However, the basic facts are all here with enough narrative and interpretation to make for a good read. Clearly, in a book of only 242 pages (exclusive of appendices and index), the author has set a breakneck pace. This brief history of the Cherokee people stretches from origin myths and archaelogical evidence of Cherokee prehistory in the Southeast of North America to the election of Chad 'Corntassel' Smith as Principal Chief in 1999. If you want to know more about this amazing and resilient people, I highly recommend reading their history as they would want you to hear it.

(You can tell he is a novelist by trade.) I finished the book in a couple of days. Conley has a wry sense of humor and a good eye for character. I had no idea about a lot of the later history, and I’m grateful to have read it. He takes us from the origins of the nation, as passed down through oral history over the generations, through the early encounters with Europeans, through the American Revolution and the rapacious expansion of white settlers, right to the present day. But of course, there is a lot more to the story, and Conley gives us the full tale from the Cherokee perspective. history know anything about the Cherokee, it’s probably the Trails of Tears, the heartrending expulsion of the Cherokee from their traditional homes in the Southeast and their forced march across the west to Oklahoma. This is the only such book endorsed by the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma, and it was truly an eye-opener. Part of my research for getting ready to write about my character Piper McLean again, I figured I would read the history of the Cherokee Nation as written by Conley, a Cherokee author. For those who want to know more about Cherokee heritage and history, Conley offers additional reading lists at the end of each chapter. Following the history is a listing of the Principal Chiefs of the Cherokees with a brief biography of each and separate listings of the chiefs of the Eastern Cherokees and the Western Cherokees.

Conley provides analyses for general readers of all ages to learn the significance of tribal lore and Cherokee tribal law.

He traces their forced migrations west, relates their participations on both sides of the Civil War and the wars of the twentieth century, and concludes with an examination of Cherokee life today. He then explores their relations with neighboring Indian groups and European missionaries and settlers. Robert Conley begins his survey with Cherokee origin myths and legends. The first history of the Cherokees to appear in over four decades, this is also the first to be endorsed by the tribe and the first to be written by a Cherokee. The Cherokee Nation is one of the largest and most important of all the American Indian tribes.

Cherokee by Robert J. Conley