Last Sister

Last Sister

A Novel

  • Author: McKinney-Whitaker, Courtney
  • Publisher: University of South Carolina Press
  • Serie: Young Palmetto Books
  • ISBN: 9781611174304
  • eISBN Pdf: 9781611174311
  • eISBN Epub: 9781611174311
  • Place of publication:  South Carolina , United States
  • Year of digital publication: 2014
  • Month: September
  • Language: English

Set during the Anglo-Cherokee War (1758–1761), The Last Sister traces a young woman's journey through grief, vengeance, guilt, and love in the unpredictable world of the early American frontier. After a band of fellow settlers fakes a Cherokee raid to conceal the murder of her family, seventeen-year-old Catriona "Catie" Blair embarks on a quest to report the crime and bring the murderers to justice, while desperately seeking to regain her own sense of safety.

This journey leads Catie across rural South Carolina and through Cherokee territory—where she encounters wild animals, physical injury, privation, British and Cherokee leaders, and an unexpected romance with a young lieutenant from a Scottish Highland regiment—on her path to a new life as she strives to overcome personal tragedy.

The Anglo-Cherokee War erupted out of tensions between British American settlers and the Cherokee peoples, who had been allies during the early years of the French and Indian War. In 1759 South Carolina governor William Henry Lyttelton declared war on the Cherokee nation partly in retaliation for what he perceived as unprovoked attacks on backcountry settlements.

Catie's story challenges many common notions about early America. It also presents the Cherokee as a sovereign and powerful nation whose alliance was important to Britain and addresses the complex issues of race, class, and ethnicity that united and divided the British, the Cherokee, the Scottish highlanders, and the Scottish lowlanders, while it incorporates issues of power that led to increased violence toward women on the early American frontier.

  • Cover
  • Contents
  • Acknowledgments
  • Part 1—The Attack
    • 1. December 21, 1759: Dawn
    • 2. December 21, 1759: Morning
    • 3. December 21, 1759: Afternoon
    • 4. December 21–22, 1759: Afternoon-Dawn
    • 5. December 22, 1759: Morning
    • 6. December 24–27, 1759
    • 7. December 28, 1759
    • 8. December 30–31, 1759
  • Part 2—The Shelter
    • 9. January 7, 1760: Afternoon
    • 10. January 7, 1760: Evening
    • 11. January 7–8, 1760: Night
    • 12. January 8, 1760: Morning
    • 13. January 1760
    • 14. February 10, 1760: Morning
    • 15. February 10, 1760: Night
    • 16. March 5, 1760: Morning
    • 17. March 6, 1760: Evening
    • 18. March 1760
    • 19. March 30-April 7, 1760
    • 20. April 13, 1760: Morning
  • Part 3—The Siege
    • 21. April 13, 1760: Noon
    • 22. April 13, 1760: Noon
    • 23. April 13, 1760: Afternoon
    • 24. April 13, 1760: Evening
    • 25. April 13, 1760: Evening
    • 26. April 13, 1760: Night
    • 27. April 14, 1760: Before Dawn
    • 28. May 11, 1760: Morning
    • 29. May 13, 1760: Morning
    • 30. May 14, 1760: Afternoon
    • 31. May 15, 1760: Morning
    • 32. May 15, 1760: Morning
    • 33. May 20, 1760: Night
    • 34. May 21, 1760: Morning
    • 35. June 3, 1760: Morning
    • 36. June 3, 1760: Morning
    • 37. June 3–7, 1760
  • Part 4—The Highlanders
    • 38. June 7, 1760: Afternoon
    • 39. June 7, 1760: Night
    • 40. June 8, 1760: Before Dawn
    • 41. June 8, 1760: Dawn
    • 42. June 8, 1760: Morning
    • 43. June 8, 1760: Afternoon
    • 44. June 14–16, 1760
    • 45. June 16, 1760: Sunset
    • 46. June 16, 1760: Dusk
    • 47. June 16, 1760: Night
    • 48. June 17, 1760: Evening
    • 49. June 18, 1760: Before Dawn
    • 50. September 21, 1760: Night
  • Epilogue
  • Author’s Note
  • Selected Sources

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