This is one of those novels that reminds me how little I know about some aspects of history.  In this case, the Oklahoma Land Rush of 1893.  A little background.  In the earliest days of the U.S., the Cherokee lived in the southeastern part of the country.  But in 1838-39, at the insistence of Andrew Jackson, all Cherokees in the southeast were ordered removed to Indian Territory—which is present day Oklahoma. They were guaranteed rights to lands and self government in the Indian Territory.  But during the Civil War, the Cherokee nation was split between the North and the South, and great internal political and social damage resulted.  Following the war,  a new treaty, the 1866 Reconstruction Treaty, became the new law.  Sections of what had been the Cherokee outlet in Oklahoma were opened up to non-Cherokee settlers.  In 1893, over 100,000 people lined up to claim lands that were once the domain of the Cherokee.  Claimants included whites and freed slaves.  

On September 16, at noon, a gunshot signaled the start of the race, as 100,000 people poured into Oklahoma, by foot, horse, and wagon to claim homesteads—160 acres—theirs as long as they built on it, farmed it, and stayed 5 years.  The land rush that day included violence, death, deception, and crime of various sorts.  And the jostling afterward to claim lands and survive on them was also fraught with danger and fraud. 

It is in this setting that we meet the protagonist, Minnie.  She is a single woman determined to do what no one believed women should be doing:  claiming their own life and their own homestead.  She is befriended by both Cherokee and Black settlers and learns true stories about history and government betrayal that she had never known. She must fight off rape attempts, posses, fire, ice storms, and tornadoes. She must bridle her independence and learn how to work with others to survive.  And she must fight her own past—her losses, her foolish decisions, and her broken relationships—that she tries so hard to escape.

This is an historical novel based on the author’s great-great grandmother.

I gave the novel a 4 instead of a 5 because I believed the author could have done a better job of placing her story in the context of both the Osage Tribe and the freed slaves who settled in Oklahoma.  The protagonist is presented as being keenly interested in this hidden history, but the author doesn’t add anything to the reader’s knowledge.  I also gave it a 4 instead of a 5 because the growth of the protagonist feels artificial as the book comes to an end.  This is a good book, worth reading—but it needed a little more to round it out.