The Estelusti Trail

The Estelusti Trail

Author: Roy V. Gaston

Publisher: Speaking Volumes

Published:

Total Pages: 326

ISBN-13: 1645409589

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AWARD WINNING AUTHOR It is Florida in 1835 during the time that would come to be known as the Trail of Tears. Andrew Jackson’s army is on the march to enforce The Indian Removal Act. The Cherokee, Chickasaw, Creek and Choctaw have already been marched to the western territories beyond the far Mississippi River. Only the Seminole and Estelusti, the descendants of centuries of escaped slaves, resist. Estelusti leader John Horse and Seminole chiefs Osceola, Alligator and Wild Cat fight back. Bloody ambushes fill the swamps of west Florida and slave revolts leave the east coast sugar plantations in flames. Seen through the eyes of Pete Horse, a fourteen-year-old Estelusti boy-warrior, the Second Seminole War rages. In vicious, desperate jungle warfare from the Cove of the Withlacoochee to the shore of Lake Okeechobee, the Estelusti and Seminole frustrate and defeat the American generals time after time. After each defeat, a new general with a larger army comes, slowly forcing the defenders deeper into the treacherous Everglades. Facing annihilation and enslavement, the Estelusti must fight to the bloody end. Praise for Beyond the Goodnight Trail “A wild and thrilling, offbeat ride through a rough Texas and New Mexico landscape . . . Bigfoot Wallace, Bass Reeves, Britt Johnson, and all the legendary characters of the West are here. This tale of adventure, bloodshed, violence, and unlikely friendships in the old West should win Gaston plenty of fans." —Booksiren rates it: Amazing “A captivating, frequently philosophical page-turner that delivers a visceral portrait of the Wild West” —Kirkus Reviews “The world building is wonderful . . . in a setting that is not just rough but lawless. Beyond the Goodnight Trail is captivating and written in elegant prose." Rating: 5 Stars Reviewed by —Ruffina Oserio for Readers' Favorite "This action-packed Western is a gift that keeps on giving...It’s been years since I read a traditional Western, and this one surpasses all expectations.” Rating: 5 Stars —Joelene Pynnonen The Independent Book Review “Very atmospheric . . . an exciting storyline about trust, honor, and valiance in this classic western. Beyond the Goodnight Trail reminds us of the adventure a good cowboy story can bring...this western novel will please readers looking for tension, adventure, and, of course, cowboys." Rating: 4.5 out of 5 Stars —The Book Review Directory "I would certainly recommend Beyond the Goodnight Trail to fans of classic westerns . . . plenty of action-packed events to keep you on the edge of your seat." Rating: 5 Stars —K.C. Finn Editorial Book Review for Reader’s Favorite


Beyond the Goodnight Trail

Beyond the Goodnight Trail

Author: Roy V. Gaston

Publisher: Speaking Volumes

Published:

Total Pages: 281

ISBN-13: 1645407373

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PEACEMAKER AWARD WINNER When former Texas Ranger scout Pete Horse agrees to join his old friend Charlie Goodnight’s first trail drive across Texas to the New Mexico Bosque Redondo Navajo reservation, he knows the way will be fraught with danger. He expects to encounter bandits, hostile Comanche, bad weather and stampedes, and he’s not disappointed. He hadn’t been expecting the treacherous Comancheros, renegade Apache, and night riding gangs of unreconstructed Rebels seething with resentment, and all of them fighting over a thousand stolen Army rifles. When he’s forced to kill two men who are stealing his prized horse, Pete incurs the wrath of an ex-communicated religious zealot and his sect of trigger-happy disciples. The entire Texas Panhandle is about to erupt in a shooting war that could spread across the West. Riding up with old friends Bigfoot Wallace, Bass Reeves, Britt Johnson and more legendary men of the west, Pete still faces the longest odds of a long, turbulent life on the violent frontier. Praise for Beyond the Goodnight Trail “A wild and thrilling, offbeat ride through a rough Texas and New Mexico landscape . . . Bigfoot Wallace, Bass Reeves, Britt Johnson, and all the legendary characters of the West are here. This tale of adventure, bloodshed, violence, and unlikely friendships in the old West should win Gaston plenty of fans." —Booksiren rates it: Amazing “A captivating, frequently philosophical page-turner that delivers a visceral portrait of the Wild West” —Kirkus Reviews “The world building is wonderful . . . in a setting that is not just rough but lawless. Beyond the Goodnight Trail is captivating and written in elegant prose." Rating: 5 Stars Reviewed by —Ruffina Oserio for Readers' Favorite "This action-packed Western is a gift that keeps on giving...It’s been years since I read a traditional Western, and this one surpasses all expectations.” Rating: 5 Stars —Joelene Pynnonen The Independent Book Review “Very atmospheric . . . an exciting storyline about trust, honor, and valiance in this classic western. Beyond the Goodnight Trail reminds us of the adventure a good cowboy story can bring...this western novel will please readers looking for tension, adventure, and, of course, cowboys." Rating: 4.5 out of 5 Stars —The Book Review Directory "I would certainly recommend Beyond the Goodnight Trail to fans of classic westerns . . . plenty of action-packed events to keep you on the edge of your seat." Rating: 5 Stars —K.C. Finn Editorial Book Review for Reader’s Favorite


