A Woman of Marked Character: The Imagined Portrait of Sarah Ridge Paschal Pix 1812-1891, Book One 1812-1848 Written by Nancy Stanfield Webb

Description

The first book of this intensely researched two-part biographical novel series is set in Georgia and Indian Territory. Sarah Ridge, the educated daughter of a Cherokee leader, witnesses events leading to the removal of her nation to west of the Mississippi River in 1837. Braving a treacherous river journey with her white husband, a lawyer, they arrive in Arkansas and join her family. Dealing with an often-contentious marriage, she bears five children and buries two. Following the "Trail of Tears" when tribal war erupts, Sarah is compelled to seek revenge against powerful forces in the Cherokee Nation.

KIRKUS REVIEWS --

"In her historical novel, Webb blurs fact and fiction, animating the subject and era. Well-educated and decisive, Sarah took on the role of family matriarch ... while managing her own household amid a frequently fractious marriage. The first half of Sarah's life, which this book depicts, occurs during the most tumultuous and tragic chapter of Cherokee history. ... [F]or such an important period of history often overlooked in historical fiction, this is a welcome addition."

About The Author

Author Nancy Stanfield Webb is a writer, painter, and photographer who has devoted three decades to researching and writing the two-part biographical fiction series on Sarah Ridge. The great-granddaughter of Texas pioneers and now living in Rhode Island, Webb's essays and interview articles with visual artists have been published in Southwest Art magazine and various regional magazines. She is an associate member of Western Writers of America and the recipient of a writing residency to Millay Colony for the Arts. A Woman of Marked Character is her debut novel.

Genre:fiction
Sub-genre:Historical / General
Language:English
Series Title:A Woman of Marked Character
Series Number:1
Pages:408
eBook ISBN:9798989609819
Paperback ISBN:9798989609802

Maryanne

History Through the Words of a Formidable Woman Finding an historical marker and later the grave of Sarah Ridge Paschal Pix, an educated 19th century Cherokee woman nestled under Southern live oak trees on a former cattle ranch near Galveston Bay Texas, led the author on a decades-long journey to discover and write Sarah’s life story. Sarah Ridge was born in western Georgia in 1812, and was the daughter of Sehoyah (Susanna) Wickett and Major Ridge, the Cherokee leader and former warrior who had previously fought with Andrew Jackson. Unlike the typical log cabin homes of most Cherokee families, Sarah grew up in a prosperous family and lived in a two-storied framed house on a nearly 300-acre family plantation. Cotton, tobacco, and corn were grown there with the help of 30 enslaved African Americans. Little is known of Sarah’s early life other than that she was educated at Salem Academy in North Carolina. Although her parents were illiterate, her father as the tribal council leader and frequent visitor to the White House and Congress fully believed in the power of education to assist his peoples in their communication with the European Americans and their leaders. Conflict with these newly established United States colonists arose as the Georgian settlers moved westward, expanded onto the lands of the Cherokee nation, caused the nullification of countless treaties, and resulted in the eventual removal of the entire Cherokee nation from their cherished lands. Internal conflicts within the Cherokee clans also arose in their decisions as whether or not to sign yet another treaty with the US government and leave for Indian Territory. Although federal documents and their associated notes place both Major Ridge and his daughter Sarah at some of the grievance meetings at the White House and Congress, there are no details of Sarah’s presence. This omission does not create a problem for the author in this brilliantly researched historical fiction novel; instead Nancy Webb simply writes the relocation story of these indigenous peoples as observed not from the side of the victors, but from that of the victims, the Cherokee peoples, via what she perceives could have been Sarah’s experiences. The author’s writing excels in the well-composed chapters entitled “Sarah Speaks” that are interspersed throughout the novel. Here, Nancy Webb imagines her main character to possess the dynamic oratorical skills of her famous father. In these chapters the author skillfully slips aside from the main narrative to bare the voice and inner soul of Sarah. Webb characterizes Sarah not as a passive, female Native American, but as an assertive woman who speaks her mind freely in her condemnation of Congress and the Presidents who had abandoned countless treaties with the indigenous nations. Even in her marital relations with her often duplicitous husband, George Paschal, a white lawyer whose greed repeatedly outshines his virtues, Webb portrays Sarah as a confident woman who is totally unafraid to lash out at his many improprieties. In giving such a strong voice to the fiercely loyal Sarah, the reader feels not only the depth of Sarah’s courage, her anger, and her love for her family, but also empathizes with her resolute quest for revenge against those within the Cherokee Nation who had wronged her family. This novel is the first of a two-volume work, in which Nancy Webb has shed new light on this time period, the injustices suffered by the Cherokee peoples, and captured the spirit of a remarkable Cherokee woman. I look forward to reading the second part of Sarah’s journey. Read more

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