The Free and the Dead (The Untold Story of the Black Seminole Chief, the Indigenous Rebel, and America's Forgotten War)

“A brilliant, page-turning work of history by a master storyteller.” —Ty Seidule, professor emeritus of history at the United States Military Academy at West Point and author of Robert E. Lee and Me

The page-turning and revelatory true story of America’s disastrous 1835 attack on the Seminoles in pre-statehood Florida, and the two men—a Black American and a renowned Indigenous warrior—who fought back for their homes and freedom, from the author of the “eye-opening marvel of a book” (Alexander Rose, New York Times bestselling author) 12 Seconds of Silence.

From 1817 to 1858, a series of conflicts known as the Seminole Wars took place between the United States and the tribes of Florida as they battled for the land.

Within this unconquered territory, formerly enslaved mothers and fathers and Seminole families had lived side by side for generations, building communities in the interior, beyond the reach of the growing United States. But in 1835, the young country took up arms against them, seeking to forcibly remove all Indigenous people and return their allies to slavery. In the face of this terror, tribes and bands came together across racial lines to preserve their freedom from federal interference. As the fight waged on, two men—Abraham, a free Black American, and the esteemed Creek warrior Osceola—worked together to save their lands and their people, against overwhelming odds, from America’s formidable Army of the South.

A powerful and “fast moving account of a war too little remembered in American history” (Kirkus Reviews), The Free and the Dead is a timeless work of history that sits alongside Empire of the Summer Moon and The Demon of Unrest.

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