A Home for Easter

Part one of the Apple Hill Series, A Home for Easter is the story of a Cherokee family forced to go in different directions in an effort to survive the 1830s removal period for First Nations people. The major character, Easter, journeys through parts of Georgia and  middle Tennessee to find a new home for herself and her unborn child. However, along the way, she is hunted by a criminal who wants her ancestral lands. She and her companions -- her eight-year-old sister, Awinta and her love, Arter, brave a snow storm and the criminal who kidnaps her. Other family members must take different paths to survival. An important character in Easter's story is her half-sister, Awinta, who represents many First Nation African Americans who were either enslaved by the Cherokee or lived with them and other clans. The story offers an explanation for how groups of people survived and merged during stressful, genocide-like political, social and economic events. The story suggests the matrilineal nature of the Cherokee family during that time.