Son of a Scottish trader and a quarter-Cherokee woman, Ross was educated in white schools and was only one-eighth Indian by blood. But as Cherokee chief in the mid-nineteenth century, he would guide the tribe through its most turbulent period. The Cherokees' plight lay at the epicenter of nearly all the key issues facing a young America: western expansion, states' rights, judicial power, and racial discrimination. Clashes between Ross and President Andrew Jackson raged from battlefields to the White House and Supreme Court. As whites settled illegally on the Nation's land, the chief steadfastly refused to sign a removal treaty. Only when a group of renegade Cherokees betrayed their chief and negotiated an agreement with Jackson's men was he forced to begin his journey west. In one of America's great tragedies, thousands died during the Cherokees' migration on the Trail of Tears.

Released as part of the Indigenous Peoples Bookbox.

Did some reading in this book, as I have been reading up lately on Sophia Sawyer, who taught in the mission schools in the East Cherokee Nation, and then founded the Female Seminary in the Western Cherokee Nation, in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

She lived with Sarah Bird Northrup Ridge after John Ridge was assassinated and she was also very close to John Ridge (that whole New England connection apparently.) Though she was never mentioned (based on the index), I learned more about Sarah and the missionary schools from this book.

Looks like an excellent account of a terribly sad part of American history.

Putting into the Indigenous writers & topics book box: https://www.bookcrossing.com/forum/20/573265/9900129