Peter Cozzens: A Brutal Reckoning: Andrew Jackson, the Creek Indians, and the Epic War for the American South (Paperback)

What began as a vicious internal conflict among the Creek Indians metastasized like a cancer. The ensuing Creek War of 1813-1814 shattered Native American control of the Deep South and led to the infamous Trail of Tears, in which the government forcibly removed the southeastern Indians from their homeland. The episode remains one of the most tragic in American history, leading to the greatest loss of Native American life on what is now U.S. soil. The war also gave Andrew Jackson his first combat leadership role, and his newfound popularity after defeating the Creeks would set him on the path to the White House. In A Brutal Reckoning, Peter Cozzens brilliantly recovers this forgotten yet essential moment in U.S. history, portraying the vibrant cultures and ways of life of the Creeks and their Indian neighbors before conflict undid them, and introducing us to a young Andrew Jackson, a military commander with unbridled ambition, a taste for cruelty, and a fraught sense of honor and duty. Jackson would not have won the war without the help of Native American allies, yet he denied their role and even insisted on their displacement, together with all the Indians of the American South. A struggle involving not only white Americans and Native Americans but also the British and the Spanish, the Creek War opened the Deep South to the Cotton Kingdom, setting the stage for the American Civil War. No other single Indian conflict had such significant impact on the fate of America.