Examines the Native American experience during the American Revolution.

Today, a fraction of the Cherokee people remains in their traditional homeland in the southern Appalachians. Most Cherokees were forcibly relocated to eastern Oklahoma in the early nineteenth century. In 1830 the U.S. government shifted its policy from one of trying to assimilate American Indians to one of relocating them and proceeded to drive seventeen thousand Cherokee people west of the Mississippi. The Cherokee Nation and the Trail of Tears recounts this moment in American history and considers its impact on the Cherokee, on U.S.-Indian relations, and on contemporary society. Guggenheim Fellowship-winning historian Theda Perdue and coauthor Michael D. Green explain the various and sometimes competing interests that resulted in the Cherokee?s expulsion, follow the exiles along the Trail of Tears, and chronicle their difficult years in the West after removal.

Chronicles the rise of the Cherokee Nation and its rapid decline, focusing on the Ridge-Watie family and their experiences during the Cherokee removal.

The following monograph on the history of the Cherokees, with its accompanying maps, is given as an illustration of the character of the work in its treatment of each of the Indian tribes. In the preparation of this book, more particularly in the tracing out of the various boundary lines, much careful attention and research have been given to all available authorities or sources of information. The old manuscript records of the Government, the shelves of the Congressional Library, including its very large collection of American maps, local records, and the knowledge of "old settlers," as well as the accretions of various State historical societies, have been made to pay tribute to the subject.

A sixth-generation North Carolinian, highly-acclaimed author John Ehle grew up on former Cherokee hunting grounds. His experience as an accomplished novelist, combined with his extensive, meticulous research, culminates in this moving tragedy rich with historical detail. The Cherokee are a proud, ancient civilization. For hundreds of years they believed themselves to be the "Principle People" residing at the center of the earth. But by the 18th century, some of their leaders believed it was necessary to adapt to European ways in order to survive. Those chiefs sealed the fate of their tribes in 1875 when they signed a treaty relinquishing their land east of the Mississippi in return for promises of wealth and better land. The U.S. government used the treaty to justify the eviction of the Cherokee nation in an exodus that the Cherokee will forever remember as the “trail where they cried.” The heroism and nobility of the Cherokee shine through this intricate story of American politics, ambition, and greed. B & W photographs

"This is Francis Paul Prucha's magnum opus. It is a great work. . . . This study will . . . [be] a standard by which other studies of American Indian affairs will be judged. American Indian history needed this book, has long awaited it, and rejoices at its publication."-American Indian Culture and Research Journal. "The author's detailed analysis of two centuries of federal policy makes The Great Father indispensable reading for anyone interested in understanding the complexities of American Indian policy."-Journal of American History. "Written in an engaging fashion, encompassing an extraordinary range of material, devoting attention to themes as well as to chronological narration, and presenting a wealth of bibliographical information, it is an essential text for all students and scholars of American Indian history and anthropology."-Oregon Historical Quarterly."A monumental endeavor, rigorously researched and carefully written. . . . It will remain for decades as an indispensable reference tool and a compendium of knowledge pertaining to United States-Indian relations."-Western Historical Quarterly. "Perhaps the crowning achievement of Prucha's scholarly career."-Vine Deloria Jr., America."For many years to come, The Great Father will be the point of departure for all those embarking on research projects in the history of government Indian policy."-William T. Hagan, New Mexico Historical Review. "The appearance of this massive history of federal Indian policy is a triumph of historical research and scholarly publication."-Lawrence C. Kelly, Montana. "This is the most important history ever published about the formulation of federal Indian policies in the United States."-Herbert T. Hoover, Minnesota History. "This truly is the definitive work on the subject."-Ronald Rayman, Library Journal.The Great Father was widely praised when it appeared in two volumes in 1984 and was awarded the Ray Allen Billington Prize by the Organization of American Historians. This abridged one-volume edition follows the structure of the two-volume edition, eliminating only the footnotes and some of the detail. It is a comprehensive history of the relations between the U.S. government and the Indians. Covering the two centuries from the Revolutionary War to 1980, the book traces the development of American Indian policy and the growth of the bureaucracy created to implement that policy.Francis Paul Prucha, S.J., a leading authority on American Indian policy and the author of more than a dozen other books, is an emeritus professor of history at Marquette University.