The Spur Award-winning author of Geronimo brings a unique voice to the western novel--the voice of an Indian. A Cherokee himself, Conley now tells the story of Zeke Proctor, a Cherokee veteran of the Civil War, and the only person to ever sign a peace treaty with the U.S. government.

A history of two Cherokee men and the personal hardships they faced against the US government in the nineteenth century. The expanding American frontier in the late 1800s created a battleground on which white and Indian cultures inevitably clashed. Slowly and inexorably the Native Americans were pushed from their land and stripped of their birthright. This engrossing volume documents the lives of the last Cherokee warriors—Ned Christie and Ezekiel Proctor—two angry men who struggled against the tide of history and the power of the United States government to slow the encroaching whites and preserve their Cherokee heritage.

Full of adventure, grace, and tragedy, Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana tell the story of two powerful Cherokee warriors searching for the future of Indian Territory. Zeke and Ned is the story of Ezekiel Proctor and Ned Christie, the last Cherokee warriors—two proud, passionate men whose remarkable quest to carve a future out of Indian Territory east of the Arkansas River after the Civil War is not only history, but legend. Played out against an American West governed by a brutal brand of frontier justice, this intensely moving saga brims with a rich cast of indomitable and utterly unforgettable characters such as Becca, Zeke's gallant Cherokee wife, and Jewel Sixkiller Proctor, whose love for Ned makes her a tragic heroine. At once exuberant and poignant, bittersweet and brilliant, Zeke and Ned takes us deep into the hearts of two extraordinary men who were willing to go the distance for the bold vision they shared—and for the women they loved.

These pages are filled with memories and favorite tales that capture the essence of life in the Cherokee Nation. Ms. Duvall invites the reader to follow the tribe from its pre-historic days in the southeast, to early 20th century life in the Cookson Hills of Oklahoma. Learn about Pretty Woman, who had the power over life and death, or the mystical healing springs of Tahlequah. Spend some time with U.S. Deputy Marshals as they roam the old Cherokee Nation in pursuit of Indian Territory outlaws like Zeke Proctor and Charlie Wickliffe, or wander the famous haunted places where ghost horses still travel an ancient trail and the spirits of long-dead Spaniards still search for gold.

No period of United States history is more important and still less understood than Reconstruction. Now, at the sesquicentennial of the Reconstruction era, Vernon Burton and Brent Morris bring together the best new scholarship on the critical years after the Civil War and before the onset of Jim Crow, synthesizing social, political, economic, and cultural approaches to understanding this crucial period. Reconstruction was the most progressive period in United States history. Although marred by frequent violence and tragedy, it was a revolutionary era that offered hope, opportunity, and against all odds, a new birth of freedom for all Americans. Even though many of the gains of Reconstruction were rolled back and replaced with a repressive social and legal regime for African Americans, the radical spark was never fully extinguished. Its spirit fanned back into flame with the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s, and its ramifications remain palpable to this day.

The five largest southeastern Indian groups - the Cherokees, Chickasaws, Choctaws, Creeks, and Seminoles - were forced to emigrate west to the Indian territory (now Oklahoma) in the 1830s. Here, from WPA interviews, are those Indians' own stories of the troubled years between the Civil War and Oklahoma statehood - a period of extraordinary turmoil. During this period, Oklahoma Indians functioned autonomously, holding their own elections, enforcing their own laws, and creating their own society from a mixture of old Indian customs and the new ways of the whites. The WPA informants describe the economic realities of the era: a few wealthy Indians, the rest scraping a living out of subsistence farming, hunting, and fishing. They talk about education and religion - Native American and Christian - as well as diversions of the time: horse races, fairs, ball games, cornstalk shooting, and traditional ceremonies such as the Green Corn Dance.

"Robert Conley spins a fast-action tall tale salted with Western humor."—Elmer Kelton, author of The Time It Never Rained Half Cherokee and Civil War veteran Captain Skylar Garret returns to the home of Phillip Garret his white father, seeking an inheritance that he believes to have belonged to his late mother. Intertwined now into the lives of his three half brothers—one a vocal atheist, one an aspiring minister, and the other a black slave boy who Phillip Garret doesn't claim—Skylar finds himself in more than a quarrel for money, but also in the middle of a love triangle with his own father, and ultimately on trial for patricide. Will Skylar Garret be the next hanging from Judge Parker's court? PRAISE FOR ROBERT J. CONLEY "Conley speaks with a clear Cherokee Indian voice to show how his tribe's cultural characteristics have survived centuries of abrupt change."—The Cherokee Advocate "...his prose and analyses, effortlessly blending indigenous and local knowledge with the larger Western cultural canon, have undeniable charm and enduring value."—Publishers Weekly "[Robert Conley is] in the ranks of N. Scott Momaday, Louise Erdrich, James Welch or W. P. Kinsella as interpreters of the many facets of the Native American experience." —Fort Worth Star-Telegram "No one weaves a tribal story quite like Robert Conley. Conley's books are entertaining, colorful, and chock-full of tribal history and culture."—Wilma R Mankiller, former Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation "Robert Conley is one of the most underrated and overlooked writers of our time, as well as the most skilled."—Don Coldsmith, author of Moon of Madness