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John Buchanan's Jackson's Way and Robert Remini's Andrew Jackson and His Indian Wars are detailed narratives describing the destruction of the place and power of Native Americans in the Old Southwest (roughly that region encompassing present-day central and west Tennessee, western Georgia, western Florida and all of Alabama and Mississippi). Chronologically, the story spans the period from the American Revolution to the Trail of Tears in 1838.

Though the books trace a common core story of Indian wars and then Indian removal, and center on the actions of Andrew Jackson, the authors emphasize different eras. Buchanan devotes more detail and discussion to the earlier part of the period, through the end of the War of 1812, while Remini offers a full treatment of the story through Jackson's presidential years. As the master, the premier biographer of Andrew Jackson, Remini brings greater focus, precision, and authority to his discussion than does Buchanan. Still, Buchanan's book is a superb work, marked by the author's formidable descriptive power and painstaking research. And Buchanan's dozens of vividly drawn vignettes make his work profoundly human in texture. The initiated and uninitiated alike will be impressed with, and instructed by, these books.

Treaty settlements, tribal customs, trailblazing pioneers, battles, wars, land speculation, international intrigue, political parties, Indian agents, duels, runaway slaves: these are among the interwoven elements of the complex history traced by Remini and Buchanan. And all these elements in turn are entangled with the personal, political, sometimes exotic story of Sharp Knife—Old Hickory—Andrew Jackson. But others too play prominent roles in the events described by Remini and Buchanan, some—like the Creek leader, Red Eagle (William Weatherford)—nearly rivaling Jackson in the authors' eyes as a man of compelling stature and significance.

Largely missing from Remini's and Buchanan's accounts are explicit references to things religious. Indeed, there is little in either book to suggest that religious attitudes, assumptions, or aspirations played any substantive part in this epic story. Remini does mention, almost in passing, the role played by missionaries in the legal struggle of the Cherokees to preserve their land in Georgia; and he describes one sympathetic Indian agent as a Christian. But while Remini and Buchanan both indicate that Indian prophets and mystics clearly were influential in shaping the Indian response to white culture and white encroachment, the religious content and context of the messages delivered by these spiritual leaders is scarcely hinted at by the authors. So too, although Remini provides copious quotations by Jackson, many of which are laced with religious language and imagery, he offers no analysis of the religious or cultural context of those biblically limed discourses. Religion is little more than a trace element when compared to the forces, factors, and personalities emphasized by the authors.

The decision of Remini and Buchanan—talented and thorough scholars—to forgo any deeper discussion or analysis of a religious nexus easily leads to the obvious, though highly questionable, conclusion that the people of the frontier, the state and national leaders of the day, the Indian chiefs and their followers, acted apart from any controlling set of religious convictions. Despite the apparent religious ambivalence of the people of the time, as portrayed in these books, the drama itself, so ably described by the authors, inevitably leads to a set of questions—if not conclusions—touching issues religious and moral.

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