to test whether this arrangement sprung up as a form of insurance against the idiosyncratic risk inherent in southern agriculture. Data collected from the 1850-1880 manuscript census returns on North Carolina Cherokee farms are used to compute the variance of household self-sufficiency, which appears substantial enough to warrant a non-market mechanism to pool risk.

Suggested Citation

  • Gregg, Matthew T., 2009. "Cultural persistence as behavior towards risk: evidence from the North Carolina Cherokees, 1850-1880," MPRA Paper 33915, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:33915
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    1. Gregg, Matthew T. & Wishart, David M., 2012. "The price of Cherokee removal," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 49(4), pages 423-442.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Risk-Sharing; Cooperatives; Cherokee Indians;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D81 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty
    • N11 - Economic History - - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Industrial Structure; Growth; Fluctuations - - - U.S.; Canada: Pre-1913
    • J54 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor-Management Relations, Trade Unions, and Collective Bargaining - - - Producer Cooperatives; Labor Managed Firms

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