Words Spoken True
Jane Bushyhead has the typical hopes and plans of a teenage girl—school, teaching, surrounded by family and friends. Unfortunately, it is 1838 and American President Andrew Jackson has different plans for Jane’s people, the Cherokee Nation. Jane and her family are ripped from their home and property at gunpoint, to embark on a forced march through the winter, now called the Trail of Tears, to a land somewhere beyond the Mississippi River. Beyond civilization as she understands it.
The account of the trip knits together historical people and events as seen through the eyes of a sensitive, observant young woman, whose sense of truth and justice and her very person are being assaulted. Poems, prayers, and inner dialogue draw the reader into Jane’s struggles.
The inciting incident for this excellent historical novel was an actual March 1838 letter written by the real Jane to a friend before the events of the novel. A facsimile of the letter is included in the book. Its subject matter, grammar, vocabulary and penmanship are far beyond most 13-year-olds today—much less a youth writing in her second language.
Broyles relates sympathetic as well as difficult details, including the Cherokees’ enslavement of others, and the government’s willingness to take everything else from them but not free those enslaved to them. Quotes and details from historic documents abound. Written for young adults, and good reading for any adult.
