Nickajack

Double D Western

by Robert J. Conley

Given one year to put his affairs in order after being sentenced to die for killing a man, Nickajack becomes caught between warring factions within the Cherokee nation

Genres: Westerns, Fiction

224 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1992

About the author

Robert J. Conley was a Cherokee author and enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation, a federally recognized tribe of American Indians. In 2007, he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Native Writers' Circle of the Americas.

Reviews

[Jeff Tankersley · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Nickajack" (1992) is a Cherokee man brought to trial for murder in 1841 in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, the new capital of the displaced Cherokee Nation. The Nation is struggling to partly-incorporate and partly push back on white laws after its displacement along the Trail of Tears, navigating a cultural shift that will both keep them safe from US overreach but maintain an independent identity. When Nickajack is arrested, those who suffered on the Trail of Tears (Cherokees aligning with the Ross party) were making reprisals on those who had been the first to make the journey (the Treaty party), and that group was responding in kind. A vigilante-style Cherokee Civil War took place within the new territory in Oklahoma but leaders on both sides were trying to form some kind of respectable self-government that would convince Americans they could live peaceable and just.

The plot for "Nickajack" has some dry history lessons about Cherokee politics in that 1830-1850 period with speeches and legal proceedings and exposition that can be pretty boring at times, but the Nickajack character, by contrast, is well-written and interesting. He's an introverted isolationist who would rather live on the sidelines but is thrust into a spotlight he doesn't deserve, arrested for a crime he didn't commit, and victim of a new system that needs someone to pay just so it can convince others it works.

Verdict: A metaphorical telling of the Cherokee Nation's early 19th-century struggles via one man's story, "Nickajack" is short, easy to read, relatable, sometimes dry, and its prose is appropriate for young readers, especially those who might need middle school history reads to flush out a curriculum.

Jeff's Rating: 3 / 5 (Good)
movie rating if made into a movie: PG

[Randy Grossman · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was a fairly good historical novel. I thought the book was interesting in it's information of how the Cherokee Nation was treated by our US Government. I would say not very graciously, but I'm not gonna go WOKE on people...our history is what it is and we still have a GREAT country. Frankly, if we were a tribal nation...I think our view on Christianity would be a bit skewed. Also the main character drifted in his thought throughout the story so it was a bit disjointed in the way the story read. The main characters trial was somewhat like the Kyle Rittenhouse trial...I guess you will have to read it to see the outcome.

[HornFan2 · Rating 4 out of 5]

While this book was the winner of the 1992 Spur award for the best Western of that year. For me you have several intertwining story lines from the Cherokee Indian tribe.

That regard the Trail of Tears, the Ross verse Rainey supports, the fictional character Nickajack, a bunch of history mixed in and what an ugly man Principal Chief John Ross really was.

The only thing he missed were the Cherokee clans/families that fled into the mountains, they never surrender or were capture.

My great great grandmother's ancestry on my Dad's side of the family, traces back to one of those clans/families of Cherokee's that fled into the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Conley shows you the cold hard fact of how tough the West was, were even members of the same tribe would kill each other and many innocent men were hung.

Robert J. Conley's one of those author's that every genre has, who end up overlooked, underrated and should be considered one of it's best. The Johnstone estate use the greatest Western writers of 21st Century on it's books, well I consider Conley as one of best writers in that category and it's well worth it to give him a try.

While the first book of his Texas Outlaw Series, called Fugitive's Trail is out in reprint. Many of his books are out of print, some are available as eBook but not everything yet and hard to find used.

[Nathan Beck · Rating 3 out of 5]

So... The book is really about the "Trail of Tears". I think there are a lot of facts mixed in with the fictional (but likely) story of our main character. I normally like historical fiction, but until the last 30 pages or so it read like a history book. I did learn some things though.

[Cws]

W Con

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

Winner, 1992 Spur Award for Best Western Novel