Why did Fergus love this book?
This book was full of surprises for me.
Cozzens took me on a wild ride through the chaotic violence of one of the countryās most significant but least well-known Indian wars, which led to the destruction of a once-powerful native confederacy and the expulsion of the Creeks from their lands in Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi. Cozzens is a fair-minded historian who does not play favorites.
Itās impossible to read this book without coming to a fuller understanding of the raw violence that characterized the southern frontier or for the insurmountable challenges for native people who sought to find an accommodation with the oncoming tide of American settlement.
1 author picked A Brutal Reckoning as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
'Cozzens is a master storyteller' The Times
From the devastating invasion by Spanish conquistadors in the sixteenth century to the relentless pressure from white settlers 150 years later, A Brutal Reckoning tells the story of encroachment on the vast Native American territory in the Deep South, which gave rise to the Creek War, the bloodiest in American Indian history, and propelled Andrew Jackson into national prominence, as he led the US Army in a ruthless campaign.
It was a war that involved not only white Americans and Native Americans but also the British and the Spanish, and ultimately led toā¦