Amanda Swimmer

Swimmer was born Amanda Mabel Sequoyah to Molly Davis Sequoyah and Runningwolf Sequoyah on 27 October 1921 on the Qualla Boundary in North Carolina.[1][2][3] Amanda was the youngest of 12.[4] As a child, she lived with her family in a log cabin in Big Cove, a community of the Qualla Boundary. Her family was self-sufficient, and grew all of its own food.[1] When she was younger Swimmer attended Big Cove Day School.[4]

Swimmer taught herself to form and fire pots after discovering a deposit of clay near her home in the Big Cove community. She sold her first pots to tourists that a park ranger brought to her home. At the age of thirty-six, she began working at the Oconaluftee Indian Village, where she learned traditional methods of pottery building from Mabel Bigmeat. Amanda Swimmer demonstrated pottery making at the village for more than thirty-five years, often building more than a thousand pots in a summer season.[5] Swimmer was one of the first individuals to propose different uses and names for traditional Cherokee pottery.[6]

She used traditional Cherokee pottery techniques that fell into disuse in North Carolina after the Cherokee were forced to move from their homeland to lands in the American West. Swimmer created her pottery using traditional Cherokee techniques, and did not use a potters wheel to create any of her work. Instead, she created all of her pottery with her hands, and used various types of wood to fire it, and the final color of her pottery was determined by the type of wood that she used.[7]

Swimmer was named a recipient of the North Carolina Heritage Award in 1994. In 2009 she received the Mountain Heritage Award from Western Carolina University for her work in traditional pottery.[7] In 2018 the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians honored Swimmer as a Beloved Woman, the highest award the federally recognized tribe can bestow on one of its members. At the time it was awarded, she was one of three living recipients.[2]

Swimmer (née Sequoyah) married Luke Swimmer at age 16.[1][4] Luke was eleven years her senior, a widower and a father. After marriage she became a step-mother to his daughter, Mary Ellen.[4] Amanda recalls how they met, “Well, he used to stay over there across on the other side of the mountain; we went to church and we just got together, I met him there.”[4] Together Amanda and Luke welcomed nine more children, six boys and three girls.[4]

Swimmer was quoted as saying "I wouldn't take nothing to leave out of here. I'm 81. I've been here since I was born, and I don't tend to go nowheres. I just want to leave this world right here where I was born."[8] Swimmer died at her home in Big Cove on November 23, 2018 at the age of 97.[9]

• Jeremiah Wolfe
• Myrtle Driver Johnson