Walking the Trail, One Man's Journey Along the Cherokee Trail of Tears

"Come along on the trail with Jerry Ellis. You'll love every step of it."—Tony Hillerman (Tony Hillerman) "Jerry Ellis is an ideal companion for a long ramble along the back roads of America. . . . He introduces us to a collection of characters—some of them welcoming, some of them weird—that are too vivid for mere fiction."—Los Angeles Times (Los Angeles Times) "Ellis, like his Cherokee ancestors, treasures a good story. He writes lucidly, simply, about the people he met and the stories he was told. . . . He walked to discover himself and his ancestors; he came back with stories and with his own lessons."—Denver Post The Cherokee author walks in reverse the 900 mile route of the Cherokee Trail of Tears to honor his ancestors and tell the world about their tragedy: In 1838, 7,000 US soldiers imprisoned 16,000 Indians in the Southeast and marched them to Indian Territory, present day Oklahoma, in the heart of winter. Many of the Cherokee were barefooted and 4,000 died along the Trail. They were buried in shallow unmarked graves. The author slept in fields, woods and kind strangers' homes to record their own thoughts and feelings about modern America and what happened to the Cherokee. The trek, one that proved deeply spiritual for the author, was life-altering. The book is interwoven with nuggets of crucial Cherokee history and myths. When the book was first published by Delacorte Press in 1991, the publisher nominated it for a Pulitzer Prize. The book has been in print ever since and is also published in German. In 2021, it will be published in Italian. It is required reading in some schools in the USA and Germany. The author has lectured about the book and the Trail of Tears in Europe, Asia, Africa and throughout the USA. In 2011, the book went on display in the National Teachers Hall of Fame. His follow up book is titled Cherokee History for Indian Lovers, highly documented, short (156 pages) concise, compelling, and includes many historic photos.Read more