Intermarriages, assassinations, and missionary arrests threatened Andrew Jackson with Civil War thirty years before Lincoln.

The Connecticut town of Cornwall rioted when John Ridge proposed to Sarah—not because she was fifteen but because John was an Indian, a future Cherokee chief. He and other 'Cherokee Princes' mastered Greek and Latin at these prestigious New England schools and served as diplomats in Washington for the Cherokee Nation, ninety percent of which became literate Christians and farm owners. When these scholars returned to their homeland in Appalachia, settlers continued to seek fortunes by taking land from the ‘savages.’ A young missionary suffered in prison for siding with the Cherokees, and the greatest civil rights case America had yet seen created a constitutional crisis, leading to the assassination of certain Cherokee Princes.

What was the motive for these unsolved murders surrounding the Trail of Tears? The suspects include both U.S. citizens and fellow Native Americans. How did this seminal event affect our soul and future as a nation? Journalist Dean W. Arnold provides a fascinating sourced narrative. Utilizing his trademark style—nonfction with a plot—he delivers a unique and edifying experience, a ‘novel’ where every exciting action and quote is true.

DEAN W. ARNOLD has been endorsed by a Pulitzer winner, a U.S. Senator, and an Oxford professor. But his best compliment comes from friends who say they finished his books in one sitting.

Comments on "Cherokee Princes":

“A page-turner.”
—Gordon Wetmore, President, Portrait Society of America

” . . . clear but compelling style of writing.”
—U.S. Senator Bob Corker, Chairman, Foreign Relations Committee

“We were ninety percent literate, which was probably ten times the rate of whites in those surrounding states.”
—Chad “Corn Tassel” Smith, Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation (from his interview with the author in the postscript)