Appalachian Indian Trails of the Chickamauga

"Appalachian Indian Trails of the Chickamauga: Lower Cherokee Settlements" is definitely a must read for anyone interested in the ancestral landscape, aboriginal trails, and historical American Indian settlements of the Southeast. It is obvious in reading this book that Rickey Butch Walker has researched many years to share this extensive and detailed Indian history with us in the south. This information is worthy to be shared with our children and grandchildren to keep them in touch with their deep southern roots; let us never forget from where we started and the trails that our mixed Celtic and Indian ancestors once walked.

By far, Rickey Butch Walker has written the most comprehensive historical document of the Chickamauga faction of the Lower Cherokees that occupied the Muscle Shoals, Big Bend of the Tennessee River, Warrior Mountains, and Coosa River Valley of northern Alabama. His book contains information on the Lower Cherokee settlements in North Alabama dating from 1750 to the Indian removal in 1838. In addition to the Indian trails, villages, and pre-removal forts, Butch Walker discusses Indian removal in North Alabama over land, by water, and by railroad.

This is not just a book of a historical nature but also a book of Native pride. Butch loves sharing his mixed Scots Irish Cherokee heritage with others and it shines through in this well written document. Once again, his writing is filled with emotion, knowledge, and historical data of a time and landscape that must never be forgotten.

Twila Godwin