Confederate Colonel and Cherokee Chief: The Life of William Holland Thomas

William Holland Thomas (1805-1893) was a unique transcultural figure. A white man from western North Carolina, he was adopted by a small Cherokee Indian band and later became its chief. Equally at home in a drawing room or at a Green Corn Dance, Thomas served as agent for the Oconaluftee Indians in Washington, protecting them from removal to the West in 1838 along the infamous Trail of Tears. Thomas was also a frontier merchant, a builder of railroads and turnpikes, a wealthy owner of land ...