Unto These Hills
play written by Kermit Hunter
Unto These Hills is an outdoor historical drama during summers at the 2,800-seat Mountainside Theatre in Cherokee, North Carolina. It is the third oldest outdoor historical drama in the United States, after The Lost Colony in Manteo in eastern North Carolina and The Ramona Pageant in Southern California. The first version of the play was written by Kermit Hunter and opened on July 1, 1950, to wide acclaim.
The play recounts the history of the Cherokee of the Eastern region up to their removal by United States forces in 1838 via the Trail of Tears to Indian Territory, now Oklahoma. The drama includes notable Cherokee historic figures, including Sequoyah, Junaluska, Chief Yonaguska a.k.a. Drowning Bear, and William Holland Thomas.
History
The Western North Carolina Associated Communities (WNCAC) in western North Carolina wanted to develop tourism and promote economic growth in the western part of the state. Inspired by the success of Paul Green's historic outdoor drama, or political pageant, The Lost Colony, the WNCAC decided to make another political pageant about the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI) in Cherokee, North Carolina. When Paul Green was unavailable to write a second play, they commissioned UNC graduate student Kermit Hunter to write the new outdoor drama. With the help of Joe Jennings, director Samuel Selden chose the EBCI's homeland of Cherokee, North Carolina, as the backdrop for the drama.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Unto These Hills” is play written by Kermit Hunter. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Unto, These and Hills, not as a finished interpretation.
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The phrase “play written by Kermit Hunter” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7897736. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1950 and 1838.
Titles can refer to several editions, objects or performances, making precise identification essential before interpretation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Unto These Hills” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.