Brown John P. Old Frontiers. The Story of the Cherokee Indians from Earliest Times to the Date of Their Removal to the West, 1838

Southern Publishers, 1938. — 570 p.The book's subtitle reveals the scope of Brown's interest, and from the opening Preface of Old Frontiers, Brown reveals his desire to correct the narrative of Cherokee history -- a history that for a century "used the language of the United States Government" to chronicle the plight of the Cherokees. Brown blamed white settlers and their desire for land, along with the discovery of gold in Cherokee territory, for the swift nature of Indian removal. A "calm study of the facts", Brown wrote, "brings conviction that it was both inhumane and unnecessary". Brown cast a particularly critical eye towards Andrew Jackson in his Preface. "The one man responsible for Cherokee removal", Brown wrote, "was that strong character, Andrew Jackson."Brown also absolved the Cherokees from blame for their own depredations against the settlers of the Trans-Appalachian frontier, suggesting that they fought for the same cause as the white man. "If the Indian scalped his enemy, or burned at the stake the man who would take his country", Brown wrote, "it was nonetheless America for which he fought, with the only means at his command. Recognizing the faults of the red man, and balancing them against his treatment at our hands, the scales tip in his favor".