Trail of Tears — Fran Patton Statham

Though educated in a white man's world, Laurel MacDonald, daughter of a powerful Cherokee chief, found fulfillment teaching at the mission school in New Echota, the capital of the Cherokee nation in Georgia. But her happiness was short lived. The beautiful wilderness nation was now a battleground: the Georgia militia's government-sponsored campaign to remove the Cherokee people from their land had pitted friend against friend, brother against brother, white man against Indian.
Imprisoned while awaiting their forced migration out west, families were separated. Disease and despair took their toll. Bravely, Laurel and her people faced the devastating hardship that lay ahead on the wilderness trail. Her heart torn between two men, one white and the other Cherokee, Laurel left behind more than memories. The history of the Cherokee nation, its capital, and her teaching had been woven into the very fabric of her life.
But as official interpreter of the Cherokee detachment, she would fulfill her proud heritage as a Cherokee woman by helping to forge a new nation . . .