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Toward the Setting Sun: John Ross, the Cherokees and the Trail of Tears [NOOK Book]
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A vigorous account of the forced removal of the Cherokee people from their southern homelands and the complex events leading to what the author does not hesitate to call a "death march."
Charleston Post and Courier senior writer Hicks (When the Dancing Stopped: The Real Story of the Morro Castle Disaster and Its Deadly Wake, 2006, etc.) shapes his story around tribal leader John Ross, popularly known as "the Cherokee Moses," who led his people to Oklahoma and thereafter tried to forge of their reservation a true independent state. "He was the architect of the tribe's greatest period of advancement; he made the Cherokees the most civilized of American Indian tribes," writes the author. It is no small curiosity that Ross was as white as were the settlers who infringed on Cherokee territory and eventually displaced his people, whose number he joined by choice out on the frontier. In fact, he "barely had any Indian blood coursing through his veins. Yet, as Hicks, himself of Cherokee ancestry, capably argues, Ross was perhaps the greatest of all Cherokee leaders, even though in many ways he failed at his efforts. For one thing, he often outflanked but could never completely outrun Andrew Jackson, who was bent on making the hunting grounds of the Cumberland Plateau a white domain. Even before he became president, Jackson wanted to force the Indians of the southeast onto distant reservations to the west. For another, Ross's efforts were often undone by tribal factionalism, betrayed even by his own brother. In his attempts to forge a true confederacy of Cherokee bands, he failed to reckon with private jealousies and with the demands of Indians who had already moved west before Ross and his people arrived. Hicks writes with appropriate indignation of their removal, calling it "little more than a human cattle drive." He also takes a measured view of Ross's opponents and allies alike, shedding new light on the career of other eminent figures such as the newspaperman and Confederate general Stand Watie.
A welcome addition to Cherokee history.
From the prologue:
When Harris cocked his rifle, Ross wheeled his horse around and galloped off, retreating by the sound of the gun’s report. Ross knew the countryside well, and that knowledge gave him an advantage in the dark. He rode fast, knowing that it was not only himself, but the entire Cherokee Nation he had to save. The tribe depended on him; there was no one else who could stop Jackson.
Even though the attack made his blood boil, turning to fight never occurred to Ross. He was not a warrior, and he knew it. Ross’s only thoughts were of escape. Although it would have been natural to be afraid, Ross was more annoyed than anything else. The attack was just something else standing in the way of his business. He knew that he must get away, but he still had much work to do.
Andrew caught up to Ross within minutes, and the two rode quickly and quietly through the night. After a while, they turned off the trail that led to Coodey’s, not wanting to bring this trouble on their nephew.
As his horse sprinted, dodging branches on the narrow trail, John Ross had little time to wonder who had sent this man Harris. Had it been the governor of Georgia, the president of the United States, or one of his own tribesmen? In truth, he knew it mattered very little at that moment, because he could hear the man gaining.
And then, another shot rang out in the dark.
Overview
Toward the Setting Sun chronicles one of the most significant but least explored periods in American history, recounting the little known story of the first white man to champion the voiceless Native American cause.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 ...