The Scotsman’s gait demonstrated his resolve to reach the river still miles ahead. Certain of his mission, he pressed on with confidence. He knew the high mountains would not easily be crossed; mountains capable of devouring a man less traveled than he. It was early spring and the mountains could manifest unexpected opposition to his journey over them. There was no time to be lost as he trudged through the wooded landscape. The sky shifted from blue to grey and the air grew colder. Gliding through a veil of frozen mist, he felt the first snowflakes, falling like breathless butterflies, gently lilting on his face. Falling gracefully, impeding his steps, the snow soon shaped a formidable hindrance to Cameron’s task. Mindful of his fatiguing body, thoughts of love and duty strengthened his weakening resolve. His feet sank in icy drifts and his deerskin leggings, now wet, gripped his skin. As he stopped to judge the deepening snow, he knew the high ridge ahead would be impassable. He would not reach the Watauga River in time.

A Demand of Blood is Nadia Dean’s epic saga of adversity and triumph, and the first comprehensive book to chronicle the Cherokee War of 1776. A Demand of Blood: The Cherokee War of 1776 examines the collision of the British-Cherokee alliance with frontier settlers in the American Revolution. Historian and journalist Nadia Dean examines the 18th century southern frontier—a place of rapid change and political unrest. Based on eight years of extensive primary source research, Nadia Dean scholarship examines unpublished 18th-century manuscripts and reveals a complex tapestry of cultures converging on the southern colonial frontier on the eve of the Revolutionary War.

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