Native American Memoir

Indian lore of the Cuyamaca Mountains and surrounding region in San Diego County, California, abounds in myths and legends handed down from generation to generation by tribal song and squaw-tale. Yet so swiftly has the hand of civilization wiped out the old traditions and customs, that but few Indians remain who remember them, and fewer still are those willing to divulge them. Only when one comes into intimate contact with them is one accorded the privilege and honor of hearing the tales of their ancestors.

A brutal pirate blazes a bloody trail of vengeance on a suicidal quest. They took his love, they took his freedom - they tried taking his life. Now he will give them her steel.

This stirring historical memoir reclaims a family’s truth long buried beneath silence and migration. Spanning centuries, Bound by Blood, Freed by Truth traces the Evans–Gibson lineage from Jane Gibson—a free Indian woman in a time when freedom defied the norms—to a legacy marked by resilience, resistance, and redemption. Through charts, court records, and generational storytelling, Susan L. Kadera uncovers lives shaped by faith, courage, and the enduring power of identity. More than a genealogy, this book is a restoration of a name worth knowing.

In this work, I reclaim the stories of my Cherokee, Lumbee, Monacan, and African ancestors. Through poetic reflection, historical insight, and symbolic naming, I honor the grandmothers listed only by race, the daughters who braided stories into silence, and the sons who carried tribal memory in their hands. Unnamed is both a tribute and a testimony—a sacred offering to those reduced to tick marks, racial codes, or blank spaces in census ledgers. It is my reclamation of identity, my restoration of dignity, and my resurrection of ancestral truth.