The Real People Books
In America prior to European settlement, the Cherokee people look to their priests to rescue them from famine, drought, and death, but the priests are only interested in preserving their own power, in a story based on Cherokee legend. Reprint.
Based on oral histories and Native American folklore, a story recreating a dramatic event in Cherokee legend--the overthrow of the priests--recounts the suffering, abuse, and human sacrifice that forced a people to rise up in rebellion. Reprint.
Overthrowing their despotic priests, the Real People of the Cherokee nation struggle with an uncertain future, internal feuds, and the ruthless Suwali people, and put their fates in the hands of a single surviving priest. Reprint.
Sold into slavery as an interpreter for the ruthless gold-seeking conquistador Don Hernando De Soto, elderly Deadwood Lighter vows to escape De Soto in order to warn the Cherokee nation of his imminent arrival. Reprint.
Slipping away from his Cherokee tribe in the hopes of finding his Spaniard father, young Asquani hopes to attain the acceptance that was forbidden to him by his mother's people but must eventually choose between two conflicting heritages. Reprint.
After his older brother is killed by a Seneca warrior, Young Puppy, a hotheaded young Cherokee, journeys to Seneca country intent on vengeance, and his actions bring both triumph and tragedy to his tribe. By the author of The Dark Island. Reprint.
Spanning ninety years and both the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, this story of War Woman documents the life of a remarkable Cherokee woman, who was there when trading began with the Spanish in Florida and at the first conflict with the newly arrived English colonists. Reprint. 10,000 first printing.
In The Peace Chief, one young Cherokee must be reborn to lead his people through the difficult early days of sixteenth-century European expansion into America. Conley tells the story of Young Puppy, a member of the Long Hair Clan who mistakenly kills his best friend, Asquani. To avoid being killed--the usual remedy for restoring balance between the two clans--Young Puppy flees to the sanctuary of Kituwah, where, after a year in exile, his offense will be forgiven. Spiritually reborn as Comes Back to Life, he becomes the ceremonial leader of his people: the Peace Chief.
Few writers portray Native American life and history as richly, authentically, and insightfully as Robert J. Conley. Conley represents an important voice of the Cherokee past. The novels in his Real People series combine powerful characters, gripping plots, and vivid descriptions of tradition and mythology to preserve Cherokee culture and history. In Cherokee Dragon, the tenth novel in the series, Robert Conley explores the life if Dragging Canoe, the last great war chief of the united Cherokee tribe. In the late eighteenth century, as the English settlers begin steadily encroaching upon the Cherokee lands, the Nation divided among several towns and many chiefs?unites in a series of battles. But the united front is not one that lasts: Dragging Canoe’s belief that they must fight the settlers to preserve their lands and their culture is far from universal.
Robert J. Conley is one of the most acclaimed writers of the American West and of his own people, the Cherokee, having won myriad fans with his moving historical novels about the Real People. In Spanish Jack , he brings to vivid life one of the most complicated figures in one of the most difficult times in Cherokee history. Jack Spaniard-- known as "Spanish Jack"-- was a Chickamauga, the Cherokee faction that sided with the British during America's Revolutionary War. After the British lost the war, the Chickamauga moved west to the Arkansas territory. Reorganized as the Cherokee Nation West, they were forcibly absorbed into the Cherokee Nation by the U.S. government after the Trail of Tears. Spanish Jack, however, was not going to go quietly. He continued to fight against the Osage (longtime enemies of the Cherokee), against the Cherokee Nation, against the U.S. government, and against the tide of time. Spanish Jack was revered as a hero by some, reviled as a brigand and murderer by more, and hunted by many. Both a patriot and a killer, a loyal friend and an implacable enemy, Spanish Jack lived a life that is stuff of legend, becoming one of the most famous and idolized outlaws of the West.
A novelization of the life of the revered Cherokee leader traces the major events and conflicts that occurred throughout his late-eighteenth-century life, from the expulsion and massacres, to the Indian wars fought at the side of Andrew Jackson, to the treaty violations and removals.