How Can a Man Die Better

How Can a Man Die Better

Author: Roy V. Gaston

Publisher: Speaking Volumes

Published:

Total Pages: 411

ISBN-13: 1645408310

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AWARD WINNING AUTHOR "A searing, swashbuckling Civil War historical novel... Brutal, eloquent, impeccably researched...immediately immersive... " 1862, on the eve of the Civil War, a sadistic slave trader brutally murders a beautiful young woman. Once disinterested in war, a soft-handed academic vows vengeance, enlisting in an elite company of scouts and snipers assigned to wipe out Confederate ‘bushwhackers,’ men who cloak their depravities in the bitter partisan warfare roaring through Tennessee. He must become a warrior to survive the bloody battlefields of The South in pursuit of the killer, now a colonel in Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest's rampaging cavalry corps. “This is a historical fiction epic enjoyable from start to finish…” Manhattan Book Review” Praise for Beyond the Goodnight Trail “A wild and thrilling, offbeat ride through a rough Texas and New Mexico landscape . . . Bigfoot Wallace, Bass Reeves, Britt Johnson, and all the legendary characters of the West are here. This tale of adventure, bloodshed, violence, and unlikely friendships in the old West should win Gaston plenty of fans." —Booksiren rates it: Amazing “A captivating, frequently philosophical page-turner that delivers a visceral portrait of the Wild West” —Kirkus Reviews “The world building is wonderful . . . in a setting that is not just rough but lawless. Beyond the Goodnight Trail is captivating and written in elegant prose." Rating: 5 Stars Reviewed by —Ruffina Oserio for Readers' Favorite "This action-packed Western is a gift that keeps on giving...It’s been years since I read a traditional Western, and this one surpasses all expectations.” Rating: 5 Stars —Joelene Pynnonen The Independent Book Review “Very atmospheric . . . an exciting storyline about trust, honor, and valiance in this classic western. Beyond the Goodnight Trail reminds us of the adventure a good cowboy story can bring...this western novel will please readers looking for tension, adventure, and, of course, cowboys." Rating: 4.5 out of 5 Stars —The Book Review Directory "I would certainly recommend Beyond the Goodnight Trail to fans of classic westerns . . . plenty of action-packed events to keep you on the edge of your seat." Rating: 5 Stars —K.C. Finn Editorial Book Review for Reader’s Favorite


A Thousand Dead Horses

A Thousand Dead Horses

Author: Rod Miller

Publisher: Speaking Volumes

Published:

Total Pages: 227

ISBN-13: 1645409880

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SPUR AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR ROD MILLER It is 1840. The fur trade has all but ended and trappers in Taos feel the pinch. With a band of Ute Indians, they follow the Old Spanish Trail to California to steal horses and mules, then return and reap the profits in Santa Fe. The unprecedented raid results in the theft of some 3,000 animals. Daniel Boone Pickens, a young man on the run from the law in Missouri and in search of a future, signs on for the adventure. Nooch, a young Ute, follows the leader of his band to prove his worth as a warrior. A young vaquero from California, Juan Medina, finds himself involved more from circumstance than choice. Along the trail, the young men forge bonds that surpass race and culture as they face hunger and thirst, fire and flood, bullet and blade. And together they grieve the deaths of more than a thousand of the stolen horses and mules on a mad dash across the dry and desolate Mojave Desert. Based on the real-life exploits of mountain men “Pegleg” Smith, “Old Bill” Williams, and Jim Beckwourth with Ute leader Wakara, A Thousand Dead Horses dramatizes conflicts in the evolving Old West.


