'Cozzens is a master storyteller.' The Times Beginning with the invasion by Spanish Conquistadors in the sixteenth century, A Brutal Reckoning tells the story of the encroachment on Native American territory in the deep south by the US republic 150 years later, which culminated in the devastating Creek War and the rise of Andrew Jackson. It was a conflict that led to the Trail of Tears, costing the entire Creek people as well as the neighbouring Chickasaw, Choctaw and Cherokee nations their homelands - and left the way open for the conquest of the West. Wonderfully told and brilliantly detailed, this is a sweeping history of a crucial period in the destruction of America's native tribes.