Spring Warrior: The Discovery

by Bill Grant

Set in the rolling sand hills and vast, mysteriously daunting swamps of northern Florida’s BigBend region, this begins a multi-generational series of stories set in a region about which so littleis known that even today parts of it are often referred to as “The Forgotten Coast” or “The OtherFlorida.” They are told so that we do not forget the people who dared face its dangers, trying tomake it home. Unique to this one region, still these are stories of how all homelands are built,erected on the foundations of real lives lived, of blood and bone, of hopes and dreams, deaths,honor and treachery, achievements and failures, all an indelible brand on that to come.The settling of America, and of Florida, was predicated on the taking of that which seemedsecure to those who had thought of it as their own. These chronicles begin, then, with stories ofcultural upheaval and bitter disagreements. They begin with the story of Biroyobo, the Yustagawarrior who fought valiantly against brutal Spanish conquistadors, only to have his tribe killedoff by their violence and diseases. It is eerily similar to the story of Talmuches Hadjo, theconflicted Muscogee Creek leader whose people were swept into a terrible war over thechallenges to their culture brought on by the permanence of White settlers and of his fights withAndrew Jackson, the Whites’ glory-seeking general who here meets the boy Billy Powell, whowould become the legendary Native leader Asiyahola. Also opens here the story of theThomson’s, the much-maligned Scots Irish family who had not thought to forcibly take the landof others but, having come to it during a time of heartbreaking loss, chose to not leave.These are stories of proud people, all struggling to reconcile their past with the turbulentdemands of the present, seeking resolution to dare an uncertain future.

430 pages, Paperback

Published April 7, 2024