What Blood Won't Tell

What Blood Won't Tell

Author: Ariela J. Gross

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2010-05-01

Total Pages: 381

ISBN-13: 0674047982

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Is race something we know when we see it? In 1857, Alexina Morrison, a slave in Louisiana, ran away from her master and surrendered herself to the parish jail for protection. Blue-eyed and blond, Morrison successfully convinced white society that she was one of them. When she sued for her freedom, witnesses assured the jury that she was white, and that they would have known if she had a drop of African blood. MorrisonÕs court trialÑand many others over the last 150 yearsÑinvolved high stakes: freedom, property, and civil rights. And they all turned on the question of racial identity. Over the past two centuries, individuals and groups (among them Mexican Americans, Indians, Asian immigrants, and Melungeons) have fought to establish their whiteness in order to lay claim to full citizenship in local courtrooms, administrative and legislative hearings, and the U.S. Supreme Court. Like MorrisonÕs case, these trials have often turned less on legal definitions of race as percentages of blood or ancestry than on the way people presented themselves to society and demonstrated their moral and civic character. Unearthing the legal history of racial identity, Ariela GrossÕs book examines the paradoxical and often circular relationship of race and the perceived capacity for citizenship in American society. This book reminds us that the imaginary connection between racial identity and fitness for citizenship remains potent today and continues to impede racial justice and equality.


We Refuse to Forget

We Refuse to Forget

Author: Caleb Gayle

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2022-06-07

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 0593329597

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“An important part of American history told with a clear-eyed and forceful brilliance.” —National Book Award winner Jacqueline Woodson “We Refuse to Forget reminds readers, on damn near every page, that we are collectively experiencing a brilliance we've seldom seen or imagined…We Refuse to Forget is a new standard in book-making.” —Kiese Laymon, author of the bestselling Heavy: An American Memoir A landmark work of untold American history that reshapes our understanding of identity, race, and belonging In We Refuse to Forget, award-winning journalist Caleb Gayle tells the extraordinary story of the Creek Nation, a Native tribe that two centuries ago both owned slaves and accepted Black people as full citizens. Thanks to the efforts of Creek leaders like Cow Tom, a Black Creek citizen who rose to become chief, the U.S. government recognized Creek citizenship in 1866 for its Black members. Yet this equality was shredded in the 1970s when tribal leaders revoked the citizenship of Black Creeks, even those who could trace their history back generations—even to Cow Tom himself. Why did this happen? How was the U.S. government involved? And what are Cow Tom’s descendants and other Black Creeks doing to regain their citizenship? These are some of the questions that Gayle explores in this provocative examination of racial and ethnic identity. By delving into the history and interviewing Black Creeks who are fighting to have their citizenship reinstated, he lays bare the racism and greed at the heart of this story. We Refuse to Forget is an eye-opening account that challenges our preconceptions of identity as it shines new light on the long shadows of white supremacy and marginalization that continue to hamper progress for Black Americans.


The Black Seminoles

The Black Seminoles

Author: Kenneth W. Porter

Publisher: University Press of Florida

Published: 2013-05-21

Total Pages: 349

ISBN-13: 0813047757

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This story of a remarkable people, the Black Seminoles, and their charismatic leader, Chief John Horse, chronicles their heroic struggle for freedom. Beginning with the early 1800s, small groups of fugitive slaves living in Florida joined the Seminole Indians (an association that thrived for decades on reciprocal respect and affection). Kenneth Porter traces their fortunes and exploits as they moved across the country and attempted to live first beyond the law, then as loyal servants of it. He examines the Black Seminole role in the bloody Second Seminole War, when John Horse and his men distinguished themselves as fierce warriors, and their forced removal to the Oklahoma Indian Territory in the 1840s, where John's leadership ability emerged. The account includes the Black Seminole exodus in the 1850s to Mexico, their service as border troops for the Mexican government, and their return to Texas in the 1870s, where many of the men scouted for the U.S. Army. Members of their combat-tested unit, never numbering more than 50 men at a time, were awarded four of the sixteen Medals of Honor received by the several thousand Indian scouts in the West. Porter's interviews with John Horse's descendants and acquaintances in the 1940s and 1950s provide eyewitness accounts. When Alcione Amos and Thomas Senter took up the project in the 1980s, they incorporated new information that had since come to light about John Horse and his people. A powerful and stirring story, The Black Seminoles will appeal especially to readers interested in black history, Indian history, Florida history, and U.S. military history.