Appalachian Indians of the Warrior Mountains embodies the American Indian history of southern Appalachia, along with an underlying deep love of great Native places such as the High Town Path, Melton's Bluff, and Doublehead's Town. Rickey Butch Walker describes his childhood backyard using details that will paint a picture before your eyes of the life and times of Indian people. Find out the history of our Native Americans of the Southeastern United States, hear a story about a battle and love of a young Chickasaw maiden Magnolia, listen to the passion of Walker's voice as you read about the struggle of the removal of his own people to another land, and embark through time as you read this book. It is so important to preserve the history of our aboriginal people and realize that they played an important part of what our country is today. Some historians and books would like to start American history with Columbus, the founding presidents, or the first Thanksgiving where Indians are first mentioned. The truth is our story as Native Americans and our American history starts way before Columbus; the first people struggled for survival thousands of years before European explorers made their first appearance in this country. Rickey Butch Walker does an excellent job in this book of keeping our past alive for present day; and, he gives this gift to our youth in order for them to have a record and recollection of their ancestors for years to come. Without these facts being passed or these stories being told, our heritage would slowly fade and dry up like a grape in the sun. I appreciate the fact that Rickey Butch Walker fights to keep our American Indian stories of the Southeastern United States fading from the pages of history. Brandy W. Sutton

Many years ago, Rickey Butch Walker took his tape recorder and camera and systematically began interviewing some of the oldest living descendants of the pioneer families of the Warrior Mountains of northwest Alabama. No price can be put on the stories that he recorded. He captured sanpshoots of Americana and family history that would have been lost forever. These historical sketches and photographs will be revered forever by the descendants of the families who lived on mountain farms in one of Alabama's most rugged back country. His down-to-earth style of writing is reminiscent of summer afternoons that I have spent in a front porch chair capitivated and fascinated by listening to the old timers telling of the old days and the old ways. My, the world has changed and maybe not for the better. - Lamar Marshall, Cultural Heritage Director, Wild South

In the first book to focus on relations between Indians and emigrants on the overland trails, Michael L. Tate shows that such encounters were far more often characterized by cooperation than by conflict. Having combed hundreds of unpublished sources and Indian oral traditions, Tate finds Indians and Anglo-Americans continuously trading goods and news with each other, and Indians providing various forms of assistance to overlanders. Tate admits that both sides normally followed their own best interests and ethical standards, which sometimes created distrust. But many acts of kindness by emigrants and by Indians can be attributed to simple human compassion. Not until the mid-1850s did Plains tribes begin to see their independence and cultural traditions threatened by the flood of white travelers. As buffalo herds dwindled and more Indians died from diseases brought by emigrants, violent clashes between wagon trains and Indians became more frequent, and the first Anglo-Indian wars erupted on the plains. Yet, even in the 1860s, Tate finds, friendly encounters were still the rule. Despite thousands of mutually beneficial exchanges between whites and Indians between 1840 and 1870, the image of Plains Indians as the overland pioneers’ worst enemies prevailed in American popular culture. In explaining the persistence of that stereotype, Tate seeks to dispel one of the West’s oldest cultural misunderstandings.