Many know the story of the Trail of Tears. This is the story of what happened to the tribe after its people arrived in Indian Territory.
Charlie Soap is one of the most consequential community leaders in the Cherokee Nation’s history as a tribe in Oklahoma.
Most readers know the tragic story of the Trail of Tears, the forcible removal of tribes from the Southeast to then-Indian Territory, but they may not know the triumphant story of the Cherokees’ against-all-odds effort to build waterlines, sanitation, and housing in some of the country’s poorest communities.
Across the rocky hills of northeastern Oklahoma, they accomplished this themselves with volunteer labor and expertise. Never elected to tribal office, Charlie was married to Principal Chief Wilma Mankiller. As a full-blood, bilingual Cherokee, he often played the role of both translator, facilitator, and strategic mediator between and amongst the people, the tribe, and outside nonIndian governments.
Author Greg Shaw brings us a one-of-a-find biography that is told as a memoir from his days as a young reporter for the tribe’s newspaper, and later as an old friend.
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