Cherokee Windsong by Evelyn Sanders

By the fall of 1839, the white population of the United States had crowded Indians to the extent that government officials coerced the Five Civilized Tribes into signing treaties which exchanged their eastern lands for money and territory in what is now Oklahoma. Most Cherokees refused to honor the New Echota Treaty signed by some members of their tribe. Consequently, the U.S. government rounded them up and herded them into stockades for forcible removal over a route that came to be known as the Trail of Tears.

This book is loosely based on that historic event. Its main characters are two young adults. Alisa Renoir, a wealthy and well-educated young lady of French Cherokee descent, is forcibly removed from her home in Tennessee, along with the rest of her tribe. Her Cherokee fiance deserts her to hide in the hills. With her grandparents, she endures the humiliation of being herded in a stockade, hating the soldiers who put her there. On the trek to Indian Territory she is befriended by young U.S. Army Lieutenant Clayton Morgan who sympathizes with the plight of the Cherokees. She learns to cope with unaccustomed harsh circumstances and her bitterness is replaced by a slowly developing love for the young lieutenant. Other characters, children, teens and old people have important roles in the story as well.

Cherokee Windsong is described by the author as a heritage romance designed to bridge the gap between young adult leisure reading fare and the more difficult classics. Beautifully written, the novel succeeds in making the reader more culturally literate while sounding the theme that true love can survive obstacles, and that adversity need not be calamity.

Evelin Sanders authored two other novels: A Rainbow High and Janine. She resided on a ranch in Idabel, Oklahoma.