Native American Memoir

The Cherokees might be the most famous tribe in the country. If so, the person most responsible for it is Sequoyah, whose invention of the Cherokee syllabary also played a prominent role in facilitating the assimilation between the Cherokee and Americans. Sequoyah began work on devising the writing and reading system around 1809, and it was instantly popular among Cherokees, to the extent that it was being used in written publications among the tribe by the 1820s. The syllabary has been in use ever since, both within the tribe and among outsiders.

The name "Geronimo" evokes a number of different emotions. Those who believed in 19th century America's "Manifest Destiny" viewed Geronimo and all Native Americans as impediments to God's will for the nation. Descendants of people killed by "hostile" Natives certainly considered warriors like Geronimo to be murderers and thieves whose cultures and societies held no redeeming values.

Here is one of the most extraordinary and invaluable documents in the annals of Native American history: the authentic testament of a remarkable "war shaman" who, for several years, held off both Mexico and the United States in fierce defense of Apache lands. During 1905 and 1906, Geronimo, the legendary Apache warrior and honorary war chief, dictated his story through a native interpreter to S. M. Barrett.

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.