Book Description

Patriot Pinns Pearl, a historical fiction account, chronicles the lives of a rare Native American tribe of mixed Cherokee and Wiccocomico, unique and distinctive by its extraordinary ingenuity and strength to survive several hundred years, despite colonial settlers racial hatred and attempts to take its lands and destroy its aboriginal heritage. The most prominent character during the eight generations noted in this account is Chief Raleigh Pinn, a Wiccocomico and Cherokee from Wiccocomico Indian Town in the Northern Neck area of Virginia. Having been an indentured child servant for English settlers who confiscated his ancestors official reservation lands, Raleigh learned the ways of the settlers, moved to Central Virginia at the end of his Northern Neck indentured servitude, purchased properties in Buckingham and Amherst Counties, and provided a haven for his family and other dispersed Cherokee and Wiccocomico people. The reader will empathize with Raleigh and his descendants reactions to colonial settlers and the hardships these settlers caused in the early to mid-1700s through the mid-1800s, as well as his tribes struggles to survive in a hostile milieu. Initially hating the colonial settlers, he grapples to control his deep animosity for everything Anglo as he models survival strategies for his indigenous people. He purchases several hundred acres of land, becomes a prosperous farmer, joins the Amherst Militia, and participates in several Revolutionary War military campaigns, including the decisive battle at Yorktown. He establishes, unites, and protects his people in two Cherokee villages that are separated by the James River, during his years in Amherst and Buckingham Counties. Raleighs faith in God and his keen awareness of his royal heritage provides the essential self-confidence required to tame his animosity and teach his people how to coexist with white settlers in a world that makes survival for Native Americans almost impossible. This is a story of Raleighs skillful ability to pass on history and heritage to his progeny and to exhibit his love rather than hatred for his neighbors, and in the process, he serves as a model for his descendants achievement and tolerance. This book also includes events in the life of other tribal members, Native American Revolutionary War patriots and their children and grandchildren, who are ancestors of the present-day members of the United Cherokee Indian Tribe of Virginia (UCITOVA). At the end of Patriot Pinns Pearl, the author has included a short historical chronicle of UCITOVA.